When I started my SEO blog, I was a total newbie in terms of content writing. However, I didn’t want to rely on just one strategy for generating traffic and increasing search engine rankings. Instead, I decided to combine my love of writing with the latest SEO techniques in order to create an evergreen post strategy that produces results time after time.
Step 1: Find low competition, high search volume keywords
The first step to creating SEO-friendly content is finding the right keywords. This can be a daunting task, especially if you’re new to the process of keyword research. You may be wondering: How do I find low competition, high search volume keywords?
There are several tools that can help with this task, but in my experience there is one tool that stands above all others: The Google Keyword Planner (GKP). The reason I like it the most is because it’s free and easy to use; however, if you want a more detailed breakdown of your results then I recommend using the Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool or Ahrefs Keyword Explorer as well because they both provide useful metrics such as keyword competitiveness and search volume estimates.
Step 2: Find content that ranks for those keywords
The second step is to find content that ranks for the keyword you’re targeting. You can do this using a few different methods:
- Search for the keyword in Google. This will show you all of the pages ranking for that keyword, including their backlinks and some other data about them like age, etc..
- Use SEMrush or Ahrefs to see which pages have more backlinks than others, since these tools show you how many links each page has going out from it (which are called “inbound links”). They won’t tell you what specific websites link to those pages though unless you’re paying for a higher level subscription service like Moz’s Site Audit tool does—if so then use this! It’ll give you more info about your competitors’ website structure and why they rank where they do.
- Look at top ranking pages in Google/Bing/Yandex/Baidu or whatever search engine(s) dominate in your target country or region–this way if there’s anything unique about their site structure (e.g., maybe they’ve got a lot of video embeds instead of text paragraphs), then we can replicate it on ours as well!
Step 3: Create content on your own site that’s better than what’s ranking on Google
This is where the rubber meets the road. If you have a decent or great piece of content already published on your site, you can use it as a benchmark for determining if your new blog posts are better than what’s already ranking.
If you don’t feel like your current content measures up, then it’s time to get to work on improving it. First, make sure that your new blog post is higher quality than whatever is currently ranking in Google for similar search terms and keywords. You can do this by using Ahrefs or another tool like SEMrush (which also provides backlink data).
If you’re not sure whether or not someone will find value in reading something about SEO, ask a friend or colleague who works within the same niche as yourself how they would feel about reading an article entitled “Why SEO Is Important For Businesses.” If they respond positively and enthusiastically tell them why they should read it (and link them here), then chances are good that others will find value in reading too!
Step 4: Use SEO tools to double check the on-page optimization of your post.
The next step is to use SEO tools to double check the on-page optimization of your post. There are several different ways to do this, but I like three in particular:
- Use Ahrefs or SEMrush to check the number of backlinks to the page. If you have recently published a new post and want to check how many backlinks it has already received, use either one of these tools. If you don’t already have an account with one of them, sign up for free here (Ahrefs) or here (SEMrush). Both will give you access to plenty of useful data about your links—including how many unique domains link inbound towards your site and what keywords are used most frequently within these links—but each offers slightly different reports based on what information they consider “important” when analyzing a link profile.
- Screaming Frog can track internal links between pages on your site as well as external ones pointing at them; this makes it perfect for checking if any links were accidentally removed during cleaning up after publishing! You can also use Screaming Frog’s built-in crawl feature — which maps out all visible content on each page — so that if something goes wrong once we hit Publish on our next blog post then we’ll know exactly where everything went wrong before fixing it ourselves 🙂
- Google Search Console allows me see which search queries return results when searching only my domain rather than any other sites around where might contain similar content (e.,g., news articles). This is helpful because sometimes people might go straight through News outlets instead finding me directly through Google Search Results
Using this strategy and a solid link building strategy can boost your rankings for evergreen posts.
The only strategy I use to write content that ranks well in search engines is to find low competition, high search volume keywords and write articles about them.
For example, “how to get rid of a headache” is a common question on Google. If you were going to write a post answering this question, you would want it to rank well for the keyword “headache cure” because people are searching that phrase when they have a headache.
To find out which phrases are most relevant to your niche, use Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer tool or another keyword research tool like SEMrush or SpyFu. Look at the average monthly searches for each of your target keywords and choose one with good search volume but not too much competition.
Conclusion
I hope this content has helped you understand what I do when writing SEO-focused blog posts. It’s a rigorous process, but it’s one that I’ve found consistently effective in my own business and other clients’ websites. If you’re looking for more information on how to get started with this strategy, then check out my other post.