10 Content Strategy Deliverables to Ensure a Foundation for SEO Success
You’ve probably already heard about the importance of search engine optimization — or maybe you haven’t…
Maybe you’ve spent hours researching how to develop a content strategy but you’re still not sure you understand the components.
SEO content strategy can seem complicated — but it doesn’t have to be.
No matter if you’ve got years of experience, or you’re creating content online for the first time, this guide can help.
Keep reading to learn ten different content strategy deliverables that will provide you with a foundation for search engine optimization success.
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Contents
Why is it Important to Develop an SEO Content Strategy?
SEO content strategy is often thought of as creating content with specific keywords that your customers are searching for.
Sadly, doing business this way can have negative impacts on your website or business.
In order to…
- Convert traffic into leads
- Know your expertise and industry
- Understand your audience
… you have to develop a content strategy to help plan your website’s content. And that is what makes developing an SEO content strategy so important.
In a digital age, SEO content is what’s going to gain you customers and increase your revenue.
Your SEO content strategy may change a number of times — and that’s okay. As your strategy improves, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t work for your business.
Why Should You Be Aware of Content Strategy Deliverables?
Whether you’re a content specialist looking for ways to improve your content or you’re a business owner looking to increase traffic to your business’ website and increase brand awareness — you should understand the importance of content strategy deliverables.
As a Client
As a client, you should know what to expect from any content marketing agency/specialist. You want to know they’re establishing and meeting benchmarks in your strategy for success.
As a Content Specialist
Clients want to be confident that as a content specialist, or content marketer, you will provide them with the results they are looking for.
Establishing and fulfilling deliverables will earn you more work in the long run.
Content Strategy Process and Deliverables
Content is everywhere — literally, it’s all over the internet.
And with so much information at the tips of consumers’ fingertips, it’s vital that content marketers, businesses, and content creators have a content strategy and a set of deliverables to provide customers with content that is:
- Meaningful
- Valuable
- Easily accessible
How do you access and improve your SEO content strategy? In the following sections, we share ten different ways to improve your processes and attain results.
Deliverable #1: Website Audit
You’ve got your website up and running, but how do you get your website seen by potential customers?
That’s where a website audit comes in.
In the simplest terms, a website audit is an analysis of your entire website — all the factors that determine your website’s ranking and visibility in search engines.
Basically, an SEO audit looks at the totality of your website by figuring out what Google…
- Sees
- Likes
- And doesn’t like
…on your website and coming up with ways to improve and change all the different components that need it.
It assesses everything from…
- The content
- The responsiveness
- The speed of your site
- Error codes
… And everything in between.
Importance of an SEO Audit
The data compiled from an SEO audit is one of the best ways to start your SEO content strategy.
Without it, you may never know that three of your website’s pages have 404 error messages — or that the keywords you’ve been using are targeting the wrong audiences.
If you know that you need to perform an SEO audit but are unsure of how to or you don’t want to spend hours figuring it out. the professionals at Portland SEO Growth can help. Click here to learn more.
Deliverable #2: Buyer Persona Outline
A buyer persona is the representation of your ideal customer/client.
Creating your buyers’ persona is finding and creating detailed information about who your ideal customer is — who is likely to purchase what you’re offering?
When you know who your ideal client is you can tailor your content and marketing towards that person or audience.
Creating a buyer persona outline is simple, but it takes some time. It involves data you’ve already gathered from customers.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Who are you connecting with?
- What problem are you solving?
- What are your customers buying?
- Where can you connect with those customers?
- How can you connect with them on a deeper level?
Use this information to create an outline of who you are trying to connect with.
Importance of Establishing Your Buyer Persona(s)
Establishing your buyer persona(s) will not only create enhanced messaging and improved targeting — but if done correctly, it will greatly increase your ROI.
Deliverable #3: Outline a Buyer’s Cycle
The buyer’s cycle is something every customer goes through when purchasing goods or services.
The cycle includes buyers who are:
- Unaware — this type of buyer is not actively searching for a solution to a problem. IE: What is SEO?
- Problem Aware — the potential buyer realizes they have a problem that needs to be solved, so they begin researching solutions with no intention of buying anything. IE: Portland Marketing Company
- Solution Aware — A potential customer knows of at least one solution to his/her problem but doesn’t know who can solve it. At this point, they are looking to solve their problem and make a purchase.
- Brand Aware — At this point, the buyer knows:
- Their problem
- What solutions can be offered;
- And knows of a brand or company that will solve their problem.
At this stage, the chances of them buying from that brand are very likely.
Importance of Visualizing a Buyer’s Cycle
Now, you understand the basics of a buyer’s cycle — but why’s that so important?
Knowing how to create content based on the stage the person searching the internet is in is the key to building brand awareness and getting potential buyers to take action.
Deliverable #4: Keyword Research
You’ve figured out what’s working for your business and what isn’t.
Now that you understand who your ideal client/customers are and what they’re searching for— you can start your keyword research.
Keyword research involves researching the queries that your target audience enters into search engines when looking for products or services.
Keywords are the words and phrases in your content making it possible for people to find your website through search engines.
Importance of Keyword Research
The content you want to rank for needs to be included in your website.
