Finding On-going Content Optimization Opportunities in your SEO Process – #CrawlingMondays 15th Episode

How to identify content optimization opportunities once that you have already gone through the most important areas of your Websites? In this episode of Crawling Mondays I share the criteria, steps and tools.

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Video Transcription

In today’s Crawling Mondays, I would like to address a topic that I don’t think that has been necessarily as well covered, as it should, and that is “how do you do an ongoing content optimization in the different iterations of the rest of your process?” Because, of course, you start and it’s very straight forward because you know that you need identify how your audience searches. You need to identify the terms to target, you classify these terms based on their nature, and if it is informational, if it is transactional, You prioritize then based on how relevant they are towards your business and your website offering, and then do map them with your, your website web structure. You identify, you already have the page list.

Targeting towards these queries, to optimize them further if needed, Or if you need to create content from scratch in order to start addressing them. And based on that, do you optimize the metadata title with descriptions is headings, then the main information that might bring content, identifying what is the type format of this content that is needed or that is required or to fulfill the intent and the need of, of the audience.

You will also very likely, also analyze your competitors in order to understand which are, these players are better ranked by Google for these queries and identifying the patterns that they are following whether content or to prioritize, and after a while of course, you see this, this positive trend over time because of course you have started also monitoring this which are the queries that you had initially selected that are providing this positive evolution with your website and in the Google search console performance reaper, right? So, after this first iteration [inaudible 00:01:50] SEO work, you will start seeing positive trends and then the next question is like “what do you do next?” “What do you do after you have already optimized those top pages, more meaningful pages towards your targeted queries already?”

Then you need to start prioritizing the resources for the next iteration and this is something very important right? Because SEO is an iterative and incremental type of process and you need to tweak and optimize over time, identify opportunities based on, on the monitoring that you do after you do certain actions, certain, certain work and see what is working, what is not.

And this is what I want to talk to you in, in today’s episode, especially with content, right? Like how do you expand or improve content? How do you identify the stock pages, top terms that you need to address over time, prioritize over time. When you very likely don’t have the same type of resources as you initially did, which are the usual steps that I follow, which are the tools that I use to identify these opportunities, this lower hanging fruits, Let’s take a look.

So, one of the best tools to identify these opportunities to continue improving your content is a SERP or SEMrush. And in this particular case, I’m going to show you how I do it with a SERP because I love this top pages report because they, they have a navigation of the top brand pages that bring more traffic and they provide a single report. The main matrix for them, that you can use to not only identify further opportunities to, to improve your content with, to also address and start ranking for all the permutations of the same terms, but also to identify potentially new ideas, to create more content for. Which of these top pages [inaudible 00:03:43] are really much more important from a business perspective, right?

So, in this case, I am doing this analysis for my, website remoters here which is a remote work website. And I can see here that the, the best page at the moment, is this article about ‘Best virtual mailboxes for digital nomads’ and it’s already ranked in position one and you might say, I like that you have already reached the ceiling, for this page, there’s just nothing to do which is wrong, you can still identify opportunities and improve for these page performance, content performance by checking here; “which are these other terms?” and this is why I love this report so much, right? Because it show me the other terms for which these pages is already ranking for. The two by default shows you the best keyword, the top keyword right? The one also with more search volume here. But you may also find additional permutations, Synonyms of, with other terms that you might not necessarily already be using in the content and for which you may want to even tweak even if the search not necessarily as high, but it’s a very low hanging fruit, right?

So, for example here I can see that this page is ranking in third position for best virtual PO box or cheapest virtual mailbox. And, and then there’s also opportunities for virtual mailbox for businesses. So, this is the thing, for best virtual mailboxes and best virtual PO Box, Maybe these are permutations that I can include here, but realistically this is much more address for digital nomads toward digital nomads, and then I can see here a term for business, which I would say that I might even target this article for this term, but it might not necessarily be the most relevant to run with, Right? So, I can start already thinking that it might, might not be a good opportunity if I want to address and to start ranking better for this term, to create another article for virtual mailbox for businesses or for remote based businesses. So, with another type of nature and make it much more meaningful and useful for business as instead of this digital moments, that is the thing.

It’s important to differentiate and see if you will be able to provide something different enough, meaningful enough, authoritative enough and valuable enough for this other type of query of course instead of, continue addressing it with this specific page that you already have. So, this is perfect because it allowed me to see if there are any other term permutations that I can better address or expand this content for, even if it is already in the first position for the main one and I might be happy with it. And then of course there might be all the pages like this one right? That you see that are currently performing at the moment that is ranking position eight for this term, but realistically this term is not necessarily very important for me because it’s not the name of a company that I have included, that I have featured, in the business listings that I have and the website for remote, remote businesses.

