How to Write SEO Content That Ranks in 2020!

– In this video, I'm going to show you my exact step-by-step process for creating keyword targeted pages that consistently rank onthe first page of Google.

In fact, I've used thisexact process you're about to learn to rank on the first page of Google for super competitivee-commerce keywords, like testosterone booster, BCAA, best pre-workout, fat burner, and even best fat burner.

I'm Nathan Gotch, the founder of Gotch SEO which is where marketers come to learn how to get more freetraffic from search engines.

And today, I'm going to show you my step-by-step SEOcontent creation process that will give you the ability to predictably produce first page rankings and drive loads of free organic search traffic to your website.

And make sure you watchthis entire training video because I'm going to share my complete SEO content creation procedure that I only share with my team and members of Gotch SEO Academy.

Keep watching.

(upbeat music) So like I did in video onein this training series, I'm going to walk you through the process of how I would create akeyword targeted page.

So for this demonstration, I'm going to select GOMAD dietas my target keyword phrase.

So the first step of this process is to establish yoursearch intents strategy.

Simply ask yourself a series of questions.

What is this person looking for when they search this keyword phrase? What problem are they trying to solve, and what solution do they want? These questions will helpyou to step into the shoes of searcher, but I also wantto help you avoid guessing, so here are the primarycategories of searcher intent.

The first type of searcher intent are going to be informational queries.

And informational searchqueries are usually at the top of the funnel, so some examples include what is SEO or how to build back links? Searchers at this stage of the funnel areprobably not ready to buy, so that's why you need tocreate educational based content that satisfies this type of intent.

The second type of intentare for comparison queries.

Searchers at this stageare deeper into the funnel and they're trying to figure out what solution they want to choose.

An example would be Nikeshoes versus Adidas shoes.

The third type of intent is transactional, which means that the searcheris at the bottom of the funnel and they are ready to buy.

An example of a transactional search query is buy Nike baseball cleats.

The fourth type of intent is navigational, which means the searcheralready knows the brand, or is a customer of the brand.

For example, when someonesearches Gotch SEO, they already know my brandand are navigating to it.

Pretty much every keywordphrase will fall under one or two of these categories.

So after you've thought about that, all you need to do isanalyze the ranking results for your target keyword, so if the majority of theresults are blog posts, you know you need to create a blog post.

If the majority of theresults are product pages, then you know it would be wise to try to rank a product page.

So now let me show you this in practice.

Okay, so now what I'm gonnado is I'm gonna show you how to satisfy search intent for this specific keywordphrase which is GOMAD diet.

So what you want to do isjust scan through the results and look for some commonthemes that we're seeing here, so in this case, what you'regonna notice right away is that the first threeresults are articles, so that's a good sign and nowas we scroll through here, looks like the fourth result is an article and then another article, and then we have a forum thread and then we have another article.

So in this case, it would make a lot of sense to create anin-depth article about this particular topic, becauseGoogle is showing us how they are satisfying intent for this particular keyword phrase, so that's really all that youneed to know for going through and trying to figure out howyou're actually gonna satisfy the intent, and if yousee a lot of articles, then you know that youneed to write an article.

If you see a lot of product pages, you know you need to write a product page.

If you see a lot of homepages, then you know that maybe you should try to rank your homepage, so you get the point, but the key here is to focus on the actualintent around this keyword, so in this case, GOMAD diet is an informational keyword phrase, so you're gonna see a lot of articles which are gonna beprimarily crafted to educate and give information tothis person who's looking to learn more about GOMAD diet.

The main takeaway is that you need to avoid following the blanket advice that you should justwrite 2000 word articles.

What matters is satisfying search intent.

Sure, more content is usually a good idea, but that doesn't mean it needs to come in the form of a blog post.

Now, the next part of this process is to develop your content strategy, and the truth is, developingan intelligent strategy is the most importantpart of this process, and my formula for beatingthe competitors is simple.

Create a page that issubstantially different, and 10 x better thanwhat's currently ranking.

And the different part is the most critical part of the strategy.

That's why I'm going toshow you several ways to differentiate your contentfrom your competitors.

However, before we get into that, you must see what you are facing, and you must analyze your competitors to see what their strengthsand weaknesses are, and I recommend you do this before you even think aboutcreating your content, because this is gonna make thewhole process a lot easier.

You'll want to analyze a few key elements.

Number one, media.

Are your competitors using images, videos, or audio, and if not, these are all strategicadvantages for you.

