12 Content Strategy Rules and on-page SEO Tactics Anyone can Use to Increase Leads

Creating content comes down to satisfying the technical prerequisites of search engines while also appealing to your audience and ensuring you’re writing for engagement. It’s the highest priority to fulfill both of these expectations.

Knowing which content types work for your audience, however, can take time. Waiting for content to boost rankings and increase organic traffic can sometimes be challenging, especially in moments where you come to find out a strategy isn’t working.

Here are 12 content strategy rules we believe should be kept in mind as you build effective content marketing.

Length, keyword usage, and keyword distribution.

Determine the ideal length for your audience. Invest the time to do keyword research to ensure you’re working with the right keywords. Do not overstuff them in content. Instead, distribute them intelligently and in the most natural ways throughout.

Meta tags.

Get to know what you should include in meta tags and which keywords are best placed there. Google renders metadata in specific ways and so it’s worth noting how this is done to ensure you’re not wasting time with meta descriptions that don’t work.

Identifying top-performing articles.

Analytics should be given a lot of attention, in any content marketing campaign. Alongside determining what’s not working, identifying top-performing articles is important. Editing and optimizing the articles which aren’t performing may also help in strengthening your campaign.

Formatting content to be used by Google answers.

Ensure you’re using schema markup as appropriate across each article you write. Schema can help in getting content featured in Google answers and help elevate your content marketing to the top of search engine queries.

Using header tags properly.

Header tags should be equipped with keywords and click-friendly language. Always give serious thought to what you want to include in your headers. You don’t want to waste headers on language that doesn’t need to be there.

Competitive research.

When you complete research into your local industry and your competition, it oftentimes helps content marketers identify new subjects to explore and new topics to write about. If you’re at a loss for writing, competitive research is a key strategy to use to help give you ideas on where to take things next.

Accuracy of information.

In journalism, one’s writing can’t afford to be wrong. You should employ the same standards as developing content marketing. If you’re making claims, back them up with facts. If you’re using statistics, cite them as appropriate.

Prioritize evergreen content.

‘Evergreen content’ is content that doesn’t date and which will always be relevant to your audience. As important as it’s to jump on top of timely conversations happening in culture, evergreen content is what will support your site in the long-term.

Common punctuation and grammar errors.

You don’t want to give anyone the impression you don’t know how to write. Always check your blogs for punctuation and grammar errors. You’ll ensure your content doesn’t appear less than professional.

Creating a calendar.

Content should be posted on a regular schedule – whether that’s one per week, every day, twice monthly, or however, you want to structure it. Also, having a calendar, you can plan topics according to the time of year.

Establishing a style guide.

A style guide can be extremely useful – especially if you’re hiring a blog writer and/or are using different people to develop content.

Formatting content visually.

Know how you want to format content from a visual perspective i.e. how to use images, how to use videos, and how to develop paragraphs.

Writing headlines that beg to be clicked.

When you create your headlines for content marketing, this is the one thing that’s going to influence your CTR perhaps more than anything else. Write thoughtful, engaging, and relevant headlines that matter most to your audience.

Speak to a content marketing expert at Unlimited Exposure for more rules and on-page SEO tactics which can be used to maximize the success of your blog.