What is an SEO Content Strategy?
Most wedding professionals know that they are supposed to blog, but many have no idea what they should be blogging about. Most also know that these blog posts should be SEO optimized, yet aren’t quite sure what that actually means. Amidst all the confusion, regular blogging is a task that can easily fall by the wayside.
The good news is that establishing an SEO content strategy is easier than you might think. And, once you get the ball rolling, you can use this strategy to generate traffic for your wedding industry blog for months or even years to come.
Here’s how to create a blog content strategy for your website.
Step 1 – Find the Right Keywords
The first step to creating your SEO content strategy is to determine what keywords to target in your content.
Keywords are the terms users search for in search engines in order to find information about a certain topic. For example, someone might use the keyword “Colorado wedding photographer” to find wedding photographers in their local (Colorado) area.
As a website owner, you only want to target keywords that are relevant to what your business offers and/or that are relevant to what your target audience is interested in. That way, you are attracting the right type of traffic to your site when you publish new blog content.
Researching Keywords
Create a list of terms that you think might be relevant to what your audience is interested in. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, some appropriate keywords might include:
- “How to choose a wedding photographer”
- “How much does a wedding photographer cost in X”
- “Do I need to hire a professional wedding photographer”
- “Best wedding photo examples”
- “Wedding photo ideas”
Try to think of as many terms as possible. Then, try using SEO keyword research tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to research these terms, looking at how competitive they are and how much search volume they get.
If you are in a competitive industry like the wedding industry, you will want to find keywords that have a low competition score while still getting decent (100+) search volume.
Keyword research can be tricky if you are new to SEO. If you need help with finding the right keywords for your site, get in touch with us to discuss our Keyword Research and Blogging Strategy options.
Short-Tail vs Long-Tail
Ideally, you will want to target “long-tail” keywords versus “short-tail” keywords because they are more specific and, typically, less competitive. These keywords may get less search volume but usually generate more conversions by attracting highly-targeted traffic.
Short-tail keyword examples:
- “Wedding planner”
- “Italy wedding photographer”
- “Best wedding venues”
Long-tail keyword examples:
- “How to choose the perfect wedding dress”
- “Best Amalfi Coast wedding venues”
- “What to bring to your elopement”
Step 2 – Map Keywords to Blog Post Topics
Next, “map” your keywords to the new blog posts you want to write by coming up with some potential post topics.
For example, if your target keyword is “best Amalfi Coast wedding venues”, a good post title might be “10 Best Amalfi Coast Wedding Venues with Spectacular Views”.
Generate a list of new blog post titles with their corresponding keywords. Now you have a complete list of posts that you can write to attract traffic to your site.
Step 3 – Match Topics/Keywords to Search Intent
One thing that’s important to consider when finalizing your blog post topics is search intent. Search intent basically asks the question, “What is the user hoping to find when they search for this term?”
Your goal is to map each keyword to where the user is at in their Buyer’s Journey. Are they looking for free information? Are they comparing their options? Or are they ready to buy?
Not every keyword works as a blog post. For instance, if a user is searching for “Italy wedding photographer”, they may just be looking for photos of weddings in Italy instead of trying to find a blog post about the best wedding photographers to book in Italy.
Do a quick Google search of each of your keywords and see what comes up. If they are blog posts, you can be pretty confident in targeting that keyword with a blog post. If they are web pages, then you should probably leave that keyword out of your blogging strategy.
Step 4 – Write and Share Your Content
Now that you have your chosen keywords and a list of blog topics, it’s time to write your content.
You will want to follow SEO best practices in order to have the best chance of ranking your blog posts in the search results. These SEO best practices include:
- Using your focus keyword in your blog post title
- Writing a concise yet accurate meta description describing what the blog post is about
- Writing an optimized URL (removing stop words and including the focus keyword, if possible)
- Using the focus keyword and other relevant keywords naturally within the body content of your article
- Adding images with optimized ‘alt’ text
- Including internal links to other pages or posts on your site
Once you have optimized your article and have clicked “publish”, it may take some time to see that organic traffic roll in. But, you can start generating traffic right away by sharing your article on social media or to your email list.
Over time, you will have a better grasp of what your audience is interested in, how to translate that into focus keywords, map those keywords to post topics, and write content that’s optimized for search engines.
As usual, if you have any questions about SEO or how to create a blogging strategy for your wedding industry website, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d love to help!