On a scale of 1 to 10 with one being the lowest and 10 being the highest, would you give your white hat SEO activities a high score? Many webmasters struggle to execute a strong white hat SEO strategy that delivers them web traffic leads and rankings. The thing is, many people that do SEO jump straight into the promotional side without developing the content foundations that will allow the website to gain links and exposure. If you want to get a Real ROI from search, then it is important that you commit to building a successful SEO campaign with the right content strategy. Your web content must appeal to a target audience that will find it valuable and will compel them to engage with the content. The white hat SEO experts from Online Marketing Gurus share the following tips for building a successful SEO campaign by leveraging strong content ideas.
Look for keyword ideas by using Google’s suggestions.
How to do Keyword Research the Smart Way: Targeting Interest and Intent
A great way to get ideas is from the suggestions that Google provide for web users. These queries are often generated from other related search queries that people type into Google’s search box. Simply start typing the keyword into the search box and make a list of the search queries that have been provided. There are tools like Keywordtool.io. You can also create ‘Wildcard’ suggestions by typing in the * to the question. “For example, how to * bathroom”.
Look for frequently asked questions on discussion forums.
Mining User Generated Content (Social Media and Social Computing)
Discussion threads are a great way to find topics that engage web communities. You can do a search for forums that cover your industry keywords and assess the level of engagement by the views and replies on a topic thread. The higher the engagement, the more likely the community is to engage with the content topic. Once the content is published, you can even publish your content on those same video platforms to earn your initial web traffic.
Look for popular videos on YouTube that are outdated.
Content Sharing: How to Build a Following Using Other People’s Content
YouTube has over a billion keyword searches per day for video content. You can easily find content that has attracted a lot of views, but is outdated or needs refreshing. Simply type in a keyword for a content topic and filter the videos by most viewed. You can watch the video and transcribe the main points to use as content in another format like articles, podcasts or infographics.
Social Media Trends
3 Cool New Keyword Tools for Generating Content Ideas
You can see rising trends happening on social media platforms. Monitor hashtags on Twitter or trending topics on Facebook to find content that people are actively engaging with. You can even search for repinned topics on Pinterest and shared topics on Tumblr and Google Plus.
Reverse engineer the successful methods of other websites.
The Ultimate Guide to Repurposing Content: 12 Ways to Extend the Life of Every Article You Write
Rather than trying to recreate the wheel, you can find out how other successful content providers were able to generate web traffic with the content that they created. You can use tools like Majestic or Ahefs to assess the pieces of content that successfully brought traffic and engagement to their website. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo to find web content that gained social engagement and link activity.
Find content gaps.
How to Use the New Google AdWords Keyword Planner
You can find content gaps by using Google’s Keyword Planner tool or SEMRush. Identify the content that you have on your website and see if there are any keyword topics that aren’t being covered.
Your SEO campaign will gain more momentum if your site publishes valuable content in keyword niches that will bring traffic to your site. There are several untapped niches that can be leveraged. It is up to you to identify those opportunities and to publish content that will compel people to share and engage with it.
