If you want to start ranking in search engines, you’ll need to publish great content.
However, in order to create valuable content, you’ll want to follow each stage of the SEO content creation process.
It’s a vital part of SEO editing and writing content that appeals to both readers and search engines.
- What Is The SEO Content Creation Process?
- Why Is The SEO Content Creation Process Important?
- 6 Stages of The SEO Content Creation Process
- Conclusion: Following The SEO Content Creation Process Is Vital For Effective Content Marketing
What Is The SEO Content Creation Process?
The SEO content creation process is the stages through which you produce content for your target audience.
There are 6 steps involved: planning, writing, revising, publishing, promoting, and evaluating.
By breaking down the process into individual stages, you can create an effective content marketing strategy.
Why Is The SEO Content Creation Process Important?
The SEO content creation process is important because it helps you organize your content production.
An effective content marketing strategy requires a lot more than simply making a collection of random blog posts.
Good organization is vital to developing an effective SEO strategy and ranking in search engines.
For large brands with lots of resources to form a full SEO team, it helps you break down the responsibilities for members of your team.
For small brands with a small digital marketing team or SEO editors, it helps you keep track of your content marketing strategy.
6 Stages of The SEO Content Creation Process
By breaking down the entire SEO content creation process into individual stages, it will be easier to stick to an effective SEO strategy.
Remember, the process is cyclical, meaning you’ll need to repeat the process continually to see results.
1. Planning
The first stage of the SEO content creation process is planning.
Planning is important so you can target the right keywords and write engaging content for your audience.
This stage involves keyword research, which will help you determine which keywords you’d like to rank for in search engines.
Once you have an idea of which keywords you’d like to rank for, you can brainstorm article ideas.
From there, you can create a content production calendar so you publish content on a regular basis.
If you have an SEO team, you’ll also want to distribute articles to writers with briefs of how they should be written.
If you’re an SEO editor with no team members, you’re ready to move onto the next phase.
2. Writing
The second step is the writing stage.
This is the point where you’ll start actually start writing your articles and begin executing your plan.
While you should decide this in the planning phase, you’ll want to make sure you write at least one piece of cornerstone content, the most important content on your site.
You’ll also want to ensure you’re writing supporting articles that link to your cornerstone article, and vice versa.
Finally, make sure you’re following the best practices for SEO content writing.
3. Revising
For large brands with multiple writers, the revision stage will be crucial.
Every writer has their own style, so you’ll want to ensure all the content on your site has a similar tone and style.
This is also the point at which you can add additional internal links and any important information that was left out in the first draft.
This stage is also important for smaller brands or one-person SEO operations.
Whether you have a friend take a look at your first draft, or you let it sit for a day before coming back to revise it yourself, you’ll want to make sure you’re making your writing as engaging and useful as possible.
Without awesome content, your SEO efforts will fall short.
4. Publishing
The publishing stage is the point where you actually post your article to your site.
While this step seems pretty straightforward, there are small details you’ll want to pay attention to.
For example, if the original draft was imported into your site’s publisher, was any formatting changed in the transfer?
You’ll also want to make sure your links are pointing to the right destinations, your category and tag settings are appropriate, and your images have alt-text.
It’s key to look over every detail of your content and publishing settings at least one time before hitting the “publish” button.
5. Promoting
Once you publish your content, the next stage in the SEO content creation process is the promotion of your content.
It would be great if you could rely entirely on Google to show your posts in its results pages.
However, SEO editing is a long-term strategy and search engines probably won’t put you on the first page immediately.
This is why promoting your content through other channels is vital.
One great way to do this is via social media.
However, you’ll want to make sure you’re targeting the right audience on social media.
For example, if you’re a B2B brand, it will probably make sense to promote your content on a platform like LinkedIn.
The more traffic you can drive to your site, the better.
Once people start sharing and linking to your content, Google will recognize that you are a trustworthy source and will be more likely to provide you with organic traffic in its results pages.
6. Evaluating
The final step in the process is the evaluation stage.
In this stage, you track how your content is performing so you can adjust your plan and continually improve your content.
To track your performance, you can use a free tool like Google Analytics to see data like page views, bounce rate, and session times.
This will give you an idea of what content is performing best so you can focus on creating similar content.
Google Analytics can also provide you with demographic information so you can get a better idea of your target audience and create content that is more tailored to them.
Once you evaluate how your content marketing efforts are going, you can use that information to adjust your plan as you work your way through the SEO content creation process again.
Conclusion: Following The SEO Content Creation Process Is Vital For Effective Content Marketing
Breaking the SEO Content Creation Process down into individual stages is the perfect way to organize your SEO strategy.
It’s an effective tool for large brands with full teams dedicated to SEO, as well as small brands with individual SEO editors.
However, you can’t only rely on this process.
For example, you’ll want to make sure you are going back to older posts from time to time and updating them with links to new posts and fresh information.
This is why having an SEO editor with expertise is key to making the most of your SEO strategy.
If you’re looking for someone to help you, contact me and we can discuss more.