In most cases, the largest amount of time that is spent on SEO revolves around content. Everything from writing all of the pages of your website, to the extra content, guides, blogs, etc. takes time and effort. Your content represents you and your brand while at the same time needs to speak to the search engines to get the right people to your page. Although we don’t like to share all of our methods, we do believe in SEO education. To ensure you are producing content that will convert and represent you in the right way, follow Firestarter’s best practices for content. 
Content Strategy
We have already discussed how content production can be the biggest time-suck when it comes to your website and SEO efforts, so it would make sense that your strategy needs to be in place before anything else happens. Here is what you should know before developing your content strategy.
- Audience – Who are you producing the content for? If you are an electrician, it would make sense that you would be producing the content for homeowners. Knowing that you can assume that most homeowners know little to nothing about your trade. Simplify the content and make it easier to understand.
- User Intent – What is the intent of the audience that will be coming to your site? Are they there to purchase goods and services or are they there to be educated and sign up for classes or a newsletter? Whatever the intent is, make sure that is clear before producing any content.
- User Experience – What journey are you trying to take your user’s on? Are you trying to capture their attention immediately for a sale “down the road” or are you trying to capture their attention right away for them to reach out right away? If you are trying to get them to only 2-3 pages before getting them to contact you it would make sense to make sure the path to that contact is simple and clear. If you want to take them on a journey, leave “breadcrumbs” for them to find along the way. This can drastically change how you present your content.
Types of Content
You should be using different types of content for different objectives when it comes to your website. Some content should be directed more towards your users and some should be helping boost your SEO efforts.
- On-Page Content – This type of content is on all of your pages and should be developed to talk to your audience. Make it informative and engaging. This where you really shouldn’t short change your efforts. We will talk more about keyword placement later to speak to the search engines.
- Supplemental Content – This type of content would consist of your blogs, guides, etc. It should be used for two purposes in mind, be a resource for your users, and show the search engines that you have content supporting the main pages on your website.
Keyword Placement
What good would it do for you to produce all of the well thought out content and not let people find it? Keyword placement should be strategic to speak to the search engine’s but appear natural to your readers. There are many valuable tools to help you with this, Firestarter likes Yoast the best. Since Yoast only works with WordPress sites, the Moz page grader is another good tool that you can use on any website platform. Gone are the days where you could place the keyword you are trying to rank for on your pages as many times as possible.
Too many business owners fall into the trap of old and outdated strategies when it comes to their content production. One thing to always keep in mind is, good and valuable content will never be outdated. Follow Firestarter’s best practices for content to make sure your content is valuable to your user and helps the search engines get them there. If you want to know more, contact us today!
