Our site collects and stores essential cookies (information) on your pc as they are necessary to processing internet (data) connectivity. This data allows us to recognise your IP address, helping us identify you and customise the site' experience. Under the new GDPR' laws, we must ask you to either: accept or refuse cookies. In your personal interest, please read our private policy. to find how we proceed with your data/cookies/information. Many thanks.

CTH

Scale up your online business

  • Home
  • About
    • Why choose us
    • Values
    • How we work
    • Our clients
    • Privacy Policy
    • FAQ
  • Services
    • Business Consulting
      • Consulting Services for SMBs
    • Content Marketing Strategy
    • Web Strategy
      • Digital strategy consulting
    • Seo Strategy
      • eCommerce SEO
      • International SEO
    • Website Design
  • Blog
  • Resources
    • Case-studies
    • Premium Resources
    • SEO Audit
  • Digital workshop
    • Contact

Mar 31 2018

Vertical Search Hacks to Rank Quicker

Vertical search – what does it mean?

Person-searchingVertical search is pretty much similar to universal search, except that vertical search engine focuses on a specific category, media type or genre of content, according to Wikipedia.

Vertical Search hacks will be presented further down.

There is however, a combination of vertical search engines and big data platforms or both (all-in-one) covering a specific range of niche industries.

These include niche industry sites such as traveling, comparison, reviews, etc. In other words, vertical content search focusses on unique, specific categories and it may touch any of these: niche site topic or any content marketing genre.

But also includes online searches related to different vertical industry sectors – we’ll get there in a moment.
I hope this helps you understand vertical and other type of search.

Credit: Above photo by Andrew Ridley on Unsplash

Content, my research and search engines

We often read that great content is vital to support our SEO strategy and this is now more true than ever before. If you get your content marketing right you are on the high-way to give your business a solid chance to appear on multiple horizontal and vertical searches.

But let’s first see some importants factors to help you do that.

SEO/Content factors to get you there:

Cq: Content quality
Cr: Content research/Keyword research
Cf: Content freshness
Cv: Vertical search
Ca: Direct answers

You can study the topic further at search engine land

As we all know Google deliver page results based upon specific algorithms behavior. They also continue to test new terminologies, queries in order to deliver and class them properly.

Why?

Well, one of the reasons is, their algorithms (bots) are constanly collecting and learning how users search, interact, click-behave, thus analysing what types/topics of content work best in different contexts to give people more precise and/or relevant search results based upon terms they use or prefer.

Let’s have a quick look at some types of queries that people (myself included) will use to search for specific and important industries terms when performing a search before buying a product/service or for any other related travel search.

I rarely use Google to look for travel destinations – I’d rather research travel review sites such as Tripadvisor or airline sites. Because I get to see quick results through vertical listings/sites. I start by reading their reviews, comments, check photos, videos etc. This works for me and gives me direct and better personal insight when it comes to research a particular destination.

For the purpose of this post, I searched (Google) & DuckDuckGo for:

What is the cheapest city to travel to in Europe?

 

Vertical-search-for-European-cites

From the top three results:

I spotted “Cheapest cities in Europe in 2018” from Price of Travel, (third position). I picked these guys because it offers informative and relevant keywords. The website is managed by founder Roger Wade – by the way, congrats to Roger as he’s competing with the big boys.

But as I am curious, I went and tried to find a pattern here.

So, I then typed “Best traveling prices in Europe’s most popular cities” and Price of Travel (POT) show up again, and again… above Skyscanner and Tripadvisor – in top three with two results.

The 13 best-value cities in Europe for budget travelers in 2017

Best-city-values-in-Europe

 

By the way, Price of Travel is a database (niche travel website) of travel costs in every major destination around the world. You should try it.

Okay, we know that search engines such as Google will consider (in a few seconds) several hundred factors before showing you the most relevant ones (depending if you are searching from a desktop or mobile) and we noticed (I hope) PoT come out in first and third position again, because they have simply have a great navigational structure, title relevancy, tag description, accessibility, images etc.

For the page title “Cheapest cities in Europe in 2018” we can read its meta-description and a much closer term relevancy with my initial query:

– ” prices for tourists in Europe’s most popular cities”
– ” designed to help you sort out the cheapest European cities”
– ” budget for when you visit Europe”.

