How to Write Content that Ranks Well
Guest post by Tyler Nalbach
Writing content can be a tough task. It can take a lot of time to create content that will be valuable for people to read. It is even harder to create content that ranks well in the search engines.
You could create a high-quality piece of content, but if it doesn’t rank high in Google, there is a good chance nobody will even see it. The primary focus should be creating high quality content, but I am going to give you some tips on how you can help your content rank better in the search results.
Selecting a topic
To create content that ranks well, it starts with selecting the topic. You can still write about what you want to write about, but it helps if you slightly adjust your topic in ways that will help your content be seen more.
The goal is to create content that is useful, but to also make sure that your content is seen by as many people as possible. My favorite way to write content is to take what my competitors are writing about and either write about something similar or put a different twist on that topic.
If you have an Ahrefs account, you can go through your competitors’ content to see which pages rank the best. If you don’t have an Ahrefs account, I would recommend just going through your competitors’ blogs to find topics you could provide value on.
Keyword Research
Once you have your topic picked out, you can move onto keyword research. This part is very important because you are going to have a much better chance of ranking high for a keyword that has less competition. In a lot of cases, you can benefit from targeting a more specific keyword, than the broad term.
For example, maybe you want to write about “workout plans”. This phrase gets searched a lot, and there is a lot of competition around it as well. But if you change this to something like “Workout plans for building muscle”, there is going to be less competition for this, and it will give you a better chance of ranking.
My favorite free strategy for keyword research is using both the Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest. The Google Keyword Planner allows you to search specific keywords, and it will give you search volume, competition, CPC, and other keyword suggestions. I personally don’t love the metrics in Google Keyword Planner; however, the keyword suggestions are very helpful.
I like to take the keyword suggestions and plug them into Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest will give you more accurate metrics to look at. It will tell you the estimated search volume, and competition for the keyword you enter.
You shouldn’t rely entirely on this, but this will give you a good idea on how much traffic you might be able to receive, as well as how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword.
Ideally, you want to find keywords with a higher search volume and lower competition. Working with a local SEO company can be helpful in finding what keywords are going to benefit you the most.
Analyzing Content
After you figure out your topic and target keywords, the next thing you should do is analyze the content that is already out there. My favorite thing to do is analyze the top ranking pages for my target keywords. This content is ranking on the first page for a reason, so it would be beneficial to put something together that is similar to these pages.
Some things to look at when you are analyzing these pages is how many words are included in these pages, what type of media is included, and what headings and topics they are including. This will help guide in the right direction in what you can include in your content to have a good chance of ranking
Skyscraper Technique
The best way to write content that ranks well is to use the skyscraper technique. This involves analyzing the top ranking content as I mentioned in the previous section. With the skyscraper technique, what you are trying to do, is create similar content to what is currently ranking, but take steps to make your content even better than what is already there.
This could involve going more in depth on the content you are writing about or including more visuals such as images and videos. If you create similar, but better content than what is already ranking, you are setting your page up to rank well in the search results.
On-page Optimization
On-page optimization is a big part in getting your content ranked. This is referring to making adjustments to your page to help search engines understand that your content is about your topic and target keywords.
There are a plenty of things to consider when performing on-page optimization. Some of the main things you should take a look at are the title tag, description, headers, keyword usage, and image optimization. In all of these areas, you want to use your keyword as naturally as possible.
Don’t force your keyword in places that it doesn’t belong. Keyword density is not a ranking factor, so don’t worry about including your keyword a specific number of times.
As far as image optimization, I would recommend including your target keywords in the file name and alt text when possible. Search engines cannot understand images like it can text, so it uses the file name and alt text to determine what the images are about, which creates relevance within your content as a whole.
Takeaways
Choosing your topics and keywords is the first most important thing in creating content that ranks well. You want to target keywords that have a high search volume and low competition.
I like looking at the content that is currently ranking well and then making my content similar, but better than that content. After you have a high-quality piece of content, it is important to optimize your content by including keywords naturally in the title tag, description, headers, content, and images.