Do what they aren't doing.

Articles are easy to create, but creating other forms ofmedia is more challenging and the more challenging something is, the less likely peopleare willing to do it.

Number two, word count.

Remember that satisfying search intent is the most important action to take.

However, in most cases, a high word count is a good idea.

Get an average word count for your top five competitorsand then double it.

That should be your target word count.

For example, if the average competitor has 1500 words on its page, you should aim to createa 3000 word content asset.

Number three, readability.

Can you make your contenteasier to read and digest? This is achieved with headings, short paragraphs, efficient writing, and most importantly, multimedia.

The truth is, Internet users are repulsed by big blocks of text.

And another readabilitypoint you wanna analyze is the simplicity of the content.

Is the content writtenfor the average person, or is it written like a dissertation? Simple and easy to read content performs better on all fronts.

Now, since the bulk of your audience is average in any given industry, you need to write to them, not to the experts in your industry.

The only exception isif your target market are the experts within a given field.

Number four, design and UX.

Some websites focus onmonetization instead of UX, and this is your advantage.

Websites that performwell in organic search are usually user and content centric.

You have to rememberthat searchers are coming to your website because they're looking for a solution to a problem.

It's your responsibility to help them, not distract them fromwhat their objective is.

And you'll get the opportunity to sell them something if you give them the value they've requested.

Now you know what to look for but let me show you this in practice.

Okay, so now what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna look through each of these competitors for a GOMAD diet and see if there's anything here that we can do betterif we're gonna create a content asset aroundthis particular topic.

So this is the number one ranking result, and it's a pretty good piece of content, it's pretty long, it's very easy to read, it has bullet points as bolded words, it has internal links goingto other pages on its site.

He actually does link outto other websites as well, which is good for on-page optimization, and in general, this page I'm assuming loads pretty quickly because it doesn't havea ton of media on it.

So this is actually one thing that you could definitely do better if you're creating anasset around this keyword is you could first of all add more images, second of all, you could add more video, and number three, you couldactually custom design this page if you really wanted toget serious about it, so those are three things you could do, because right now, he just has one image that's a stock photo, so obviously, you cancreate a custom image and make this a lotmore visually appealing.

What I recommend doing is just adding that into this section here, and you can just write, doesn't have custom images, video, or custom-designed pages.

That's just the first competitor, and then if we look at the second one, which is actually the same person, you'll notice that bothof these content assets were created in 2015, sothey're definitely dated, so you can take advantageof the that as well.

And then the third competitor here, got all kinds of stuff going on, so right now, this is allbad for user experience, so obviously, you wouldn'twant to be doing this, because I haven't evenscrolled on this website and I'm already getting hit with a pop-up, so it means they haven't reallyoptimized their user intent for this pop-up, so thisis something you would want to avoid, and in the long run, this is gonna hurt them because interstitial pop-ups are definitely somethingGoogle's targeting.

And they have another onehere for push notification, so exit out of these, andthen we'll go ahead and just look at this content overall, and it's definitely agood piece of content, it has internal links, it has external links, it's well formatted, it's easy to read, has nice table of contents, and then it has stock photos, so once again, we wanna tryto avoid using stock photos, and try to use nothing butcustom images if possible.

These all look like stock photos, and once again, this looks like a pretty good piece of content, but definitely somethingthat could be beat.

So the fourth competitor here, they have a custom image which is great, but the overall readabilityof this content isn't great, and then they haveanother stock photo here, so there's a lot that can beimproved on this page as well.

So really, as we examinethese competitors, it's pretty obvious that theway to beat these competitors is to just create custom images, maybe create video for this topic and then embed it on the page, and then also maybe even consider creating a custom-designed page as well, so these are things you just need to look at when you aretrying to target a keyword, you want to see whatthey are not doing well, so you can do even betterthan they are doing, and of course, with thisparticular competitor, we know that they areusing aggressive pop-ups, so that something that we'd want to avoid, so that we have optimal userexperience on our website.

So now you have a firmunderstanding of your competition, you need to figure out how you're going to differentiate your content.

The good news is that it's easy to differentiate yourcontent, and why is that? It's simple.

You experience is unique and different from everyoneelse on this planet, and no one has ever walkeda day in your shoes, so good content is the productof real-life experience.

To put that in perspective, people are attracted to mycontent on gotchseo.

com, because I have real life experience in SEO and that shows in my writing, in my videos, and in my teaching.

Real experience is obviousand you cannot fake it.