That’s a winner for me, it has told me in two sentences what the post is all about. Very helpful and relevant! What else.

I am hoping you now understand how important it is to get Cq, Cr, and Cf right.

 

Vertical search hacks, Business directories and other

Did you know that Google has its own vertical search features? Yes, these include: local search, Google maps, video, and images.

Although your initial search may originate in the Google search field, it may happen that you and I click on some vertical searches results links or – “specific searches” – shifting to vertical and topical sites. It is important that people can find you when searching for your company through Google or a business directory. Make sure your business is listed in the following local directories.

Note: this specific searches are also becoming more popular with the rise of smartphones.

Many search engines have realised the gain in popularity and sought to increase their advertising features by providing local directory information. Google come out with “Google My Business” and Bing Places for Business. They have added powerful A.I technology behind (to local directory ) to provide clever maps with directory listings, local citations, local reviews and ratings, images, 3D etc – all tied up together with keyword relevancy and geo-targeting.

 

Here below you’ll find 20 ish directories you should use starting with:

Google My Business – In my view this is (surely) the easiest SEO hack on this list, but also the most important one.

Just follow the steps below to make sure your listing will be ready and optimised:

  • Ensure you’ve claimed your business listing
  • Verify your account (email)
  • Add or update your business profile with as much detail as possible – For example: enter and display correct business hours, phone, email address and add 5+photos. Populate your listing with high-quality images only – Google loves and prioritises images of your indoor office, team, etc.
  • Enter your main url website [www.domain.com] Good tip idea: add utm tag to track clicks
  • Then verify your listing.
  • Start collecting customer reviews – This part called local SEO really help your business.

Also to improve your business chances further you should check local businesses quality guidelines. For all GMB related questions such as “How do I verify my business” read business FAQ’s.

 

Bing Places for Business – Repeat the same on Bing platform.

You can do the same on Yellow Pages platform.

I have listed some of the best directories sites that you still can go and list your business.

You should also add/list your business details on sites below:

PR7 Websites

www.yelp.co.uk
www.yell.com
www.opendi.co.uk/
www.opendi.us or add any other country extension in the World

Yelp is a typical vertical search engine that crowd-sources reviews on local businesses such as: hotels, restaurants, bars, and more.

PR6

www.192.com
www.scoot.co.uk
www.ukinternetdirectory.net

PR5

www.touchlocal.com
www.freeindex.co.uk
www.britaine.co.uk
http://scrubtheweb.com/
www.2findlocal.com
www.locallife.co.uk
www.cityvisitor.co.uk
http://businessmagnet.co.uk/
www.business-directory-uk.co.uk
http://directory.independent.co.uk/

PR4

www.citylocal.co.uk
www.hotfrog.co.uk
www.b2bindex.co.uk
www.4ni.co.uk
www.ukdirectory.co.uk

 

When linking to these sites you are creating backlinks (majority to your site – these act as a content mention/referal to your site/blog. Many will help you get found in many search results. Thus, this still is a good PR strategy for your business as these directories are often tapped by Google (and others) due to their relevancy and trust, and high-page rank (PR) . A very positive boost to your off-page SEO.

Niche sites

Niche site or blog is a platform that informs and serves a smaller niche of people as a small segment of a larger industry. For example, travel is a huge industry and its perfect to start a niche site – this might be a blog that offers unique insights, reviews or city destinations data prices [PoT] as mentioned above.

Vertical search and its benefits

When using multiple vertical search/platform sites you will be offered the chance to show your business and benefit from these potential extra traffic. Here are some of the benefits you can get:

  • greater precision due to specific scope
  • leverage domain knowledge to include taxonomies (SEO)
  • support and increase speed/specific unique user tasks.

 

Conclusion:

Focus and grab these big opportunities that are hidden within the local search, as these are hundred times more powerful than any other form of vertical search. Local listings submissions for example are of the essence and you’ll need to the make sure its most important elements (business name, address, phone number, website url, and categories, etc) are consistently typed.

In my opinion, we’ll see new types/ variations of vertical search engines emerge (A.I), offering online users a much reliable source of information/ data with one clear goal – improve their experience, decision-making and shorten online search.

