- In this video, I'm going to show you
my exact step-by-step process
for creating keyword targeted pages
that consistently rank on
the first page of Google.
In fact, I've used this
exact process you're about
to learn to rank on the first page
of Google for super competitive
e-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 free
traffic from search engines.
And today, I'm going to show
you my step-by-step SEO
content 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 watch
this 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 one
in this training series,
I'm going to walk you through the process
of how I would create a
keyword targeted page.
So for this demonstration,
I'm going to select GOMAD diet
as my target keyword phrase.
So the first step of this process
is to establish your
search 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 help
you to step into the shoes
of searcher, but I also want
to help you avoid guessing,
so here are the primary
categories of searcher intent.
The first type of searcher intent are
going to be informational queries.
And informational search
queries 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 are
probably not ready to buy,
so that's why you need to
create educational based content
that satisfies this type of intent.
The second type of intent
are for comparison queries.
Searchers at this stage
are deeper into the funnel
and they're trying to figure out what
solution they want to choose.
An example would be Nike
shoes versus Adidas shoes.
The third type of intent is transactional,
which means that the searcher
is 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 searcher
already knows the brand,
or is a customer of the brand.
For example, when someone
searches Gotch SEO,
they already know my brand
and are navigating to it.
Pretty much every keyword
phrase will fall under one
or two of these categories.
So after you've thought about that,
all you need to do is
analyze the ranking results
for your target keyword,
so if the majority of the
results are blog posts,
you know you need to create a blog post.
If the majority of the
results 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 gonna
do is I'm gonna show you
how to satisfy search intent
for this specific keyword
phrase which is GOMAD diet.
So what you want to do is
just scan through the results
and look for some common
themes that we're seeing here,
so in this case, what you're
gonna notice right away
is that the first three
results are articles,
so that's a good sign and now
as 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 an
in-depth article about
this particular topic, because
Google is showing us how
they are satisfying intent
for this particular keyword phrase,
so that's really all that you
need to know for going through
and trying to figure out how
you're actually gonna satisfy
the intent, and if you
see a lot of articles,
then you know that you
need 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 actual
intent 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 be
primarily crafted to educate
and give information to
this 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 just
write 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, developing
an intelligent strategy
is the most important
part of this process,
and my formula for beating
the competitors is simple.
Create a page that is
substantially different,
and 10 x better than
what's currently ranking.
And the different part is
the most critical part of the strategy.
That's why I'm going to
show you several ways
to differentiate your content
from 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 strengths
and weaknesses are,
and I recommend you do this before
you even think about
creating your content,
because this is gonna make the
whole 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 strategic
advantages for you.
Do what they aren't doing.
Articles are easy to create,
but creating other forms of
media is more challenging
and the more challenging something is,
the less likely people
are 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 competitors
and 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 create
a 3000 word content asset.
Number three, readability.
Can you make your content
easier 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 readability
point you wanna analyze
is the simplicity of the content.
Is the content written
for 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 is
if your target market
are the experts within a given field.
Number four, design and UX.
Some websites focus on
monetization instead of UX,
and this is your advantage.
Websites that perform
well in organic search
are usually user and content centric.
You have to remember
that 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 from
what 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 better
if we're gonna create
a content asset around
this 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 going
to other pages on its site.
He actually does link out
to 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 have
a ton of media on it.
So this is actually one thing
that you could definitely do better
if you're creating an
asset around this keyword
is you could first of all add more images,
second of all, you could add more video,
and number three, you could
actually custom design this page
if you really wanted to
get 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 can
create a custom image
and make this a lot
more 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 both
of these content assets
were created in 2015, so
they're definitely dated,
so you can take advantage
of the that as well.
And then the third competitor here,
got all kinds of stuff going on,
so right now, this is all
bad for user experience,
so obviously, you wouldn't
want to be doing this,
because I haven't even
scrolled on this website
and I'm already getting hit with a pop-up,
so it means they haven't really
optimized their user intent
for this pop-up, so this
is something you would
want to avoid, and in the long run,
this is gonna hurt them
because interstitial pop-ups
are definitely something
Google's targeting.
And they have another one
here for push notification,
so exit out of these, and
then we'll go ahead and just
look at this content overall,
and it's definitely a
good 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 try
to avoid using stock photos,
and try to use nothing but
custom images if possible.
These all look like stock photos,
and once again, this looks
like a pretty good piece of content,
but definitely something
that could be beat.
So the fourth competitor here,
they have a custom image which is great,
but the overall readability
of this content isn't great,
and then they have
another stock photo here,
so there's a lot that can be
improved on this page as well.
So really, as we examine
these competitors,
it's pretty obvious that the
way 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 are
trying to target a keyword,
you want to see what
they are not doing well,
so you can do even better
than they are doing,
and of course, with this
particular competitor,
we know that they are
using aggressive pop-ups,
so that something that we'd want to avoid,
so that we have optimal user
experience on our website.
So now you have a firm
understanding 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 your
content, and why is that?
It's simple.
You experience is unique
and different from everyone
else on this planet,
and no one has ever walked
a day in your shoes,
so good content is the product
of real-life experience.
To put that in perspective,
people are attracted to my
content 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 obvious
and 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 other
influencers in your industry,
you can of course learn from them,
but always be yourself because
that automatically makes
your content different.
So now that my rant is complete,
here are some practical ways
to make your content different.
Number one, use unique case
studies with quantitative data.
