How many times have you heard the phrase “content is king”? Everyone from SEO practitioners to web users understand the importance of content, but what about the creation of it? Content creation is still, and may always be, one of the trickiest processes of on-page user experience to master. Conquering the content monster with the correct tone and voice will never be easy, but these two strategies can help you stay on track with your next update.
Use the writing process
The approach to keyword-focused writing should not start once copy has been written. We have all seen examples of writing where keywords have been haphazardly added to content – this usually ends in degradation of the original writing and can also be flagged by Google as keyword stuffing.
It’s much easier to write organically when focusing on three to five LSI keywords and mentioning them throughout the content. Focus keywords should end up being somewhere between 2-4% of the total word count of a content piece. Keywords outside your top five should be seen as trail markers, scattered throughout the content to clue search engine crawlers into the overarching niche of the content. Writing in this way creates a cloud of terms and topics that search engine crawlers view as organic and point back to your focus keywords.
Set up a content calendar
Creating ongoing content is a fairly broad goal, and it's always more time consuming than it sounds. That being said, hard checkpoints can really help guarantee your content creation is always on track. Setting up a content matrix can illuminate deadlines – having all content planning in one place gives insights into the high value points that may not be extolled within your current plan. Linking content updates to short-term and long-term business goals becomes simple and transparent this way. Content matrices also allow easy coordination between seasonal or event topics and themes so that updates can be curated in advance.
Timing is everything when it comes to content releases. The end goal is making content creation more of a procedural task and less of an educated guess. This process of choreographing future posts and updates will mean consistent, high quality content posted in prescheduled intervals.
Incorporating the above techniques into your content strategy will give you a simple, trackable way of assuring the creation of quality, relevant content. Writing topic-focused content supported by strategic keyword usage not only fills your web page with copy, it brings search engine visibility to your targeted keywords. Being mindful of your focus keywords and their related topic clusters will point authority point towards what your user needs to know.