Following from the above steps – the idea is to make you aware of its full business traffic potential. Before creating and publishing well crafted content you must first research and plan your topics well ahead. This is also called “deep work” and you’ll need to include:

  • knowing your audience (whom),
  • the reason you’re talking to them (why) and/or purpose,
  • its relevancy (how to)
  • and the channels (where) you’ll promote them for the pre-analysed users so they can find and read it.

A long-term strategy is needed on building unique brand values and also requires multiple touch points (Google maps, videos, directories etc). To drive traffic, engage and convert users into sales, one needs to understand the mindset and actions of searchers in order to structure a website and blog accordingly.

So, to do that start answering one of the most important and primary questions which is:

“Why and How do people search?” (always think mobile vs desktop).

You then need to experiment (via a persona or actual customer) to understand from the people’s mindset and/or point of view on what are they typing. Basicly, you’ll need to create a buyer behavior model and/or a customer journey mapping.

Also, it’s good to know that Google lab is experimenting with:

– Micro term (random) fluctuations within pre-defined geo-locations and magnitude.
– Automatic detection & adjustment, based on language and change in external data and behavior patterns.

In today’s online search people (myself included) ask more precise questions and/or explore long variations in their search. Some are ready and will type directly transactional searches to compare prices or buy, others will browse just for informational purpose to collect insight or explore the topic and options available to them.

Whatever it is Google, Bing or DuckDuckgo search, each will provide you with more or less relevant results on the first page that are selected and based upon best key-phrases written in the title, meta descriptions and onpage body text.

Remember, you only get out what you put in! So, now your turn – are you in or out?

If you like or found this post relevant, please share it around you. Feel free to add your own search experience or make a comment below.

Thanks 🙂

Related Posts

  • Why Link Building Strategy?
  • 13 Reasons Why Your Content Strategy is Failing
  • How to Create Content with a Top Tip List?
  • 5 SMART Ways to Create Content Marketing
  • How Can Small Businesses Create Content and Faster?

 

Written by Paul Alves · Categorized: SEO Content Strategy · Tagged: Content Creation Steps, Search Engine Optimisation

Sep 17 2014

5 SMART Ways to Create Content Marketing

Content Marketing Planning

Creating and achieving SMART marketing goals in five steps. [Updated in 2019]

Before you start creating any content marketing material – you might want to think how to plan it.  The very first thing you should consider is writing down your business and content marketing goals. Whether or not you find it difficult, it’s a must do task/phase enabling you to achieve your goals going forward.

Why we all need content marketing?

If you’re here reading this post it means that you’re either curious about the topic or looking for new ways to create effective content marketing for your business. Nevertheless, content creation is the soul of your business, brand, and without it you would not survive.

Let me ask you this – Could you attract prospects or generate leads with no content marketing at all?

Of course you couldn’t. Here below, I describe the major reasons to why we need it.

Top reasons why World marketers include Content marketing in their strategy:

» Increasing brand awareness
» Nurture and boost lead generation
» Converting warm leads into customers
» Building brand/industry thought leadership image
» Better customer engagement
» Increase customer retention
» Frequent organic website traffic
» Improve or Increase sales

There’s more to it of course, but its not the purpose of this post.

I’ll do my best to explain the how and why setting SMART goals can really help any business achieve better results for their marketing campaigns.

Also, I’ll include my own recommendations along with suggested tools along the way too.

So, keep reading.

What are S.M.A.R.T Goals?

SMART goals Is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. It was initially created by UK government to simplify and facilitate project coordination. It’s a helpful little formula allowing you to set goals that you can easily communicate with others.

Lets assume, you’re writing a blog or creating a landing page, or whatever the project you’re about to embark on, for sure you can benefit from S.M.A.R.T. We know that more and more small, medium, and big size businesses are using S.M.A.R.T goals methodology for all sort of projects and they’re even used for personal life projects.

This framework will explain how to go about setting S.M.A.R.T and compelling goals for marketing material.

Make sure your are:

  • Specific

    Goals can either be very specific or basic. We call basic goals the ones that are normally written as a simple phrase covering the main aim of your idea, nonetheless these will not include steps, resources or required process. A specific goal, though, will describe a process, resources, tools and who will be doing what. A particular goal does not have to be very long. I often mention that a goal which in turn describes a simple process is better than having none, because at least we know where we’re going.

Two examples below – a generic one and a much specific goal:

Basic goal: I want to write a blog about social interaction.