So, this doesn’t have necessarily a high business value and it’s important that you also do this. That if it is realistic landing for the page for virtual rank from a business perspective. In this particular case, it is not for me. So, even if it is second in the ranking at the moment, attracting more, more traffic since my business model doesn’t rely on necessarily on pure traffic, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not a traffic that I don’t want of course, but I might better prioritize my resources and my effort just look for opportunities in all the pages that are already ranking more or less well, which have a much more important role for my business model. I will go to the next one and here’s the thing, right? I see in this third page that I am, I am targeting here that again I am in position first again.

The search volume is not so high. I see that I am included in a feature snippet and which is, which is very cool. And I can take a look that I have already two pages linking to these to this particular page, because it’s rich its an attractive page. So, this already gives me a hint that I have done zero in building for it. It’s already attracting a couple of links because it’s useful, it’s meaningful, it’s relevant. Can give me more seniors, more hints that it might be worth it for me to replicate the idea where a similar topic might be useful to cover, which is type of insurances for digital nomads, for remote based companies, not only health. And I can see here that it’s ranking rating in the first position for digital nomads insurance, which is cool, which is very, very relevant towards it, but the volume is very low, right?

So, I can see that there’re all the type of terms like nomad insurance and in this particular case is in position twenty. And take a look is it has a much higher search volumes on international health insurance. In this particular case, even higher search volume. Although I have to say that this will be too niche, too specific to be necessarily relevant for it. So, it might be worth it for me to assess again if, I want to at some point create or develop a much more generic article to address international health insurance in general once they do identify page, that’s very, very important for you. A content that is already relatively well optimize that you have optimized the Metadata, the information that you have created a long format, the type of, of guide because you have seen that this was a format that the users were looking for. Its ranking first for the very specific term that, that specific term doesn’t have all the search volume that you wish to target.

And then you can see here in this particular case that there are all these like, nomad insurance, right? A particular case of nomad insurance once I do identify this additional term that you wish to be able to address and for which this page is still meaningful, it’s still relevant and useful to to rank work, the next step will be to take a look at why you are not yet ranking as well.

In this particular case it’s in position 20 right? So that will be the next step. So, once that identify this keyword opportunity that I would like to to better rank for, and I want to understand how I can improve and expand my content in order to to rank for it and I think that my already existing content will be meaningful enough and even if, lets imagine if not, if I end up realizing that my current content is not, I, I with this analysis, I would better understand what I need to create something that will be competitive enough to, with the currently ranked pages. So, nomad insurance in this particular case, right?

I come and check which are the current level ranked pages already, for this particular term. I use for this SEO minion and I geo located for, to see the results in the U.S and the UK which are two of my top markets here that I rank for, where my website with this particular page. And I can see already here that in the first position it is called nomads, the one that is ranking in the case of, of the UK. It is called nomads but in the UK, the geo-localized version of of the website where that specific [inaudible 00:10:37] and I can see that of course in this particular case is it’s much more specific because they are ranking with particular landing pages that has high, a high relevance and the title but the description, the same with the, the position here is a particular article here of the brogue back packer, relatively well known websites in the sector. Few of them I can see there, there is a mix up of transactional type of pages providing specifically the problem and not necessarily only informational guides.

So, it’s important to understand here the mix of the nature and the format of these figures are already being ranked for this term and the role that not only the content roles, the links are playing. For this to rank for, go and check and validate this further with sub checking in order to better understand the role of the links and the popularity of these pages. Because I see that these are very well established big players and I want, I want to understand the role of links in the rankings. And I get take a look here for again, nomad insurance in the US ‘world nomads’ again first position, with a couple of pages then the ‘Brogue back packer’ the same. And when I check the volume of links, for each one of this pages of rankings right? I can see that they, they have quite a few 65, 122, 10, 36, 14, 27 and then, I will say is to put that in context with my page right?

I see here at position 18, my own specific page and then I understand that just in my particular case I only have one link. I am in disadvantage from a link popularity perspective, for this query that, it’s much more competitive. Once that I have to review the role of link popularity or these pages to rank, I want to do the same from of course a content perspective because at the end of the day remember that I wanted to identify also these pages that have a better content opportunity formation, to update to optimize them and to create at some point, for this continuous content optimization process.

So I, I can see that maybe ‘nomad insurance’ won’t only require more content or better content, right? But also links. But of course, people will links towards what? Towards content at the end of day, right?

