Anum Hussain — ‘Topics Over Keywords: An SEO-Driven Approach to Content Marketing’

Transcript

1. Topics Over Keywords an SEO-driven approach to content marketing
2. Hi, I’m @anum. Beyoncé is my patronus.
3. I work with a team of incredible content muggles.
4. This squad was dedicated to brewing the perfect recipe for content magic.
5. Increase the social share rate of our weekly blog content. Generate a mass of backlinks to help those site pages rank. We wanted to concoct three potions that would … 1 2 3 Scale production of SEO site pages to fuel organic traffic.
6. Scale production of SEO site pages. 1
7. When experimenting with our own content process, I grew obsessed with HelpScout’s resources.
8. Each resource is a thorough, ungated, web page guide.
9. Each resource is a thorough, ungated, web page guide. This one particularly caught my attention.
10. Customer Acquisition Google Search I’m Feeling Lucky
11. Customer Acquisition In addressing an entrepreneur's most important early-stage question – customer acquisition – it's easy to waste a lot of money in the wrong channels, especially ... Customer acquisition management - Wikipedia Customer acquisition management is the set of methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries generated by a variety of marketing techniques. Customer Acquisition Strategy for Startups www.helpscout.net/customer-acquisition/ https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Customer_acquisition_management
12. Customer Acquisition Customer acquisition management - Wikipedia Customer acquisition management is the set of methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries generated by a variety of marketing techniques. https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Customer_acquisition_management In addressing an entrepreneur's most important early-stage question – customer acquisition – it's easy to waste a lot of money in the wrong channels, especially ... Customer Acquisition Strategy for Startups www.helpscout.net/customer-acquisition/ The HelpScout guide ranks ABOVE Wikipedia.
13. This inspired us to develop our own playbook for creating what we call SEO Site Pages.
14. These site pages are comprehensive, search-optimized guides built around specific keywords. EMAIL ETIQUETTE FOLLOW UP EMAIL EMAIL TRACKING
15. Each strives to be 10x. WATCH: “Why ‘good unique content’ needs to die”
16. Of our first 10 Site Pages, five were ranking in a top ten SERP position.
17. We found that the more links we included on a page pointing to related, external content, the higher we ranked. # EXTERNAL LINKS SERP IMRESSIONS
18. We also saw a similar correlation when we linked together our own related content through internal links. # INTERNAL LINKS SERP IMRESSIONS
19. Learnings Log: q Relevant external & internal links fuel traffic from SERP.
20. Generate a mass of backlinks to site pages. 2
21. Of course, ranking in SERP requires far more than targeting a keyword – we needed backlinks from external sites.
22. Instead of simply hoping that other websites would find and link to our content, we actively ran backlinking outreach.
23. This outreach took two key forms. Guest blogging to earn a backlink within the contributed post. Email outreach to earn a backlink through email requests.
24. We later uncovered that backlinking success was not dependent on a purely raw number of links. Site Page SERP Position # of Backlinks Avg. DA Email Etiquette 8 8 71 Networking Email 12 13 44
25. We later uncovered that backlinking success was not dependent on a purely raw number of links. Site Page SERP Position # of Backlinks Avg. DA Email Etiquette 8 8 71 Networking Email 12 13 44 ß The Email Etiquette page has fewer, but HIGHER QUALITY links.
26. This “higher quality” link follows a simple formula. Relevant content
27. This “higher quality” link follows a simple formula. Relevant content The external web page linking to our site page is on a similar topic.
28. This “higher quality” link follows a simple formula. Relevant content Strong da
29. This “higher quality” link follows a simple formula. Relevant content Strong da The domain authority of the external website is 40 or above.
30. This “higher quality” link follows a simple formula. Quality backlink Relevant content Strong da
31. Learnings Log: q Relevant external & internal links fuel traffic from SERP. q Backlinks should be strong in relevancy & DA.