The main takeaway in mindset you need to have when you're creating your content is that number one, you're different, and number two, since your experience is unique, just be yourself.

Don't try to emulate otherinfluencers in your industry, you can of course learn from them, but always be yourself because that automatically makesyour content different.

So now that my rant is complete, here are some practical waysto make your content different.

Number one, use unique casestudies with quantitative data.

Case studies and uniquedata are an excellent way to deepen your content, and there are two waysto go about doing it.

First, you can createyour own case studies, which is the best route.

Alternatively, you canreference existing case studies or data from authoritative resources.

Each method will strengthen your content and add another level to it.

If you wanna find nicherelevant case studies, go to Google, and enter thefollowing search string.

Your niche plus case study.

Example would be SEO plus case study.

Now, what if there aren'tcase studies in your industry? Well, that is a golden opportunityfor you to lead the way.

Case studies go hand-in-hand with my next differentiation method, which is to inject relevant stories.

Relevant stories make yourcontent more relatable, and engaging, and they area powerful tool for teaching and persuading as well.

I always tell the membersof Gotcha SEO Academy that they need to build a story database.

And that means sitting down and brainstorming yourexperience in your industry and if you're living, then you have stories and you just need to flush them out.

Now, what if you're new to an industry and don't have manyrelevant stories to share? No worries, because a story is a story, and that means you can borrowstories you've listened to from friends, customers, competitors, or anyone else.

Any relevant story can deepen your content and make it more impactful.

The next method is toleverage all media types.

I truly believe that moremedia types you can add to your content, the better it'll be.

Everyone digest contentdifferently online, some people love articles, while others love video and audio.

You have to cater to these preferences.

Not only that, but itmakes your content deeper and more unique, and the truth is, most businesses won'tgo through the effort of recording videos, creating audio, et cetera.

It's easy to sit behind acomputer and write an article, but it's intimidating andlogistically challenging to record high quality videos and audio.

Just don't be afraid because you can blow past your competitors if you leverage different media types.

It's definitely tough initially but it gets much easier onceyou've built the system.

And there's one huge pointthat I want to emphasize here.

All of your content on yourwebsite should be 100% unique.

And that includes your images, your videos, your charts, et cetera, and this addslevels to your content.

It makes it substantiallydifferent from your competitors'.

Some media types to include inyour content include images, graphics, diagrams, charts, videos, audio files, GIFs, and infographics.

So now you know what you need to do to differentiate your content, but how do you make it betterthan your competitors'? Well, it's actually muchsimpler than you probably think.

If you wanna beat your competitors, simply do this one thing.

Add more value.

For example, if your competitors are ranking with a 2000 word article, then you need to five x or 10 x their value bycreating a 10, 000 word or 20, 000 word resource.

If all of the ranking resultsare tools or software, then you need to create a tool or a piece of softwarethat's 10 x more valuable than what's ranking, or, if all the ranking results areproducts or services pages, then you need to create a product or service that's 10 x more valuable, and I'm sure you get the point by now, but to be better, youhave to be more valuable.

It's as simple as that.

Always ask yourself, whatcan I do to enrich the lives of my prospects and addas much value as possible, given my existing time and resources? So now that you know how tomake your content different and better at a 30, 000 foot level, let me introduce you to a few tactics for keeping your prospects obsessed with your pages or content.

These are what I like tocall engagement hacks, and the methods I've shown you so far are the high-impact actions that will keep your prospects engaged, but here are some additional micro tactics you should be taking advantage of.

Number one, write to an eighth grader.

I always say that youshouldn't create your content for experts, and most peoplewithin a given industry are average proficiency.

That means your contentshould be easy to read and understandable for the average person.

You're not writing a dissertation.

I highly recommend you take advantage of the Flesch reading score metric, so your content is easier to understand.

I personally try to write atan eighth grade level or lower.

Keep in mind that your content isn't about displaying your knowledge.

Design your content to help people achieve a goal or solve a problem.

No one cares about howsmart you think you are.

People are only concerned about how you're going to help them.

Simplify complex problems and make your content easy to understand.

Number two, care aboutgrammar and spelling.

Do your best to clean up your grammar and spelling and the best way to do that is to use Grammarly and Hemingway Writer, because it helps a ton.

You can also hire an editorif you have the budget.

Number three, use short paragraphs.

Big blocks of text gounread on the Internet, so your paragraph shouldbe no more than one to four sentences, and if you're having troublewriting shorter paragraphs, then you probably need to cut the fat from your writing or simplify it.