This is why it’s so important to understand the intent of the keywords you’re using.
Google — and other search engines — are looking for these keywords throughout your entire website.
It’s these keywords that tell search engines to pull your website during a search.
How can the keywords you add in your content create a valuable experience for your readers?
Doing this keyword research can lead you to hundreds, if not more, different words and phrases that potential clients and customers are searching for regularly — and you may have exactly what they need.
Now, you’ve just got to put these keywords into your content in a way that search engines will recognize and will add value to those who are visiting your website.
Deliverable #5: Content Gap Analysis
Content gap analysis is the process of looking at existing content on topics on your website and revealing the “gaps” in the content and asking:
How can the content be better?
Does my content match what my target audience is searching for?
This is where you can put yourself above your competitors — a content gap analysis helps you really see what you can improve on.
Importance of Completing a Content Gap Analysis
By performing content gap analysis you’re updating and giving your potential clients and customers high-quality content.
You’ve figured out what other content is lacking — you’re answering questions and providing solutions to those people searching the internet for the products/services you’re offering.
Does the idea of conducting a content gap analysis sound like something you should be doing for your business — but you don’t know where to start?
Leave it to us, The experts at Portland SEO Growth.
Our team knows exactly what to do to help you outrank your competition and bring more organic traffic to your website.
Deliverable #6: Content Calendar Development
Based on the keywords you find, — Content calendars, commonly referred to as “editorial calendars” are written schedules for everything related to your content — when and where something is going to be published.
When will a topic rank the best within search engines?
When should you publish content with specific keywords?
These are just a few of the things a content calendar can help with.
Importance of Creating a Content Calendar
Whether you’re a one-man team, or you’ve got a team of twenty-one people, content calendars are ideal for keeping content production and publishing running smoothly.
You can simply use an excel sheet — or you can use content calendar tools like…
- Trello
- Asana
- Basecamp
… depending on your unique content planning needs.
Deliverable #7: Site Map Outline
Simply put, sitemaps are the blueprints of your website. They help organize all the categories of your blog.
Site maps are basically a list of all of the pages on your website that help search engines…
- Find
- Crawl
- And index
…all of the content on your website.
Importance of a Site Map Outline
- If you’re writing a blog, you may have different categories for your blog. A site map helps organize different topics/categories. This is important because these different categories affect the URL structure for every single URL on your website.
- Search engines crawl sitemaps. So what’s this mean for you? Why is it important? Let’s say you have an e-commerce website… If you have hundreds of pages on your website, a site map makes it easier for search engines to find all of them.
Deliverable #8: Create a Brand Playbook
Creating a brand playbook, also known as a style guide, brand bible, etc. is a document with the guidelines for how you want your brand to be represented.
What’s the tone of your website? Professional or a little goofy and conversational?
What’s the design? Bright and colorful? Modern and professional?
This is the place to let everyone who will be helping create your content know exactly what you’re looking for.
Importance of a Brand Playbook
Brand playbooks make content creation easier for everyone involved.
Have you ever asked yourself, or your employees, “What does our brand stand for?”
Have they given similar answers — or seven different ones? If your answer is the latter, your audience is probably feeling just as confused.
This is why a brand playbook is so important.
Having a document that explains how you want your brand to be represented allows for consistency, and increasing visibility and recognition.
Deliverable #9: Implement Workflow Management
A project management system that makes everything work — putting all your ideas in place for all your work to get done on time.
To ensure that clients and content specialists are on the same page, it’s important to implement a workflow strategy.
Importance of Workflow Management Implementation
Whether you’re a one-person team, or you’ve got a team of twenty-one people, workflow management systems are the key to keeping content production and publishing running smoothly.
You can simply use an excel sheet — or you can use content calendar tools like…
… depending on your unique content planning needs.
Deliverable #10: Track and Measure Results and Success
You’ve taken the time to create and implement this SEO content strategy. Now, you need to see if and how it’s working.
How can you know if the strategy is helping you meet your business goals?
To track and access the results of your marketing, you’ll need to put a measurement program in place. How will you measure the success of your company’s content strategy?
One of the easiest ways to do this, especially in the early days of your content creation, is by using a tool like Google Analytics.
This tool can help you learn…
- How much time people are spending on your website
- How much engagement your website is getting
- Content conversion rates
… plus more.
Importance of Measuring Success
Think of it this way, the success of your content directly impacts the success of your business.
By implementing a measurement program, every person that contributes content can see if they’re creating an impact that positively reflects your business’ goals.
Or, if you’re not hitting the goals you originally created, this gives you a chance to make changes and improve your content strategy.
Portland SEO Growth is Dedicated to Fulfilling Our Content Strategy Deliverables and Helping You Achieve SEO Success
Our team at Portland SEO Growth can help you achieve the goals and success you’ve been working towards.
We are a results-oriented team who will do everything to help you achieve SEO success. Think of working with us as creating the roadmap to your success.
Your goals are our mission.
Before working with any client, we ensure that we can help you meet your goals. — If we can’t help you improve your content strategy and achieve success, we’ll let you know.
Are you ready to take the leap?
Click here to learn how Portland SEO Growth can help your business.
Jessica Gettle
Writer, Editor, and Military Spouse