Specific goal: I’ll run a weekly research for the next two months until I collect enough information to start my social interaction blog.

Anthony Robbins once said that:

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

I agree with that.

Now, test whether your goal is compelling by asking yourself the following questions:

1. What do you really want to achieve?
2. What would you do with it?
3. Why do you want or need this goal?
4. When to attain it? or Which date to reach it?
5. What skills do you need to achieve it? or Whom do you need to hire?

and How will you do it/control it.

You can carry on later in the process by asking yourself more questions, but these are the five you’ll need to answer.

Recommendations:

Think and plan your goals from start to finish.
Walk through every single step, write and describe as much in detail as you possibly can. Then tell exactly what you want to accomplish and reduce it to three or four sentences.

Tag your main headings to help you focus and prioritise you content.
Create an editorial calendar, log titles, persona groups, urls, steps involved to write your daily, weekly or monthly goals. Always keep an eye on difficult tasks and communicate progress as you go along.

When writing specific, or compelling goals you’ll increase and stimulate your awareness, helping you see the next steps and how much you want it.

Tools you could use: Use Free Mind open source mapping tool written in java if you’re one man band. If you often share projects with others then invest on creately, it takes you to another new level with its unlimited projects and real-time collaboration. Cost: 2£ ($5) per month.

  • Measurable

    Irrespective of the project’s size you should be able to keep track and measure goals and activities as you progress. Evaluating progress is essential for your project’s success. Needless to say, you can either set simple metrics or more complex ones, the idea is to determine and control check-points as you move along.

Recommendations: Analyse, re-analyse, communicate with the measured data before moving on to your next goal. If you have multiple phases on the go, breakdown your goals into 1,2,3 weeks and your overall goal might be improved very quickly. If you’re a project manager, then your main concern should be: is the project on time, on budget, and were the specifications executed properly. Also it makes everybody else happy if you have goal tracking system where items have been logged against names.

Tools to use: PERT planning – or Download SMART action plan spreadsheet – Helps break-up the project/campaign into workable “chunks.

  • Attainable

    Never force anyone to do a task if they’re not going into it with heart, passion and/or conviction. Make sure you and your team have understood the importance of achieving the specified goals in time.

    Do not lose hope if issues come your way, remember step by step, working into manageable chunks might just help you get there. Don’t allow others get in your way unless they have a very good reason. And remember, celebrate small achievements along the way!

    Priority goals: Are so important whatever you do in life. Compromising will take you away from your initial goals, so take time to see if it is possible whilst making everybody happy. Again, if you are a project content manager sometimes this cannot be possible as it requires you to go back to the boardroom and present to your employers.

    Working around achievable goals requires intrinsic motivation, but also requires you to keep others super motivated. Always remember this, whatever you do you’re doing for yourself, your company, or your family.

Recommendations : If you’re in business, print out and display a written mission or goal statement where everyone can see the topics to follow.  Effective to remind you and your team of why you’re doing it, especially at 9am on Monday morning. It’s a great way to encourage and motivate everybody.

Tools you could use: Project Mission statement document.

  • Realistic

    When you write your goals, make sure they are realistic. Do not expect a miracle if you ‘re not considering all types of scenario. However, when setting your goals really challenge yourself, as mentioned earlier, you must consider all situations including issues, making it clear in terms of what if this happens what should we do.

    Ideally you should see straight away what is challenging and/or impossible to achieve. Goals should be challenging, not impossible!

Recommendations: Get your mindset right, if you’re unable to think or set realistic targets don’t be frightened to ask for help. Peers, family and friends are usually open and willing to give an hand, unless you’re a nightmare to deal with.

Tools you could use: Post it, notepad etc – Your choice as its really all about individuals and priorities.

  • Timely

    Set a date that suites everyone, including yourself. If you’re working for a company take into account your boss’s goals, timing and specifications. If its a small personal project then just set a convenient time to achieve your goal and stick with it.

Recommendations: Never leave room for open dates and don’t try to impress your bosses by setting earlier dates as you’re more likely to get yourself in trouble. This will simply ruin your goal specifications.

Just set a realistic time-frame.

Example: For small project, schedule three days to write your topic. For bigger projects such as writing content for part one, two and three article you should consult your colleges or people involved as it normally requires additional research.

