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SEO Content: Beginner’s Guide

What Is SEO Content?
SEO content is online content designed to rank in search engines (like Google). Also, content written for SEO is typically optimized around a specific keyword.

And when it comes to search engine optimization, make no mistake:

Content is KEY.

In fact, HubSpot reports that businesses that regularly publish blog posts get 350% more traffic than those that don’t publish content on a regular basis.
On-page SEO strategies
Likely, most of your SEO efforts will be on-page. Not just because it’s the easiest to control, but because it has a major effect on off-page SEO, too.

A website that excels in on-page SEO will build more authority, trust, and expertise off-page. Here are the most effective ways to do it:

Execute a content marketing strategy
Everything you can read, watch, and listen to is content. Blog posts are content and so are videos and podcasts. When Google crawls and indexes your pages, it’s crawling and indexing content. Without content, you can’t rank.

The best thing your content can do is give the searcher what they want. It should also be engaging, informational, and original. And to satisfy one of Google’s biggest ranking factors — expertise — it should be related to the content you create on a regular basis. Here’s why:

When you create content around specific, related topics, you communicate to Google that you have a focus — expertise in a particular area.

For example: If you’re an SEO marketing agency, your content should be about SEO, business, marketing, agencies, teams, and related topics. If for some strange reason you were to write an article about the best SUV models for 2020, it wouldn’t gain traction from Google because the search engine knows that your expertise is in SEO. It would also make Google think twice about whether you’re an expert in SEO topics.

Sticking to related areas of content can prove to Google over time that you’re an expert in a certain subject matter. Here are a few SEO-related strategies to consider when you’re creating content:

Satisfy search intent
Intent refers to the goal of the searcher. When they enter a search query in Google, what do they want to learn? How do they want to learn it? This includes:

Content type: navigational, informational, transactional
Content format: video, blog post, guide, product page, infographic, etc.
Content angle: “How To,” listicle, report, recipe, checklist, etc.
Intent has always been important to satisfy, but in 2020 it is more important than ever.

Today we’re seeing less authoritative web pages focused on intent outrank more authoritative ones focused on keyword optimization.

This indicates that, in some cases, intent can actually trump other major ranking factors like authority, expertise, and trustworthiness. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you want to optimize content for the term High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).

You write a comprehensive, keyword-rich piece of content called “The Ultimate Guide to High-Intensity Interval Training.”

For queries related to the broad search term “High-Intensity Interval Training,” that should rank very well, right? It’s logical to think that people searching “High-Intensity Interval Training” want to know all about HIIT.

Not true…

And you can tell from the search results.

On page one for that search query, you’ll notice that there’s only ONE “Ultimate” guide on the SERP.

A Google search results page for “high intensity interval training.”

The rest are far more specific…

How to…
The benefits of…
HIIT for runners…
How could this be for such a broad search like “High-Intensity Interval Training”?

Google has the benefit of knowing exactly how people use its search engine. It can see that when people search “High-Intensity Interval Training,” they don’t find exactly what they’re looking for on the SERP. So, instead of clicking on a search result, users go back to the search bar and type in something more specific, like…

How to do high-intensity interval training
The benefits of high-intensity interval training
High-intensity interval training for runners
Therefore, Google knows that when people search “High-Intensity Interval Training,” they don’t actually want a long, comprehensive guide on the topic. What they want are more specific answers, like how to do HIIT workouts, HIIT for runners, and HIIT benefits (and Google uses human evaluators to confirm these results).

So, if your goal is to sell a HIIT workout program, traditional SEO knowledge would tell you that optimizing for a broad query like “High-Intensity Interval Training” is a good idea. And that ranking for it would require broad, high-level content, like a comprehensive guide or overview.

But, when people search “High-Intensity Interval Training,” do they really want to know all about HIIT? Or do they want something more specific, like HIIT workouts, HIIT for runners, and HIIT benefits?

Unlike Google, you don’t have the benefit of knowing exactly how searchers behave. What you do have, though, is the SERP.

When you search the term you want to optimize for, are you seeing that same broad term on the SERP? Or are you seeing more specific terms in their place? When users search “Content Marketing,” do they want a comprehensive guide to content marketing? Do they want a simple definition? Do they want to know about content marketing conferences around the world?

Looking at the SERP will help you uncover the true intent of the searcher when they search a term. And it may not be what you think it is.

Do extensive keyword research
Of course, just because SEO is more about intent than ever before doesn’t mean you can skimp on keyword research. It means that before you do extensive keyword research, you have to make sure you’re optimizing for the right search term to satisfy user intent.

Once you’ve figured out what your audience is actually looking for (Benefits of HIIT instead of the Ultimate Guide to HIIT, for example), your keyword research should reflect that topic.

Search your term like a user would and see what the top 10 results are saying. Pay attention to their headings, their title, their URL structure. Which longtail and short-tail keywords are they using? How are they using them and where are they located in the article?

Look at related searches at the bottom of the SERP, autocomplete variations, and the SERP section “People also ask…” for more ideas.

“People also ask” module on Google SERP for “high intensity interval training.”

There are plenty of free keyword tools you can use to figure this out. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Reverse engineer your content. Find out what the best results are doing right, what they’re doing wrong, and make your content better.

Optimize internal links
Internal linking is the practice of linking pages on your website to other pages on your website. You’ll see this most often on blogs.

For example, if I’m writing a blog post on e-commerce SEO and I want to offer the reader the option to learn more about search engine optimization in general, I would create a link to this guide in the content. There are a few ways I can do this.

Below, pretend the underlined text is a hyperlink to this SEO guide from a blog post on e-commerce SEO.

Example 1: E-commerce SEO is a type of search engine optimization. Click here to learn everything about SEO in The Beginner’s Guide to SEO in 2021.
Example 2: E-commerce SEO is a type of search engine optimization. To learn more about SEO, read The Beginner’s Guide to SEO in 2021.
Example 3: E-commerce SEO is a type of search engine optimization.
In each of these examples, the hyperlinked text is what’s known as “anchor text.” Anchor text is important for SEO because it tells search engine crawlers what a linked page is about. The best anchor text is short, descriptive, and natural.

The first example is what you shouldn’t do with anchor text. This is generic and unnatural and it interrupts the user experience.

Example two, however, can work. This is known as “exact match” anchor text. It describes the linked page in the most specific way, matching its URL exactly. This can be valuable for crawlers, but if used too often, can look like you’re trying to cheat your way to higher rankings.

Example three is what you’ll encounter most often. This is known as partial match anchor text. It sums up the linked page in words that are closely related to its content without matching the title exactly. This method is the most natural, and the least likely to interrupt the user experience.

But the value of internal links extends far beyond their anchor text. Internal linking is a major part of creating an effective site architecture.

Internal links not only allow visitors to explore related concepts, but they allow crawlers to easily access other pages for indexing. Look at a site like Wikipedia. You’ll see extensive internal linking on every page.
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