THE ART TO THESTART OF:CONTENT optimisation

Hello!I am Grant Merriel

- SEO for 8+ Years- Have had thousands of pieces of content written- Had clients ranking on the first page with only content updates- Run and operate multiple businesses

TALKWhy are you listening to me

1.EASY TO FIND CONTENT IDEAS & OPTIMISATION

RELEVANCE

2.INCREASE RANKINGS

Main Keywords & Long Tail Keywords

3.BETTER

ENGAGEMENT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

4.LEARN FROM THE

EXPERTS

INPUTLets get to know each other

“We are going to pull back the curtain on our

internal processesaround SEO Content”*We do not do this for low competition

keywords or blog posts

HARDESTWhy is SEO Content Optimisation so Hard?

41%of content marketers say they are generating return on investment from their contenthttp://www.stateofinbound.com/

ONLY

Content IsNOTSexy

NOBODYTalks about

It!

Content issignificantlyUndervalued

51%Of people found the #1 Content Challenge to be:“Lack of Time / Bandwidth to create content”http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-report-40688285

DON’T WORRY!You won’t need to master these concets or what they mean or the concepts behind them (yet) … as I will show you how to find the solution to all of these issues in just a few easy steps

CompetitorBenchmarkingStealing what your competitors have done

Semantic PhrasesCrafting phrases for better interpretation

Entity SaliencePeople, places, associations, etc that are guilty by association

On-Page LinksMastering internal and external links from you content

SynonymsSubstitute, replacement, alternative, stand-in content

Value AddTactics and concepts that deserve honourable mentions

COMPETITORStealing what your competitors have done

We can understand a lot about what impacts our keywords rankings by getting data from our competitors

No competitive advantage following everyone else but serious issues if the basics are missed

WHY?Google have already shown us what pages and websites they find most relevant (we just need to find the reasons)

77%Of marketers will increase content production in the next 12 monthshttp://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-report-40688285

77%

23%

INCREASE CONTENT PRODUCTION

YES NO

HOW TO –Analysing Text1. http://textalyser.net/2. Put in your competitors URL's (that

are already ranking)3. Benchmark keyword density against

the top 104. Benchmark content length against

the top 105. ALWAYS sit at the lower end of the

'density' within the rankings

HOW TO –Structure1. http://www.browseo.net/2. Open your competitors URL's (that are

already ranking)3. Review the heading text4. Review image alt tags5. Review amount of images6. Review content structure

IDEAIf data is inconclusive,

expand your search to websites also ranking

for closely related keywords

ON-PAGEMastering internal and external links from you content

× EXTERNAL: Further reading and authorities

× INTERNAL: Promoting our pages for keyword targeting

Business owners hate the thought of loosing traffic by linking out to other sites or navigating visitors to pages that do not produce money -so, we can build our authority from this

WHY?Expresses depth of knowledge and associates your content with authoritative networks

67%of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year agohttp://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-resources/research/3141-2015-content-preferences-survey-buyers-value-content-packages-interactive-content-.html

Place your screenshot here

HOW TO –Books/Author1. http://www.amazon.com/2. Filter by amount of 'Reviews’3. Use books in informational categories4. Select only paperback / hard cover

(no Kindle)5. Find books with ‘Look inside’ option6. Reference Quotes / Authors / Books /

etc7. NOTE: Can also use Google Books, if

needed

HOW TO –Industry Expert1. http://www.google.com/2. Search Operator:

[keyword] + inurl:blog3. Ignore all ranking competitors4. Reference highly valuable blogs

HOW TO –Research PAPER1. https://en.wikipedia.org/2. Search your keyword / search term3. Scroll to references section4. Find any research papers,

government funded research, etc5. NOTE: If you cannot find, look on other

relative wikipedia pages

HOW TO –Authorities1. http://www.google.com/2. Search Operator: [keyword] + site:.gov3. Search Operator: [keyword] + site:.org4. Search Operator: [keyword] + site:.edu5. Ignore all ranking competitors6. Reference highly valuable blogs

NOTEWe typically have 7 links in our content:• 3 Internal Links• 4 External Links

