Today I’m going to show you how to optimize your content for Google. You’ll learn how to find low-hanging fruit that you can use to rank high in the search engine.
And then I’m going to show you how to structure your content so it ranks fast.
You’ll see how to find the exact phrases that people are searching for, so you know what type of content to create for them that delivers maximum value.
And then I’m going to show you how to structure your content in the right way.
So let’s get down to it.
Table of Contents:
Keyword Tool
I’m going to go through the process with you in the video above, so for a step by step walk through just follow along with that.
The first thing that we got to use is a keyword tool – now you can use the Google Keyword Planner but it’s not as simple as it used to be.
So if you want to get the exact search volume you now have to create a campaign, it’s still free to do it’s just an extra step in the process.
For that reason I’ve actually found a better keyword tool, maybe.
You decide for yourself if its better, in the meantime let’s call it an alternative keyword tool.
I am kind of in love with this, it’s called KWFinder.
You get around 5 free searches a day, that’s more than enough to find the right keyword.
You’ll have to open up Notepad or have some way of making a list.
All set?
We use KWFinder to find out what the exact phrases people are searching for.
It sounds obvious but because we come from the marketing and content creation thing point of view, we only ever make guesses at what we think people are searching for.
The people that we want to reach might be using different words and phrases that we’re not aware of.
So we use the search tool first of all to tell us which phrases people use.
And secondly to also find keywords that have low difficulty but high search volume.
Keyword Phrases
For this example I’m going to use one that Eben Pagan uses.
This is one of those niches that combinations niches.
Eben likes to use ‘lose weight for a wedding’.
This works great because we take the weight loss industry and then the wedding industry and we combine them together to create an overlap.
For the purpose of this post I’m going to assume that you’re a personal trainer and you want to help brides fit into a wedding dress.
So in a keyword tool, I would type something like ‘lose weight wedding’, and then find relevant keywords.
That way you’ll get lots of ideas.
Search Volume
Use the keyword too to find easy to rank phrases, that have a relatively high search volume.
But remember, the niche that you’re in will determine what kind of search volume you receive.
Some niches will have a very low search volume in comparison to other niches which might receive higher search volumes.
But don’t let that deter you – every niche is profitable.
It’s not really about the search volume, it’s about the value that you can deliver – it’s about the problem that you can solve and the urgency of the people who need that solution.
Just make it as easy as possible.
In our example we’re going to target ‘lose weight before wedding’ related phrases, so you make a list of that and other related keywords.
BuzzSumo
Once you’ve got around 4 o5 key phrases to start, the next thing that we would do is take the one that receives the highest search volume and use BuzzSumo to examine what type of content is being shared.
Go through each of the articles it gives you to find out what kind of content is popular.
Then you’ll know what type of content to create. You’ll know if it should be how-to guides, interviews or listicles, etc.
We do this to make sure that the content we create is going to be share-worthy.
Add the URLs of the most popular pages to your list so you can go back and examine it when you need to.
Incognito Mode
Now we need to go to Chrome and use Incognito mode.
We do that because we’re going to search in Google – but we don’t want Google to reference any of the content that we may have previously seen.
When we normally use Google we always end up in a little bubble.
Google presents us with a personalized version of the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) which we ought to avoid this time.
We want to see the SERPs other people see them.
So while in Incognito mode to Google.com and search for your main keyword.
Autofill Suggestions
Notice that you will have the search bar make autofill suggestions.
We want to take note of a few of the top suggestions because this will give us content ideas for later.
Go ahead and search for your main key phrase and take a look through the SERPs.
While you do that notice that we have some of your key phrases in bold.
LSI
We should also see some words in bold that are not included in the phrase.
Take note of those, they are important.
In the example, Google sees ‘wedding’ and ‘bridal’ as almost interchangeable.
This is called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).
LSI was created to combat keyword stuffing.
Google creates a degree of relevancy between phrases, so in this instance it’s looking at ‘wedding’ and ‘bridal’ as being relevant to each other, or at the very least being in the same category.
Sometimes it screws up and it gives us weird results, but in this instance it’s got things spot on and it knows exactly what we’re looking for.
Use LSI to find other keywords to add to your content.
Also take a good look at the Related Searches at the bottom of the SERPs page.
In my example I saw lots of additional search phrases related to weddings and weight loss.
For your key phrases you’ll want to take all of the ones that are relevant and add them to your list.
You can use these for future blog post ideas or you can find ways to put them into your current blog post.
Keyword Density Check
One more step that I like to take is to check the density of keywords on the top pages in the SERPs.
Keyword density is debatable, like most aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
In my example I take the link address from the top few pages and paste them into this keyword density checker.
There are plenty of other checkers online for free and they will tell us how many times a key phrase has been mentioned in any article.
This will tell you roughly how many times to include the keyword, in comparison to the other words in the page.
Deliver Value First
Now listen don’t get too hung up on the numbers.
I know it’s tempting to create a system or a formula for everything but it doesn’t really work like that.
There are well over 200 signals that Google uses to determine the position of a piece of content in the SERPs.
So don’t get too hung up on things like search volume, keyword density, LSI or any of the other host of things that we could be focusing on.
Really, our focus should be on serving the community that were involved with and delivering value to the niche that were in.
If we make that the priority we’ll naturally create content that absolutely delivers value to the people who will consume it.
The Structure
So now we have an idea of the keywords that we’re going to use, and we have an idea of what type of content to create, we can just go ahead and start work on the blog post.
Take the keyword with the highest search volume from your list and add that to your title.
Do spend the time to think about this because it’s the first thing that people will see.
If you can, write something with a real emotional hook in there.
Once you’ve chosen a title you can now structure the rest of your blog post.
Take a few of your other keywords and phrases then paste them in.
The H1 Tag
If you’re using WordPress then your title is going to be a H1 tag by default, and that’s exactly what we need it to be.
This is going to tell Google that of all the key phrases on your page this is the most important one.
Then you turn all the other keywords or phrases on the post into a H2, which tells Google these are the second most important words on the page.
This is exactly how I structure all my posts.
The very first paragraph should be the introduction.
Sometimes I will start with a story.
Before and after storylines are a great way to pull people into the content.
The H2 Tag
Then for every H2 section I would add 3 main points, with a paragraph for every point.
Typically, the first section, after the introduction, would be used to explain the benefits of your content.
The next section would be the ‘how-to’ part of the post. That’s where you teach your audience how to do something, or give them recommendations.
The final section might include why it’s important for them to take action.
Maybe a little bit of fear would be a good motivator. Explain why not doing what you propose could be a bad thing.
And then before you know it you will have a fairly comprehensive article done and dusted that you can submit to Google.
Submit to Google
To submit it to Google we can go to the Search Console and choose ‘Fetch as Google’.
You just put in the URL of your blog post there and that’s it, all done.
Make a Web
One bonus tip that would give you is if you are creating a lot of content you might want to link to it, from inside your other blog posts that are relevant to that topic.
If you link all of your relevant articles together you’ll create a web, or a network of content for Google to spider.
And good links are like food to search spiders.
So there you have it, I hope you found this useful and I hope you use it to rank your content higher in the SERPs.
Before you go, this stuff can have a positive impact on people’s lives when they do it right, so for that reason pay this forward and share it with the people who need to know about it.
They’ll probably be very thankful that you have and it also helps me out in a massive way too .