There is more to content SEO than simply doing keyword research and adding them to a text. Some examples. p.s.: if you disagree, you deny this website :p
Placing keywords in texts is merely the practical end phase of a larger web/marketing strategy. You should understand this environment and the location of search engine marketing within it. I intend to show you that there is more to ‘content SEO’ or ‘SEO copywriting’ than simply inserting keywords into the website’s content. The questions and situations posted below are only some examples and by no means exhaustive.
Working in project teams
Especially within large projects you’re just one member of a project team of specialists. These specialists operate better when they recognize and understand each other’s expertise. Think about (marketing) managers, content managers, usability experts, web designers, decision makers, and more.
It will help you a lot if you know how they work, and how SEO can be integrated smoothly within their content creation workflow, especially when you’re dealing with larger groups of content managers like journalists and professional writers.
Different content types
Every type of content requires a different approach. So do styles, target groups and even the companies you work for. The differences might not be so big, but it will help you if you recognise them!
Publications differ from forum topics, press releases from landing pages, FAQ’s from weblog articles. Is a text intended to inform, convince, teach, or perhaps a combination…? What about the style guidelines of the company you’re optimizing for, or the jargon within the company? And what about target groups? Are these texts aimed towards adolescents, scientists, linkerati, business owners, customers?
In this case, the difference between the research a ‘normal’ copywriter and an SEO is very much alike, because they are both looking for the right words and styles that make users ‘click’.
Advanced meta content questions
Title-tags and meta-descriptions can be written in many different ways. It is NOT simply a question of inserting keywords. Do you include a call to action in it? Should the main keyword(s) or the company name be the first? And what kind of title-tags and meta-descriptions does the competition use? How do you stand out in the crowd? How do you deal with titles that are generated massively by a large e-commerce site? Things like that ask for a clever way to deal with these texts and leave basic SEO behind.
Content creation management
Doing SEO copywriting this way also means doing project-management. You have to think about quality control, the organization and versioning of documents, the tools to use, writing guidelines, outsourcing, planning and deadlines. Also, think about where content is coming from. Do you hire students and let an experienced SEO review it? Do you reuse (parts of) the content in other parts of the website, for instance news leads or short product descriptions? Questions like that are part of your SEO content strategy and are a lot more interesting than the boring old keyword insertion stuff.
Conclusion: strategy, cooperation and advanced SEO
Keyword use in bodytext and metatext is only the beginning of content SEO. After that, things like different content types, cooperation with other experts, marketing strategy and even advanced SEO copywriting come into play. It makes it a whole lot more interesting, which is why I started this website in the first place ;)
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