IDEAAlways try to reference

location / country relative websites

IDEADo not only link out to the same pages. Use synonyms, semantic

phrases, entities, etc to expand your search

SEMANTICCrafting phrases for better interpretation

Search engines look into the real meaning of words within a search, when they are placed together

Example Search: REDSKIN× American Indian× Football Team× Sunburn× Lollies

SEO’s using their OWN experience and interpretation of a keyword to create Semantic Phrases, instead of data backed research

WHY?If search engines misinterpret the real meaning of the your keywords, you will never rank to the website and contents full potential

Search engines look into the real meaning of words within a search, when they are placed together

Example Search: REDSKIN× American Indian× Football Team× Sunburn× Lollies

HOW TO –LSI Research1. Latent semantic index (finding

relationships between terms)2. http://lsigraph.com/3. or http://semantic-link.com/4. Enter your keyword / phrase5. List words and phrases that

consistently appear6. NOTE: Focus on phrases that support

your keywords

HOW TO –WikipEdia1. https://en.wikipedia.org/2. Search your keyword / phrase3. Open the keyword4. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the

“Related Links box”5. NOTE: If these do not appear, look at

'pages linking to this page to help

HOW TO –Keyword Plan1. https://adwords.google.com/Keyword

Planner2. Select “Search for new keywords”3. Input and search your keyword /

phrases4. Look for keywords that can be

interpreted the same as your keyword

IDEAWant to get serious

about Semantic Phrases?

http://searchwilderness.com/semantic-keyword-

research/

WORDSubstitute, replacement, alternative, stand-in content

Synonyms are words that can be used to replace other words without loosing the original meaning

EXAMPLE: CHICKEN COOP× Chook house× Chicken pen× Chicken tractor× Chook enclosure

No searcher references to the same product the same way

WHY?The English language has the most ‘Synonyms’ out of any language

70%Of all searches use Synonyms, as outlined by Googlehttp://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/helping-computers-understand-language.html

HOW TO –Wikipedia1. https://en.wikipedia.org/2. Search your keyword / phrase3. Open the keyword page4. In sidebar, under 'tools', click 'What

links here'5. Hide 'transclusions'6. Hide 'links'7. All that is left are 'redirects’8. NOTE: Sometimes "External

tools: Show redirects only" works

HOW TO –Thesaurus1. http://thesaurus.com/ 2. http://www.visualthesaurus.com/3. Enter each word of the keyword / key

phrase separately4. Find synonyms and merge them into

phrases

IDEAFor specific phrases

WolframAlpha can also be used to assist

further

ENTITYWords that are guilty by association

Extracting different ‘entities’ within content to weigh the relevance to a topic (keyword)

EXAMPLE: OBAMAChookhouse× Republican Party× FEMA× Boehner

SEO’s typically only look at the information relevant to the targeted keywords – not highly relevant people, places, agencies, reports, associations, etc

WHY?This was what Search Engines implemented to improve on the original form of relevancy scoring (keyword base relevancy)

MOST IMPORTANT!Top SEO’s consistently refer to this as the most important patents Google ever released relating to content writinghttp://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/42235.pdf

HOW TO –Wikimindmap1. http://www.wikimindmap.org/2. Enter the keyword / phrase3. Expand out all key areas4. Look for relevant entities / people /

associations5. NOTE: Use synonyms to find more

Entities

HOW TO –Wikipedia1. https://en.wikipedia.org/2. Search your keyword / phrase3. Open the keyword page4. Click the 'pages that link to this page'

in the left side bar5. Only view people, agencies, reports,

associations, etc that are relative entities

6. NOTE: Use synonyms to further expand your research

IDEALook through Youtube

and competitor websites to find other

entities that they reference in their

content

ADDINGTactics that deserve honourable mentions

1.ADD VALUE BY

BEING INFORMATIVE

2.SEARCHES INTENT

× Products: Price, compare, for sale, etc× Service: Expert, experience, quote

3.UNIQUE,

INTERACTIVE & RELEVANT IMAGES

4.SAVE RESEARCH:

LINK BUILDING & BLOG POSTS

THANKS!You can find me at:@grantmerrielgrant@businessprocess.com

Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:× Presentation template by SlidesCarnival× Photographs by Startupstockphotos