Assuming you accomplish your goals earlier than scheduled, then you might want to tell everyone that you are ahead of schedule and congratulate your team mates.

Online Channels Used

To sum up:

I suggest to visit your analytics as often as possible, export data and study it. Then be Specific, Measure it, make it Attainable, Realistic as possible with Timely dates.

This is what we call a S.M.A.R.T methodology to improve your content.

We all have some difficulty in generating content for our blogs, due lack of time or simply finding the right topic to write about. You probably noticed and/or experienced that creating impressive content material takes time and savoir-faire. Yes, it is difficult.

So, I recommend the following method.

Use whatever brainstorming method works best for you. One of the quick and common methods include browsing the Internet, bringing you the most relevant topics that are structured and getting more readers.
Do not hesitate to ask others on social media; draw visual mappings; and always read, ask yourself relevant questions.

First, go for a “mapping plan” as this is definitely a great visual method to generate ideas whilst showing the relationships between the ideas.

I also recommend you to create a map using free software that is specifically designed for concept mapping or simply drawing your map by hand. Use the method that works best for you.

And finally, the easiest part, share your newly made content with your community fans, friends and the world.

Let’s us know how you’re getting along in your work place.

If you need further help or practical advice, get in touch via our contact page or call us here + 44 1252 679885.

Last updated: 25/04/19

Written by Paul Alves · Categorized: SEO Content Strategy · Tagged: Business Tips, Content Creation Steps, Content Marketing Examples, Strategy Content

Jul 31 2014

How Can Small Businesses Create Content and Faster?

Create epic content faster

Can small businesses find ways to create great content faster than usual? Yes, they can.

How?

The majority of content marketing ideas will come to you based on discussions, inspiration or ideas that you and/or your team generate during your work.

How Small Businesses Create Content?

Here, I’ll show a very effective way for small and medium businesses owners to overcome the content creation hurdle.

Read on and you’ll see how the idea to write this article came to me.

You’ve probably noticed that the web is populated with good websites, blogs full of tips, ideas and other resources. Take some inspiration from other people’s blogs. Analyse, try adding new angles and build from there.

Another example: any conversation with a colleague or client could end-up with a particular subject content line, rather like this article did.

I thought I’d help you accelerate the content creation process by putting this together in one place and save you time.

Why Brainstorm Content Can Give You (Ideas)Wings?

Define your audience group

Brainstorming will help you produce faster and genuine content ideas, as it stimulates your creative (brain) thinking in a very short period of time.

This will also help you increase productivity (article volume), generate theme groups for your audience, organise subjects, headings, sub-headings, develop and further discuss your multiple selection for the next posts.

But it also has the massive advantage to help you identify new topics including types of keyword phrases that you normally would not think of and/or consider.

Another very important aspect to think about before planning a brainstorm, is to involve external people or colleagues who are not working on that particular project. They’ll bring a really fresh perspective to the table, you’ll see.

Why content marketing audit/Assessment?

Go and establish your business benchmarking. You should start by checking which content is performing better.

Your content marketing assessment will allow you to get: a realistic view/picture of where you stand in your current content marketing strategy.

The content areas of evaluation should include:

  • Content marketing knowledge
  • Identify your main objectives
  • Existing or best internal performig assets
  • Competitive insight
  • Resources available
  • Plan & Channel distribution
  • Internal process of documentation
  • Control and measurement

How to find and/or create content ideas for your persona groups?

Solution: You need to create a user mapping or visual representation  of the specific content that you will be creating to each buyer persona based on their stage in the buying cycle.

As I’ve already touched upon, the reasons why every business owner should give brainstorming content material a go are endless.

Those who plan ahead will fill-up their editorial calendar more often and are more likely to take control of how, why and when to communicate with their customers. Also, everybody knows time can be your worst enemy, making very difficult to concentrate and write fast new content everyday.

So, keep these pointers in mind:

  • Create brainstorming sessions as often as you can
  • Define primary content creation phases
  • Map out/Collect materials or ideas beforehand in a notebook
  • Email colleagues, marketing, sales team your topic a week in advance, so they come prepared and relaxed for the brainstorming session – remember, not just people working on the project!

Six steps to create content faster

What are you going to write next? Whether it’s an article, sales campaign, event or new product coming up, here is how you can create content faster in just six steps:

1. Engage your brain: with issues or subjects that need quick resolutions. Remember and ask “Who is your reader?” then go create or check your customer persona doc, this must describe the various behavioral points/features of your users.