32. Increase social share rate of blog content. 3
33. Beyond organic traffic, we wanted to continually grow our blog readership.
34. We figured … more shares more exposure more readers
35. We figured … more shares more exposure more readers … but things didn’t play out exactly as predicted.
36. We found that more social shares was not resulting in more views of our content. SOCIAL SHARES VIEWS
37. We also noticed that more social shares was not contributing to more conversions. CONVERSIONS SOCIAL SHARES
38. Learnings Log: q Relevant external & internal links fuel traffic from SERP. q Backlinks should be strong in relevancy & DA. q Social shares were not generating meaningful results.
39. Despite these learnings, we were still puzzled.
40. Despite these learnings, we were still puzzled. Sure, we got some things right. But not enough to explain how we grew our …
41. Domain authority from 49 to 60. MAY JUNE JULY AUG
42. Weekly organic sessions 13% W/W. JUNE JULY AUG SEPT
43. SERP clicks for one keyword over 500%. Impressions Clicks Avg. Position 632.97% 564.53% 8.76%
44. We decided to take a closer look to uncover the mechanics behind these success metrics.
45. Let’s quickly review our findings so far. I. Relevant external & internal links fuel traffic from SERP. II. Backlinks should be strong in relevancy & DA. III. Social shares were not generating meaningful results.
46. Fortunately Hermione uncovered even more insightful findings. Cambria Davies
47. Updating historical blog content with related Site Page links helped increase organic traffic for the old blog post as well as the new site page. Finding IV
48. For example: We published a post in 2014 that started with little organic traffic.
49. Into early 2015, it saw a few spikes in traffic.
50. When we launched a related site page and linked the two together, organic traffic spiked again.
51. But this time, traffic stayed up and continues to grow.
52. Long-tail keywords are building the mountain that lifts Site Pages to the top of Mount SERP. Finding V
53. This page ranks #1 in SERP for “follow up emails after a meeting.”
54. These are among 1,005 search variations contributing that traffic. Long-Tail Terms 12 templates for follow up after a meeting email to recap meeting details follow up email request for information meeting follow up examples wording for email after meeting free meeting followup template
55. Our final learning is when everything magically clicked.
56. Finding VI Doubling down on one topic across all content (Site Pages, Blog, Guest Posts, etc.) is where max growth is achieved.
57. Part of our Site Page brainstorming involved looking for patterns of success in historical blog content.
58. We then wove together all the similar- themed posts to build a 10x site page.
59. So we now had a comprehensive, designed, SEO-optimized site page.
60. And a variety of posts on the same subject across our blog, guest blogs, SlideShares, and more. So we now had a comprehensive, designed, SEO-optimized site page.
61. It turns out linking these posts to one another showed topic authority.
62. In fact, the more links to related content we had across our site, the better we ranked. # LINKS TOTAL IMPRESSIONS
63. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords.
64. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords. TOPIC A Step I: CREATE 10X SITE PAGE COMPREHENSIVELY COVERING A TOPIC.
65. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords. TOPIC A Step II: CREATE SUPPORTING CONTENT AROUND TOPIC’S LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS. A A A A
66. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords. TOPIC A Step III: LINK ALL THE RELATED CONTENT TOGETHER – ON INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DOMAINS. A A A A
67. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords. Step IV: REPEAT ANY TOPIC OPPORTUNITIES THAT MATCH YOUR PRODUCT / BRAND. TOPIC A A A A A TOPIC B B B B B
68. This has led to a new content process on our team emphasizing topics over keywords. Step V: ANALYZE AND TWEAK PROCESS TO REFLECT WHAT IS AND ISN’T WORKING. TOPIC A A A A A TOPIC B B B B B
69. Topics over keywords. That’s our magic formula.
70. And these insights led us there: q Relevant external & internal links fuel traffic from SERP. q Backlinks should be strong in relevancy & DA. q Social shares were not generating meaningful results. q Optimize historical content for topic takeover. q Support primary content with long-tail focused posts. q Dominate a full topic across the web.
71. Thank You. deck available: ANUMHUSSAIN.COM/ PRESENTATIONS/TOPICS- OVER-KEYWORDS