Structuring your Posts
Proper post structure is important for helping search engines understand the importance of each part of your content (starting at the top) as well as helping readers find information within your post quickly and easily.
Let’s face facts: not a lot of people read online content these days. The majority of readers skim content to find what they are looking for. This is even more evident in how Google approaches search results, as they implemented a feature that highlights text in search results so when you click on a link, it takes you directly to that text rather than starting you at the top of the page.
This means that structuring your content properly is even more important. At Roketto, we follow the logical structural hierarchy template below for all our blog posts:
- Heading 1 (H1) is used for the blog title, representing the most important piece of text on the page. The H1 should always include the core keyword.
- Heading 2 (H2) should be used for subheadings, that is any heading that comes after the H1 in the blog post.
- Heading 3 (H3) should be used under any H2 headings when you want to break down the section further.
Don’t go beyond H3 with your headings, as your text can quickly become a jumbled mess. If you’re tempted to keep putting content into more and more granular hierarchies, it could be a sign that you could split your blog into two posts instead of one.
Meta Descriptions and Title Tags
When you perform a search on Google, the search results page that you see shows two pieces of information for each link: a title tag and a meta description. The title tag is the blue part of the URL, and the meta description is the text underneath it, as seen in the image below:
In most cases, your title tag should be the same as your article’s title. Why? Because it gives the user the best idea of what to expect when they click on the link in search results, plus it hammers home the importance of your title to Google. You’ll have to write your meta description yourself, which should also include your core keyword.
Meta descriptions entice users to click by giving them an idea of what your article is about. The typical meta description should be between 155-160 characters. If you go over you’re not penalized in any way, but your text could be cut off in search results.
Internal Linking
When writing content, you should always link to other pages on your website. This is important for website navigation, but also to help establish link equity or ranking power for different pages on your website. If Google sees that a particular page on your website is linked from a lot of different internal pages, then it will use that as an indicator of the importance of that page.
That being said, it’s important to not inject internal links where they don’t belong, or otherwise stuff them in your content. A good rule of thumb is to use at least three to five internal links for a 3,000-word blog, and use the same wording in the URL slug for the text that you’re hyperlinking. This keeps internal linking focused and not spammy, and keeps the core keyword (the word(s) you’ll be hyperlinking) of the linked blog as being associated with only that post.
Creating Evergreen Content
Evergreen content from a content marketing perspective means content that is always relevant, whether it was written a year ago or yesterday. If you write your content from an evergreen perspective, you’re giving it the best chance of ranking over time. That’s why at Roketto, we try to always write evergreen articles for our clients.
With SEO, content can take three to six months to rank on search results, with some websites taking longer. The generally accepted rule is that the longer a piece of content is indexed, the higher it will climb in rank—provided that it serves the search intent properly.
Think about news stories. They get a ton of search traffic while the news topic is relevant, but quickly drop off once people move on to the latest news. Evergreen content is the opposite, it’s always relevant and can always show up in search results to answer a query—provided a better article doesn’t take its place.
More Content Equals More Keyword Opportunities
It’s simple math: the more content you produce, the more opportunities you have to rank for different keywords. In addition, long-form content tends to rank higher in search results, since you’re able to go more in-depth about a topic and flex your expertise more so than with a shorter article.
So you should always write longer articles, right?
Not so fast. Of course, it can’t be that easy.
First, what constitutes long-form content varies depending on the topic. Generally, it’s around 1,000 words, but obviously, more complex topics could be more. You should be able to get a good idea of how long your article should be during your keyword research process. The other articles that show up in search when you Google your topic should give you a good ballpark to follow.
However, you should also consider what information those articles are providing as well. Can you provide more insight, clarify information, or otherwise describe something better than these articles can? Maybe there’s critical information that most of the articles on the first-page miss, but are relevant to your topic.
For example, let’s say you want to write an article about the Transportation of Dangerous Goods rules in Canada and the United States. There’s a ton of information on the first page about each country’s specific rules, but nothing comparing the two. This would be a critical section that you could include in your article that might increase its length, but also differentiate your piece from the other articles on the same (or similar) topics out there. More information equals more relevance to more search queries, and perhaps a better chance to rank higher in search results.
Publishing Content on a Consistent Schedule
Posting one article on your website and then calling it a day just won’t cut it. You might be serving your audience good information with that article, but if you post one article a year, they won’t have much reason to come back. We want our clients’ websites to attract fresh new readers as part of their content marketing blog strategy, but also serve existing ones. Part of building brand awareness and solidifying your company as an industry authority is providing consistent, quality content to your audience.
Top Content Marketing Tools and Resources
Effective content marketing requires the use of great tools and resources. From keyword research to keeping track of Google algorithm updates, the below content marketing tools and resources will help you create content that sets you apart from your competition.
Here are five top content marketing tools that you can start using today to create better, more effective content:
Content Marketing Tools and Resources
Ahrefs
By analyzing petabytes of data gathered from the web, Ahrefs gives you search result information for keywords, helping you choose the best topics and variations for your blog posts.
Search Engine Land
Keeping up-to-date on what’s happening in the SEO world is important for any content marketer. Search Engine Land has great articles written by experts on every SEO topic you can think of.
Clearscope
Content writing tools are a dime a dozen, but Clearscope is among the top pieces of software for writing blogs and website copy. It combines keyword research, competitor research, and outline creation into one tool, making the process of creating content faster and easier overall.
Rusty Brick/Barry Schwartz
Google is always updating its algorithm to make search better and more effective for users. Barry does an amazing job breaking down the updates and helping you understand how they may (or may not) affect your website.
Sparktoro
Audience research is the name of the game when it comes to writing effective content, but researching and finding those hidden gems can be difficult or impossible if you aren’t entrenched in an industry. Sparktoro combs the web and gives you essential audience information, including influencers, trending topics, and more.
While this is a great start, it’s far from an exhaustive list. There are a ton of different content marketing tools that can help with everything from blog articles to social media posts and more.
Boost Search Engine Rankings with Content Creation
Creating effective content that delights users requires careful planning, a lot of homework, and a focus on SEO. By using content marketing, you can boost your web presence through higher rankings in search results, build brand awareness, and gain more leads and more conversions.
There are a multitude of benefits to using content to promote your brand, so if you haven’t started a content marketing plan for your business yet, the best time to do so is today.