Case studies and unique
data are an excellent way
to deepen your content,
and there are two ways
to go about doing it.
First, you can create
your own case studies,
which is the best route.
Alternatively, you can
reference existing case studies
or data from authoritative resources.
Each method will strengthen your content
and add another level to it.
If you wanna find niche
relevant case studies,
go to Google, and enter the
following search string.
Your niche plus case study.
Example would be SEO plus case study.
Now, what if there aren't
case studies in your industry?
Well, that is a golden opportunity
for 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 your
content more relatable,
and engaging, and they are
a powerful tool for teaching
and persuading as well.
I always tell the members
of Gotcha SEO Academy
that they need to build a story database.
And that means sitting down
and brainstorming your
experience 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 many
relevant stories to share?
No worries, because a story is a story,
and that means you can borrow
stories 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 to
leverage all media types.
I truly believe that more
media types you can add
to your content, the better it'll be.
Everyone digest content
differently online,
some people love articles,
while others love video and audio.
You have to cater to these preferences.
Not only that, but it
makes your content deeper
and more unique, and the truth is,
most businesses won't
go through the effort
of recording videos,
creating audio, et cetera.
It's easy to sit behind a
computer and write an article,
but it's intimidating and
logistically 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 once
you've built the system.
And there's one huge point
that I want to emphasize here.
All of your content on your
website should be 100% unique.
And that includes your images,
your videos, your charts,
et cetera, and this adds
levels to your content.
It makes it substantially
different from your competitors'.
Some media types to include in
your 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 better
than your competitors'?
Well, it's actually much
simpler 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 by
creating a 10,000 word
or 20,000 word resource.
If all of the ranking results
are tools or software,
then you need to create a tool
or a piece of software
that's 10 x more valuable
than what's ranking, or,
if all the ranking results are
products 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, you
have to be more valuable.
It's as simple as that.
Always ask yourself, what
can I do to enrich the lives
of my prospects and add
as much value as possible,
given my existing time and resources?
So now that you know how to
make 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 to
call 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 you
shouldn't create your content
for experts, and most people
within a given industry
are average proficiency.
That means your content
should 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 at
an 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 how
smart 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 about
grammar 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 editor
if you have the budget.
Number three, use short paragraphs.
Big blocks of text go
unread on the Internet,
so your paragraph should
be no more than one
to four sentences, and
if you're having trouble
writing shorter paragraphs,
then you probably need to cut the fat
from your writing or simplify it.
And the next method is to keep
your content above the fold.
Keeping your content above the fold
is particularly important
for organic search visitors.
That's because they came
to your site looking for a
solution to their problem,
and you should attempt
to give them a solution
as soon as possible without
them having to scroll.
Anything that pushes your
content below the fold
is usually a distraction
and doesn't add value to the reader.
The next method is to use
headings that tell a story.
I personally learned this
method 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 every
tool 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, are
all methods you can use
to break up your content.
The next method is to
eliminate distractions.
Most websites are filled with
distractions that add little
or no value to the user.
Some of these distractions
include 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-term
conversion-focused thinking
usually leads to a poor experience.
Stay content and user centric
and your site's experience
will start to improve.
Now that you know all the strategies
and tactics you can use to
create 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 to
establish a system early on,
because you'll be able to scale
much 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 everyone
knows what's going on.
Number two, a content strategist.
A CS is the mastermind
behind the content strategy.
Number three is a copywriter,
and the copywriter simply
writes the content.
Number four is a graphic designer.
The GD designs all the custom
graphics for your content
and remember, unique is always better,
and number five is a
subject matter expert.
The SME is the person that verifies
the accuracy of the information.
Now, you may occupy each
of these positions
early on in your company
and that's totally okay.
Now, here's how content
production workflow looks
with these positions in place.
Stage one, create a content brief.
The content brief is an overview
of what you're trying to
achieve with the content asset.
It's also where you
should strategize as well.
Some key points to include
in the content brief
are your target keyword,
your target word count,
competitor weaknesses that
you'll end up capitalizing on,
differentiation techniques
you're going to be using,
data or research that
you will end up using,
and a content outline or anything
that can help the copywriter
do his or her job better.
Stage 2 is to send the
brief to the writer.
Stage 3 is to assign
graphics to the designer.
Stage 4 is to have the
subject matter expert review
the content, writing and graphics.
And Stage 5 is to complete
all the revisions.
Now, there might be one
other stage in this process
if you're creating custom
pages for your SEO content,
which may involve having a web developer
and a web designer to create those pages,
but in most cases, for most
of your content assets,
you probably won't be
doing custom designs,
but it is important to mention
that because some keywords will require
a more advanced strategy where
you create a custom page.
So after you get through
all 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 points
you need to understand.
Number one, it doesn't matter how much
you optimize your page if
your content is low-quality.
Focus on the content quality
and then optimize it.
Now, the most important
actions 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 your
content and in headings.
Number three, page loading
speed and mobile friendliness.
These are no-brainers but
your page should load fast
and it should be mobile friendly.
The next method is to use external links.
Link out to trustworthy
sources in your niche
or super trustworthy sources
from .edu or .gov websites.
This adds a level of
trust to your content.
Now, keep in mind that your
content production process
will vary depending on
the type of content.
For example, creating a
text-based asset requires
a different process than
creating 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 watch
your rankings just climb.
Well, I wish it was that simple.
Creating the asset is
only the first stage.
You then need to promote
your content asset.
And the good news is
that 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.
