Keywords always matter. Connecting your audience with something they can use or get useful information from is a driving factor for good SEO. However, sometimes more than keywords is needed. That's when you need a solid content strategy for SEO to ensure excellent results.

What Is A Content Strategy For SEO?

A content strategy for SEO is any plan for creating and distributing valuable and relevant content optimized for search engines.

A good SEO content strategy involves identifying your target audience, understanding their needs and interests, and creating content that addresses them. Plus, it's optimized for the target keywords.

An SEO content strategy should include a plan for promoting the content through various channels.

Include social media and email marketing to increase visibility and drive traffic to the website. And remember to add hashtags to your Instagram posts!

A content strategy for SEO should include ongoing monitoring and analysis of the performance of the content to make adjustments as needed to improve search engine rankings. That's right. Just because the content is online doesn't mean you can rest on your laurels. 

In fact, publishing content is just the beginning of your SEO journey.

Understanding The Industry

The industry in which a business operates plays a significant role in developing an SEO strategy.

Understanding the industry and the specific niche can help identify the most relevant keywords and phrases to target. It also helps identify the most effective tactics for optimization.

Keyword Research

Identifying the most relevant and high-volume keywords and phrases specific to the industry can inform content creation and optimization efforts.

Competitor Analysis

Examining the SEO strategies of other businesses in the same industry can provide insight into what tactics are most effective. It can also tip you off what market gaps may be exploitable.

Is there a potential long-tail keyword yet to be used? Try it out!

Industry-specific Ranking Factors

Different industries may have other ranking factors that are important for SEO.

For example, a food industry business might emphasize local SEO and online reviews more. On the other hand, a company in the technology industry might focus more on backlinks.

Seasonality may play a part, too. For example, a private gym in Irvine may see more clients around the New Year.

As such, content about New Year's fitness goals may be relevant.

Industry-specific Tools

Some industries may have specific tools or platforms necessary for SEO, such as Google My Business for local businesses or Amazon for e-commerce.

SEO strategies are unique for different industries, so it is vital to consider the industry when developing an SEO strategy.

No SEO strategy is the same. As such, you need to be adaptable to see what works and doesn't.

Write For Humans, Not Google

Writing content for humans rather than for search engines is important for SEO because search engines use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of a website's content.

These algorithms are designed to mimic human behavior and understanding and therefore prioritize content that is well-written, informative, and easy to read for human users.

When people write content for search engines, they sometimes stuff keywords, making it difficult for human readers to understand and engage with.

This chaotic and unorganized content can lead to a high bounce rate, where users quickly leave the site, which is a negative signal to search engines.

Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to improve the quality of the search results they deliver. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated in understanding the intent and context of queries. Writing relevant and valuable content to human readers will become more critical to rank in search results.

Writing content for humans is important for SEO because it signals to search engines that your website is providing valuable, relevant, and high-quality content. When Google senses this, it will lead to better visibility in search results, increased traffic, and improved user engagement.

Optimize Your Alt Text

To optimize alt text for SEO, ensure that the text accurately describes the image and includes relevant keywords for the page.

Keep the alt text concise and avoid stuffing it with too many keywords.

Make sure you properly format the alt text and that it matches the surrounding content. If there's a picture of a photographer, don't put alt text describing something entirely different to include your primary keyword.

It's also important to use alt text for all images on the website, including infographics, as search engines use this text to understand the context of the photos.

Alt text is a crucial accessibility feature that you can make better by being accurate and concise in your description.

How To Check Alt Text

Want to make sure you made your alt text SEO-friendly?

To check the alt text of an image on a web page, you can do the following:

1. Right-click on the image and select "Inspect" or "Inspect Element."
2. In the open developer tools, locate the image's HTML code. The alt text will be included in the "alt" attribute of the "img" tag.
3. If the image is missing an alt text, it will be blank or missing.

You also can use browser extensions such as "Accessibility Developer Tools" in chrome, which will give you detailed reports on images and other elements with missing alt text.

Many people overlook the importance of good SEO in alt text. Don't let it pass you by!

Be Sure To Schedule Your Posts (And Keep It Consistent)

People appreciate when you're consistent. It shows dedication, effort, and reliability.