2. Choose attractive headlines: These are the bee’s nectar, a headline is so important as it delivers the tone and is the first thing that the human eye reads. This must be apowerful single line to help users understand the purpose, value of what you’re trying to achieve.

3. Create prime keyphrases: offer a unique value proposition, summarise it. Example: My App/service allows you to book this and this. Very important for the fluidity and continuity of your content material.

4. Content structure: Start with the problem in mind –  Create a first basket of main title ideas and why not do the same for sub-titles and keywords. Then group it and sum-up pages explaining the topic and/or sub-topic in detail.

5. Format type: Whilst brainstorming you must select which format you’re looking to get for your content, so write it down. Also think what type of devices you want to show content.

6. Be specific: Why do you want to create a video? What is the final purpose? Who will do it… You must be realistic about your choice and processes.  Is it because it offers a great visual value/impact, more than a podcast? When you’re ready to end your brainstorming session, ready it all and select the best option for your project.

Why am I giving away my personal content strategy tactics?

Recently, one of my clients asked if I had any ideas on how he could manage to create content more often. I said, yes I’ve got some. Then it occurred to me that I could also turn this into a useful article post.

Here I am, sharing tools, (not the Brian Adam’s song) ideas that work, and to be honest who doesn’t like cool tips or new ideas. I believe, we all can benefit from sharing good post and re-sharing it with friends and family. You can also use this technique and improve yours. Do you get the idea? I’ll explain this at a later date on another related topic.

One of my preferred sayings teaches us to be open minded – it says: ” how can you get something from someone if your hand is closed “.See the picture? What goes around comes around. Now, go try this tactic right away.

Click the image below to see the major challenges businesses are facing when it comes to create content. I’d add “creating content for your audience” to this list as it is the hardest one. We could say its already in “Producing a variety of Content”.

Challenges [%] SME's are Facing When Creating Content
Image from : CMI -Content Marketing Institute

[Update for 2020 and beyond]

Most of us have noticed that the main priorities have shifted. We are better off updating existing content rather than producing new [quantity]. However, we will need to create content that is relevant and serves users.  This can be translated onto E.A.T. – this stands for: Expertise, Authority and Trustworthy.

Hint: Read Google quality guidelines

A good rule of thumb is to explain, keep it simple and update it when it comes to deliver better content. But always ask yourself: “Does this help my readers/users?

These techniques are great if you’re a one man band or a very small team.

Lets’ start with these free tools. Yes, I mention free.

Content challenges and options – two options to choose from:

First option: create an account with Trello here. Its a free web-based project management tool that allows you to manage everything you want. From blog writing, small projects to team management… Its a great app, extremely easy to use. See Access Trello – It’s free.

Keep reading.

Second option: subscribe to our e-newsletter and I’ll email you my own content board and/or Quadrant-Channels-Keywords spreadsheet to quickly help you visualise what you’re writing. This will include keywords worksheet and – social media calender along with many other freebies .

Swiftly moving on..

I recently discovered this awesome piece of technology called Buzzsumo – I was so amazed that my first thought was, what kind of word can I check for existent titles or top content articles? Wow, I said, I was amazed as this saved me few hours of surfing the web. And not only that, it also offers you a bonus – it shows you the most shared content for any topic, plus you can download it .. and also check by location all that .. for free. Isn’t that great? Yes, I couldn’t believe myself.

So, access buzzsumo. Easy and quick to register – then get your list out (brainstorming) and be ready to get a fast a different approach.

This will streamline your work faster, allowing you to quickly find content that is working for your competitors and/or social media influencers. Did you notice I am writing in the present tense?

Here is why:

  • You can now quickly search for keyphrases and identify content that’s been read and shared around your particular topic.
  • You can see what your followers and influencers are sharing.
  • You can find other business people’s topics that will provide infographics/data to include within your article content.
  • You can easily delete irrelevant topics from the list, when you download it in .csv list; or simply by making a new or better one.

When you know which subject you want to write about, this tool will deliver great results in no time. After just a few minutes you’ll have spare material and lots to think about, I promise you.

