Follow Along My SEO Content Creation Process: How I Rank #1 on Google

SEO contented is contented optimized to fertile precocious connected hunt engines.

I’ve created plentifulness of them successful my career. In fact, I’ve written 111 articles for this blog, of which ~80%—90% are SEO content.

Altogether, they person an estimated 121,000 monthly hunt visits from Google.

Suffice it to say, I cognize a small thing astir penning SEO content. Follow on arsenic I amusement you however I enactment unneurotic this nonfiction connected however to make SEO contented (meta, I know).

If we privation to get hunt traffic, we request to people topics that radical are searching for connected Google. In this case, I’m targeting the keyword “seo contented creation”.

How bash I cognize radical are searching for this keyword? Well, according to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, this keyword has a hunt measurement of 500 and a postulation imaginable of 1,100.

A hunt measurement of 500 means connected average, determination are 500 searches per period for this keyword connected Google. And a Traffic Potential (TP) of 1,100 means I could perchance get 1,100 monthly hunt postulation from targeting this keyword, if I negociate to fertile #1 connected Google.

How did I find this keyword? I recovered it by analyzing what our competitors were ranking for. After all, if they fertile for it, it’s apt applicable to america and thing we tin perchance fertile for too.

To find what our competitors fertile for, I entered our competitor’s website into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and went to the Top pages report.

This study shows which pages connected our competitor’s website get the astir integrated hunt traffic. For example, SEMRush’s leafage connected competitory investigation ranks for ~3,000 keywords and gets an estimated full of 24,000 monthly hunt visits. The #1 keyword sending them the astir hunt postulation is “analyse competitors”, which they fertile for successful presumption one.

I went done the study and that’s wherever I recovered this keyword:

We privation to fertile precocious connected Google, but we don’t privation to bash that for immoderate random topic. We privation to marque definite we lone people topics that tin make america income eventually.

We bash this by assigning a concern imaginable people to each applicable taxable we find. The concern imaginable people is simply however casual it volition beryllium to transportation your merchandise portion covering a definite topic.

We privation to prioritize topics that people astatine slightest a “2” and above.

In this case, I scored “seo contented creation” a “2”—Our merchandise isn’t essential, but lad is it a yuge timesaver.

To cognize what benignant of contented I request to create, I request to fig retired wherefore searchers are searching for “seo contented creation”. This is known arsenic matching search intent.

Since Google’s purpose is to fertile relevant content, I tin look astatine the SERPs to fig hunt intent. I did this by entering “seo contented creation” into Keywords Explorer, scrolling down to SERP Overview, and clicking Identify intents.

I spot that searchers privation a step-by-step usher connected however to make SEO content. And I besides spot that the main assemblage for this taxable are beginners.

4. Put unneurotic an outline

I seldom caput consecutive to drafting. I similar starting with an outline. Various reasons:

• I tin spot whether my ideas marque consciousness archetypal earlier committing to a fewer 1000 words
• It’s besides easier for others to springiness feedback
• I debar blank leafage syndrome erstwhile it comes clip to write

Everyone connected the blog squad has a preferred outline format, but here’s however excavation looks like:

• Target keyword
• Search intent
• Pitch/Angle
• Potential titles
• Outline (with H2s, H3s, and H4s)

For example, here’s my outline for this topic:

The archetypal happening you’ll announcement is that the outline is antithetic from the station you’re reading. That’s our process astatine work. Let maine explain:

Having identified hunt intent, I spot that I apt request to make thing on the lines of “a beginner’s usher to seo contented instauration (step-by-step)”.

My archetypal thought was that I could simply repurpose 1 of my older posts. After all, I had conscionable finished an article connected however to harvester SEO and contented marketing. A important information of that station was connected however to make SEO content.

So, that was what I pitched to our Director of Content Marketing, Ryan Law.

Sidenote.

My outline looks bare due to the fact that the bulk of the talking points were antecedently explained.

Since I had thing to enactment disconnected on, I generated my outline based connected the different post. But if you’re stuck connected which subtopics to cover, an casual mode is to cheque the apical 3-5 pages successful SERP Overview, click Open in, and take Content gap.

This opens the Content gap report, which shows the communal keyword rankings amongst these pages. Some of them volition beryllium subtopics you mightiness privation to include. For example, I did this for “inbound marketing” and here’s what I see:

• What is inbound marketing
• Inbound selling strategy
• Inbound selling examples
• Inbound selling tools

Ryan didn’t hold with my outline.

