SEO content strategy is talked about today at nauseating levels. The bad news is that this is not going away any time soon. The good news is that it does not have to be complicated. We built a simple reminder infographic to keep you on track and focused on #realcompanystuff as @mikeking would say.
A more detailed breakdown of each section is below.
Quality Content
This seems like and obvious statement in the world of bloggers. Of course I’m going to write something good to put on my blog. The header for this section doesn’t say good though…or current…or fun.
It says quality.
If there is one thing that is required for quality in anything, that is research. The amount of time spent creating the blog vs doing brainstorming and research has reached an all time low. There is a great article today on Search Engine Watch by Nathan Safran talking about this.
Take the time to get to know your business or your clients business. Get familiar with the types of customers that are a good fit for you. Breakdown those demographics into specific audiences you can write for. Then go find out what each specific audience is asking about.
Start with the end in mind. Work backwards. Find the group then write for them.
Here is a great webinar about breaking down your customers into targeted segments. (Warning* Start about 23:00 in if you aren’t interested in link-building)
Smart Outreach
Outreach is an often over-looked subject. Lots is written about good ways to come up with content ideas, and build links, and participate on social networks, but good ‘ol PR is often overlooked online.
There are several very successful bloggers that spend a lot more time promoting their blogs then writing them. This means they spend a lot of time researching the blog, a little bit of time creating the post, then the most time promoting it.
Derrick Halpern is a great example of this. Here is a recent blog talking about Why Bloggers Fail.
Let’s say you own an ice cream shop in Dallas, Texas. When you start this ice cream store, it’s safe to say that a good amount of time is spent finding out what flavors of ice cream are the most popular in the south. Then someone makes all the different flavors to serve at your new store. Some time will be spent trying new combos and flavors, but the rest of the time will be spent promoting the store.
The budget will be focused on advertising and marketing. Public events will be scheduled to share the ice cream. Private parties will be held to try the ice cream. Birthday parties and post baseball game trips will be promoted throughout Dallas.
So why don’t we take the same stance with our blogs?
Analytics
Once you’ve spent time promoting the heck out of your blog post, it’s time to see what worked best. There are many great tools out there to measure social and blog stats, but I prefer a simple Google Analytics report to start.
Get down to the basics and pull up a landing page report about one of your blogs. Find out which keywords people used to find your blog.
Take a look at a referral report and find out where you have the strongest brand ambassadors. Is your best audience on Facebook or Twitter, or maybe an industry blog?
Once you know how people find you and where they hang out, pull out your shiny social monitoring tool to figure out your engagement factor, and what types of content work best for your industry. Now you have the ammo you need to go out and write something new.
Go to the best places to promote your content more heavily. No stumbling in the dark.
Try a reboot this week. Start at the beginning of your process and create things people want to share.
