Everyone says ‘content is king’ but no one really mentions that unless you’re following basic SEO principles your content is probably not going to rank, never mind it becoming royalty. So, here we’re giving you a crash course on the high level principles, combined with some very specific tactics, that can help your content actually make it out into the great, wide world.
Brainstorming themes for your content
The first step in creating content is to figure out what high level themes you are going to cover. This can be a product, category or idea. Most importantly, don’t let the research you do below completely determine what you’re going to write. It needs to be a topic and theme that your audience is interested in and which can be used to create compelling content.
Choosing a theme
Before you research keywords and all the rest consider ideas and themes that will fit the criteria below.
Answer questions that someone would type into a search engine
- How do I create a Christmas party invitation?
- Ideas for Christmas party invitations
Focus on consumer intent
- Potential consumer who is at any step in the purchase funnelLooking for ideas or inspiration
- Trying to find the best price
- Searching for the simplest solution
Validating your theme
Once you’ve decided on a theme, validate that the topic has enough search volume to make creating the content worthwhile
Research your theme to find out what related ideas or themes have the most search volume. Use the tools below to enter your theme and then see a list of related topics. Sort these based on Volume to see which are the most commonly searched (viewing competition can also be helpful in determining if you think you can write content that is more appropriate and can rank above existing pages out there)
- KWfinder
- SERPs
- Moz keyword suggestions (find variations related to your theme or product)
- AdWords Keyword Planner (search for new keywords)
Translating your theme into a Keyword with SEO value
Pare down the results to a single primary theme for your content. This will be the keyword used for your URL, title and other attributes. Hubspot Topic Generator can help with ideas when you’ve settled on a theme.
Find 3-5 additional variations of that theme which also have high search volumes that can naturally be incorporated into the content. You’ll want to vary the way that the theme is used so that it fits into your content. It does not need to always be written as the keyword itself. (i.e. for Christmas invitations incorporate Christmas invitations, Christmas party invitations, invitations for Christmas parties)
You may also be interested in 6 SEO Tips for Creating Content.