And the next method is to keepyour content above the fold.

Keeping your content above the fold is particularly importantfor organic search visitors.

That's because they came to your site looking for asolution to their problem, and you should attemptto give them a solution as soon as possible withoutthem having to scroll.

Anything that pushes yourcontent below the fold is usually a distraction and doesn't add value to the reader.

The next method is to useheadings that tell a story.

I personally learned thismethod from Frank Kern, but most internet users scan content before committing to reading it.

And that's when headings come into play.

A reader should be able to understand what your content is about only by reading your headings.

Next method is to use pattern interrupts.

You have to use everytool at your disposal to keep your reader engaged.

That includes multimedia, bullet points, numbered lists, influencer quotes or quotes in general, gated content, quizzes, polls, et cetera, areall methods you can use to break up your content.

The next method is toeliminate distractions.

Most websites are filled withdistractions that add little or no value to the user.

Some of these distractionsinclude your sidebar, ads, or irrelevant pop-ups.

Respect your users' attention and give them what they came to see, and avoid anything that takes away from their problem being solved.

And you have to remember that the experience a user has on your website is what makes him or her come back or not come back.

The truth is short-termconversion-focused thinking usually leads to a poor experience.

Stay content and user centric and your site's experiencewill start to improve.

Now that you know all the strategies and tactics you can use tocreate effective SEO content, it's time to actually create it.

I highly recommend that you build a content production process, even if you're the only person creating.

It's so important toestablish a system early on, because you'll be able to scalemuch faster when you start to add new members to your team.

So here are the positions you need for an effective content production team.

Number one, a project manager.

A PM overseas the project and makes sure that everyoneknows what's going on.

Number two, a content strategist.

A CS is the mastermindbehind the content strategy.

Number three is a copywriter, and the copywriter simplywrites the content.

Number four is a graphic designer.

The GD designs all the customgraphics for your content and remember, unique is always better, and number five is asubject matter expert.

The SME is the person that verifies the accuracy of the information.

Now, you may occupy each of these positionsearly on in your company and that's totally okay.

Now, here's how contentproduction workflow looks with these positions in place.

Stage one, create a content brief.

The content brief is an overview of what you're trying toachieve with the content asset.

It's also where youshould strategize as well.

Some key points to includein the content brief are your target keyword, your target word count, competitor weaknesses thatyou'll end up capitalizing on, differentiation techniquesyou're going to be using, data or research thatyou will end up using, and a content outline or anything that can help the copywriterdo his or her job better.

Stage 2 is to send thebrief to the writer.

Stage 3 is to assigngraphics to the designer.

Stage 4 is to have thesubject matter expert review the content, writing and graphics.

And Stage 5 is to completeall the revisions.

Now, there might be oneother stage in this process if you're creating custompages for your SEO content, which may involve having a web developer and a web designer to create those pages, but in most cases, for mostof your content assets, you probably won't bedoing custom designs, but it is important to mention that because some keywords will require a more advanced strategy whereyou create a custom page.

So after you get throughall of these stages, it's time to optimize your content.

Now, I could create an entire video just for page-level optimization, but here are the key pointsyou need to understand.

Number one, it doesn't matter how much you optimize your page ifyour content is low-quality.

Focus on the content qualityand then optimize it.

Now, the most importantactions to optimize a page are, number one, keyword placement.

Your keyword should be in the URL, title, first sentence, and sprinkled a few times throughout the content.

Number two, keyword variations.

Use Google's suggested results to find keyword variations to place within yourcontent and in headings.

Number three, page loadingspeed and mobile friendliness.

These are no-brainers butyour page should load fast and it should be mobile friendly.

The next method is to use external links.

Link out to trustworthysources in your niche or super trustworthy sourcesfrom .

edu or .

gov websites.

This adds a level oftrust to your content.

Now, keep in mind that yourcontent production process will vary depending onthe type of content.

For example, creating atext-based asset requires a different process thancreating a video or audio asset, and after you've optimized your content, you are ready to publish, and so that's it, right, you just sit back, and watchyour rankings just climb.

Well, I wish it was that simple.

Creating the asset isonly the first stage.

You then need to promoteyour content asset.

And the good news isthat I'll be showing you exactly how to do that in video three in this training series.

And as I've mentioned before, I have a few free downloads for you below including my SEO content optimization checklist, and an example of an SEO content brief.

We'll talk soon.

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