Coming up with content ideas that really help with SEO

When it comes to SEO, are you the mistake of thinking it’s all about pumping as much content out as possible?

It’s correct that regularly publishing fresh content is part of the SEO game.

Search engines are constantly seeking out new content to index.

By adding it to your site regularly, you’re giving the search engine a reason to find it. The more content that is indexed from your site, the better quality it may appear to be. This therefore, can help it to improve your domain authority, and subsequently, its position in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Why then, is your website still way down the ranks when you are writing lots of new content?

The error that you may be making is that it’s all at random. You may also be targeting the high-volume keywords that everyone is trying to compete on.

So how do you create content to help with SEO more effectively?

The first step in writing good quality content that can support your SEO strategy is about focus.

Sit down and plan out:

1. Audience. Who are you aiming this content at?
2. Need. What are they interested in, or what is their need?
3. Questions. How can your product or service address their need?

Once you have a clear idea about this, the next step is to make a list of less competitive topics they might respond to.

Tips for working out long tail keyword topics

For example, if your audience is parents of newborns, don’t simply write articles about generic parenting that may not be relevant to them. Break it down into needs that they may have right now e.g. sleeping, feeding, baby equipment etc.

The next job is to work out a list of long tail keywords around these articles.

I’ll work through the following points using parenting examples, as that’s who I tend to work most with.

List your broad keywords or topic areas. Make sure that these are related to your industry, products, or services. For instance, baby sleeping, breastfeeding, colic etc.

Think about what your audience is looking for in relation to these topics. Don’t just stick to the obvious competitive keywords, such as pushchairs or sleeping. Think around the topic and include phrases that your audience may search for. For example, e.g. what pushchair folds the smallest, or why do newborns cry at night? Remember, the content that you are producing should help them in some way.

Keep it relevant. Relevance in content is the key to SEO. Therefore, if your content isn’t relevant to what the reader is searching for or the keyword you’re targeting, it won’t rank in the results.

Research keywords tools to find out how competitive search terms are. You can find a number of tools online with a little search.  Use the Answer the Public tool to help with questions that your audience may be asking. Also use Twitter to search hashtags around a topic to see what people are posting.

Write evergreen content

Once you’ve done this homework, you can start to write your evergreen content.

Evergreen content is not related to a specific timeframe. It’s not campaign content, news articles, or linked to a trend where interest will diminish over time.

Instead, this kind of content can remain relevant in the longer term.

The idea of evergreen content is to prove your expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness on a subject.

That’s how you can ensure that your content is working harder for your SEO campaign.