Scheduling posts can help with SEO in a few different ways:

Consistency

Regularly publishing new content on a website can signal to search engines that the site is active and relevant, which can help with rankings. Scheduling posts can help ensure that new content is added to the site consistently.

Freshness

Search engines also tend to favor websites that have fresh, recently-published content. Scheduling posts helps ensure that new content is added to the site regularly, boosting search engine rankings.

Relevancy

By scheduling posts in advance, you can ensure that the content you are publishing is relevant to the current season, events, or news. This can help keep your content relevant and interesting to your audience and help with search engine rankings.

Planning

Scheduling posts allows you to plan your content in advance. It also helps ensure you're publishing a mix of different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, and infographics.

Keep your content varied and exciting! It can help keep your audience engaged and reduce the bounce rate of your website, which is a ranking factor.

It Saves You Time

Scheduling your posts in advance saves you time and allows you to focus on other essential SEO tasks like technical optimization, link building, and analytics.

Scheduling posts alone is not enough for SEO. It should be a part of a comprehensive SEO strategy that includes keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and analytics.

Make Sure Your URLs Are Up To Date

Changing URLs can have an impact on SEO. The main concern is that changing URLs can result in broken links and a loss of link equity, negatively affecting search engine rankings.

• Broken links. When URLs are changed, any links to the old URLs will no longer work. This can result in broken links and a poor user experience, negatively impacting search engine rankings.
• Loss of link equity. Links pointing to a website are key in determining search engine rankings. When URLs are changed, any links to the old ones will no longer pass link equity to the new ones.
• Loss of traffic. Changing URLs can result in a loss of traffic as users may not be able to find the new URL or may be discouraged by broken links.
• Redirects. To mitigate the impact of changing URLs on SEO, it is essential to use 301 redirects, which permanently redirect old URLs to new URLs. This helps to preserve link equity and avoid broken links.
• Notify Search engines. Submit a new sitemap to search engines and notify them about the URL changes. It helps search engines understand the changes and redirect the users to new URLs.

Consider the potential impact of URL changes on SEO before making any changes.

Implement redirects properly, and notify search engines about the changes.

Monitor the traffic, rankings, and other metrics after the changes are made to see if there are any significant impacts on the website's performance.

Top Ten SEO Mistakes To Avoid

Now that you have a better idea of what you should do to develop a cohesive content strategy for SEO, it's well worth seeing what not to do. Here are some (unfortunately) common SEO mistakes people make.

Keyword Stuffing

Overusing keywords in content, meta tags, and page titles can harm your SEO and be penalized by search engines.

Duplicate Content

Search engines may penalize sites with duplicate content, so ensuring that all your site's pages have unique and relevant content is vital.

Broken Links

Simply put, broken links on your site can harm your SEO and create a poor user experience, which is both unforgivable in its own ways.

Lack of Meta Tags

Meta tags provide information about your site to search engines and can help improve your visibility in search results.

Not Optimizing Your Images

Optimizing images by compressing them and using descriptive file names can help improve your site's page load times and visibility in image search results.

Ignoring Mobile Optimization

With the increasing use of mobile devices to browse the web, it's important to ensure that your site is optimized for mobile users.

Not Building Backlinks

Backlinks from other websites to your site can help improve your visibility in search results.

Not Regularly Updating Your Website

Regularly updating your website with fresh, relevant content can improve your visibility in search results and encourage repeat visitors. So do it!

Not Tracking Your Results

Not tracking your results through analytics and other tools to understand your website's performance and what areas need improvement.

Disregarding Google Search Essentials

Google's Search Essentials provide essential information on how to optimize your site for search engines. Stay current with these guidelines and make changes as needed. If you need a refresher on the rules and guidelines, here you go.

SEO blunders like keyword stuffing are blatant black-hat SEO and will result in a harsh penalty.

Get A Content Strategy For SEO With Sprinkles Media

Want to learn more about reaching your target audience with search engine optimization? Get in touch with Sprinkles Media!

We're a digital media agency specializing in SEO content, website branding, social media management, and Google Ads.

Tired of not ranking on Google SERPs? Get in touch and we'll see which SEO content strategy works for your business!