So, not only because I will need more links in order to be able to rank or be competitive for the stuff, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t put up content, but maybe that, for example, there is another page targeting another query with the same type of search volume and, and it is as important for me from a business perspective that doesn’t require as many links, to rank with, so maybe I can start with that even before, and prioritize even further because I will tend to see even same type of results quicker, because for that query which will need a necessarily as many links to rank for. For example, this is the type of ranking right? Let’s continue check for this one, What is the role of content? What type of content does it needs? In order to perform better, what is the role that content has for the rankings of these four pages?

I do this analysis in this particular case with content assistant of cognitiveSEO. I added here the, the keyword, ‘nomad insurance’ it is like the english US database. I go to the ranking of analysis, and it tells me, look at it identified to be an informational type of query. And these are the top pages are being ranked and their content performance, the type of focus keywords that they are included, the number of words that they are featuring, et cetera, right?

So I can check specifically each one of of the top ranking one and I can see that the first one even, even if it is travel insurance, there’s not a stack match in the terms. I can see that of course the content performance is high because you can see more than 2600 words and this content is relevant and not only for travel insurance, world nomad, at the end of that is the brand name, nomads travel, insurance company, nomads travel insurance, medical insurance world nomad travel insurance, the readability score of these particular pages, which result to open these pages and to under understand how they are structured, how they are formatted, if these are listings, if these are comparisons, if they’re images, if there’re videos, if there’re also opportunities with the features that we can optimize for to maximize our visibility in serves, that is another step of course.

But in general I can see that, it was not only that these pages have more links than mine, but let’s take a look. The the content of these two pages are a feature in [inaudible 00:15:01] is like 2000 words more, 2,600 words in the first position. This other one is at more than 4,000 words, more than 2000 again, 5,000 in these older case, 12,000 but yes, all of these top pages that are being ranked, although there might be a few that are much more transactional focus.

These older ones, I can see that they are guides definitely of an informational nature providing very long form of content that we can go and check and revise and see how all these compare versus ours, but very quick way we can go and check ours here. And I can see that yes, remoters is relevant but it doesn’t have as much content as as the other ones here and included as, including as many keywords, focus keywords that the others have.

Of course we can see here that I go and compare any of these players that are ranking in the first positions. In the case of remoters, We can see that this article, right? Which is not bad It’s a comparison of the pros and cons on the top Players in the industry. But it’s very short, I have to say we could have done a much better work with a bigger type of summary of the article for sure.

It’s a real assistant in order to choose the best nomad insurance besides providing the overview of the most important ones. And in this particular case we can see that this is definitely what I mentioned before, a much more long form content. So yes, even in the first player is transactional type of landing page providing this particular product, we can see that this other player here, that is much better ranking than than my own page here. It’s is doing that, and also fulfilling in a much more complete way all of the needs, all of the types of questions that a nomad, digital nomad will have. Take a look is huge, it’s long, and not only because it’s long, it might be necessarily better, but in this particular case we can see how this article better address and better fulfills query of the user. And in these other case it’s the same.

It provides a much longer intro here for the information. It addresses many other questions that as I mentioned before, are just typical fit for cues, that we could have address too. You will be fulfilled by content like this and very likely that the answer will be yes. Not only yes, but yes and in a much better way that the content that you are providing here.

This is why of course the goal is given a better ranking two to a page like this because it’s actually doing a much better work. I would want to actually expand this particular page to better rank for this term cause it has a much higher search volumes. Realistically, I would need to attract a little bit more links, but, the way to attract links is to create also good good content. Relevant content that actually fulfills well the user, and realistically, those players ranking in the first top positions are already doing a much better work than I do. So, if for the first iteration, this article was good, that’s okay.

It allows me to rank for this very specific, not necessarily as competitive term but if I want to go and rank for a much more competitive term that is still relevant, I will definitely need to expand that content. How? I have the best examples here, with this articles that are already ranking the first positions. I expand it well if I formatted well, if I do a much better work, work addressing these queries I will be able to compete with them. And maybe I, I should do also a little better for the work, because there might be other opportunities to include comparisons, features or even tried to generate certain features as interesting. For example, as I am already generating whether it’s for the article here, why not? And this is the logic by analyzing my already thought ranking pages.

Lower hanging fruits again, which are those next pages that you should optimize, expand further in order to take them from position eight, from position five to position third, position second, position first, right? For queries that are meaningful for you, the topics are really, really important for you from a business perspective. And this is where you can better prioritize and allocate your resources, so, hopefully this was helpful and if you have any other aspect that you will like to me to cover in the next Crawling Mondays, please let me know. Of course, if you have any questions, let me know also in the comments. I’ll be more than happy to answer you. Thank you very much.