Also in one click of a button you can filter format type – You can choose to extract all the relevant videos only, or get a particular infographic, interviews, guest posts. This is very useful when you run out of time and want to find a relevant url to add at the end of your article (use their advance search operators).

Job done.

Surprised?

Which one to choose from – influencers or brand followers?

Influencers: are individuals or brands that have huge amount of followers or social media presence. You may ask them if they’re willing to promote your brand or service to their large audience.

Brand followers: are satisfied customers or prospects that will follow you all the way.
You better off giving something to a brand or advocate follower as this might get your name circulating on social media for a couple of weeks and benefit is great.

How to create content.. faster – the extra bonus [formula]

Step 1: Understand what your audience’s needs are

Step 2: Start with a relevant subject/topic

Step 3: Write a captivating intro

Step 4: Follow a sequence and organise your content

Step 5: Write often and cut back irrelevant stuff

Step 6: Find a fun, educational or trending title

Step 7: Proofread your content/post

Step 8: Check: formating, bullet-points, call-to-action etc

Step 9: Ask a competent person to re-proofread

Step 10: Publish and share it

Let’s sum-up the content creation process:

  • you’ve performed a brainstorming session;
  • downloaded trello/ spreadsheet to log material;
  • used buzzsumo to find web articles, existent titles, that you need to compare or get inspiration from so what else do you need?
  • Maybe create sub-headings and keyphrases?
  • Followed the six steps
  • Follow the extra bonus checklist

This will lead us to the keyword optimisation process, those are the terms you logged during your brainstorming session. Grab those and copy them into your keyword list or software. Remember to formulate keyphrases that could lead people to your page.

Hint: There’s several fantastic tools to help all types and sized businesses. Try Wordtrack as they allow you to perform 5 free keyword searches. I tried them in the past, very useful as the tool charns out the top 10 keywords suggestions plus SERPs along with Amazon and Youtube preview . It’s really helpfull,  try it as they offer seven days free trial.

Note: You should also try Google Adwords; Google Keyword Planner, but also give Ubersuggest a go as it would help you take your keywork research to the next level.

Many argue the fact that free tools such as Ubersuggest do not provide enough quality content – I dispute that, specially if you’re short of cash. Seriously give it a try, it has improved lots – now a cutting-edge tool whilst delivering fast results.

It is among the most useful in my opinion. It takes the same terms suggested by Google Suggest and displays it in an alphabetical order giving you a considerable amount of keywords and phrases ideas that you can copy and paste. But does it better.

By the way feel free to use these same phrases to build other topics, as they’ll be highly searched for.

If your main focus is to create content for mobile devices, here is the tool that will help you do the job and research your competitors best keywords – called Appmind. Don’t be shy, read and capture their descriptions, titles for more keyword ideas. Very helpful and a time saver too.

Conclusion:

The outcome of this exercise is quite simple really – if you follow these steps I guarantee that you’ll quickly find new keywords and will improve your content and/or topics. By following the above you’ll help yourself find new or related blogs, keywords, compare themes/topics, improve and/or create better content than your competitor. Not excluding the time you’ll save.

As we all know.. time is money, right.

I really hope this post will bring you some light, so go now and try it all.

Remember to build upon your list of suggestions, optimise and start creating smart great content. Now that you have the tools, the framework, you just need to find some time and organise yourself.

Tip and Action time: To improve content pages you need to analyse your data. Here is a great post explaining how to setup Google analytics: beginner’s guide to Google analytics.

Lets get started.

Ahh, yes, I’d appreciate if you could email us your new ideas, comments but and share it.

P.S: Post’s comments are now closed.

If you’re writing content yourself – you might want to grab our Editor Checklist sample to guide you through.

Good luck!

Updated on 30.05.2020

Written by Paul Alves · Categorized: SEO Content Strategy · Tagged: Content Creation Steps, Content Marketing Examples, Social Media Campaign

  • Homepage
  • About
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Digital workshop

Paul Alves

is trading as Consultants to Help (aka CTH) © Copyright 2011-2021 ·
Address: 14 Woodcote Green, Fleet · South England GU514EY, GB - T: +44 (0) 1252 679 885 · E: consult2@consultantstohelp.co.uk
| Business hours: 09.00 a.m. to 17.30 p.m. - From Monday to Friday - Our time is GMT
Site updated: Feb. 03, 2021

Privacy Policy- CTH - Back To Top