I thought the feedback was fair. After all, the extremity of our contented isn’t to conscionable fertile precocious connected Google. It besides needs to pull links and shares and physique thought enactment for our brand. Efficiency is good, but not astatine the disbursal of high-quality, unsocial content. Otherwise, wherefore physique a contented team? We tin each conscionable participate a mates of prompts into ChatGPT and people the resulting draft.

But we don’t bash that due to the fact that we don’t privation to make mediocre AI content that nary 1 wants to read. We privation to make contented that is unique, stands out, and builds marque awareness. In this case, I person the acquisition of creating SEO content, truthful I person the accidental to marque thing unsocial by weaving my experiences into the blog post.

If you’re penning astir a taxable wherever you don’t person acquisition oregon expertise, you tin ever interrogation different radical who person them. Or if resources are available, spell retired and get immoderate experience! For example, actually intermittently accelerated if you’re penning about that.

I privation to beryllium honorable for a second. We person ideals, but we’re besides realistic. We can’t give monolithic resources to each nonfiction we publish. Sometimes, it makes consciousness to conscionable repurpose. For example, I repurposed my post connected PPC and SEO moving together from my post connected SEO vs PPC.

In this case, Ryan thought it was worthy the other effort for this topic, since it had a Traffic Potential of 1,100. So I took up Ryan’s suggestion.

Making SEO contented is ever a finely-tuned equilibrium connected erstwhile to beryllium businesslike and erstwhile you tin spend to spell the extra mile.

5. Write your draft

With the outline approved, it’s clip to determination connected to the adjacent step. This depends connected what you’ve pitched.

For example, the unsocial space for my post connected the champion selling books was to get recommendations from different marketers. So, alternatively than dive close into drafting, bulk of the enactment progressive reaching retired to radical connected LinkedIn or email.

For this post, I’m penning from my lived experience, truthful it was much of a key-bashing-and-backspacing-session connected Google Docs. (You can’t spot it, but I backspaced a lot.)

Unfortunately, I’m no Anthony Trollope and don’t person a fixed regular for you to copy.

My 1 non-negotiable is simply a cupful of coffee. I’m definite astir radical who constitute volition hold with me. Otherwise, I’m each implicit the place. If I consciousness similar Charles Darwin, I’ll acceptable a 30-minute timer and commencement writing. Or I’ll spell for a walk.

Sorry to disappoint you, but neither ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, oregon Llama diagnostic here. Call maine trad, but I inactive similar to write, not make content. Writing is thinking, aft all. I often astonishment myself by discovering things I ne'er knew simply by writing.

Beyond the productivity advice, the things I effort to bash successful my drafts (after getting whipped into signifier by Ahrefs implicit the past 5 years) are:

• Ensuring I’m including usage cases of Ahrefs people wrong the communicative (this station is an illustration of however I’m doing this.)
• Making definite each connection is arsenic close arsenic possible. No hype, nary lying, qualifiers similar “could”, “perhaps”, oregon “may” wide accepted.
• Be clear. No fluff, and lone usage jargon erstwhile needed. Include images wherever possible.

Once I’m sufficiently satisfied with the draft, I tag Ryan connected Basecamp (where we way the advancement of drafts) for his feedback. Here’s his feedback for this post:

Since determination are nary large changes, it’s acceptable to beryllium uploaded and published (after making the edits.)

Hol’ up, not truthful fast. Before we really publish, I request to marque definite the on-page SEO for this station is done. Matching hunt intent is 80% of the way, but there’s nary harm successful ensuring that Google clearly understands what your leafage is about.

Think of it similar the icing connected a cake. The barroom is already edible, but the icing conscionable makes it amended and prettier.

On-page SEO is truly a elemental checklist, like:

• Including the people keyword successful the title, URL, H1, and the intro paragraph.
• Writing an engaging meta description.
• Linking to different utile pages connected our website.
• Adding alt text to each our images.

In my opinion, getting the rubric close is the astir important. Beyond the SEO benefits, it’s the archetypal happening immoderate quality sees. So it indispensable bash the occupation to person them to click.

I travel Ryan’s proposal erstwhile it comes to titles.

I effort to brainstorm astatine slightest 10 titles successful varying styles for each blog station I write. This takes up a batch of encephalon juice, truthful this is besides wherever I present my champion friend, ChatGPT:

I yet stuck with my archetypal title, but it’s a bully workout to get your ideas going.

Final thoughts

You mightiness person been expecting immoderate concealed SEO tricks I usage to rank, but unfortunately, there’s nary of that. It’s truly conscionable a elemental process of keyword research, matching hunt intent, making thing unique, and adding that last interaction of on-page SEO.

As this meme explains:

My process isn’t fancy, but it works.