Creating a high quality SEO blog post
AUTHOR : Ian David Chapman
Creating a high quality SEO blog post
Creating great content takes time, and if you want to rank for your main money keywords it’s worth spending a little bit longer so that your work pays off for many years to come.
I am assuming that you have already done your keyword research and know the search term that you want to rank for.
I want to use a real world example so you can understand the thought process that goes into making this kind of high quality content.
I am currently working for a company called Endoca. We sell CBD (Cannabidiol) the non psychoactive component found in cannabis which has many medicinal uses including treating cancer.
There is a ton of misinformation out there on the web and many people are actively seeking high quality authoritative information backed up by scientific research. This makes it a perfect opportunity to try and get in the path of these searchers and bring them directly to our website.
I decided to pick one of the most controversial topics based around a search term related to finding cannabis oil for treating cancer.
So how do you decide what keyword to target?
To make my hard work worth it I want to pick keywords that are on the boundary line between info seekers and buyers. In order to do this I always begin with our main keywords and throw them into google and see what pops up.
Straight away I can see one name, Rick Simpson, that keeps popping up. Rick Simpson is a Canadian cannabis activist who taught people how to make cannabis oil at home and used it to treat and cure his own skin cancer. He is a controversial figure and made a documentary called “Run from the cure”
Read around the subject
Once I think i have found a good subject I spend a few hours googling and reading around the subject. I search on YouTube and see what pops up. All the while making notes about the main points of interest, controversies and topics.
Adwords Keyword tool
My next port of call is the adwords keyword tool. I want to see if people are actually searching for the term Rick Simpson, the predicted search volumes, related keywords and if advertisers are willing to pay money for these keyword terms. There is normally no point writing a great blog
post if no one is actually bidding on the keywords you are trying to target.
Picking the right keyword to target.
Before I mentioned I wanted to find a keyword that is on the boundary between info seekers and buyers. From the data I get from Adwords I can see I should write blog posts around all of the keywords shown since they all meet my criteria. But for this example I will pick Rick Simpson Oil.
Google your chosen primary keyword
My next step is to see what pages are ranking for this keyword. I will normally go through each website that is shown on the first page of google and try and analyse and reverse engineer why that page is ranking so well.
My goal is to find a range of headings and subheadings and FAQ’s to start writing content around.
I use Google Docs to collect all my information and research. Once I have done this for 10 websites I can normally get a good idea of what subjects have to be included and the questions most people are asking.
Structure your content
- An introduction describing the content of the post and introducing the subject
- Body content going over the main points
- Conclusion or Summary
- Call to action
Or this is what you are about to read, this is what you should read, this is what you just read, this is what you should do next.
Write your subheadings in the same way people search
Next I rewrite my subheadings in same the way people search for information so that I can get an exact match for many other long tail keyword phrases.
In this example it would be
Rick Simpson : Run from the Cure Documentary
What is Rick Simpson Oil?
Is Rick Simpson Oil Legal?
Legal Alternative to Rick Simpson Oil
Rick Simpson Oil cures Cancer
Does Rick Simpson Oil Cure Cancer?
What is the best THC : CBD ratio for Rick Simpson Oil
Where to buy Rick Simpson Oil?
The Dangers of buying Rick Simpson Oil Online
How to make Rick Simpson Oil?
Notice I am including some important buying intention keywords in this list
Legal Alternative to Rick Simpson Oil
Where to buy Rick Simpson Oil
The Dangers of buying Rick Simpson Oil Online
I want this post to stand a chance for ranking for other keywords as well as my main one.
Link the post back to your own products or services
My other main goal was also to angle the blog post so that it naturally linked back to the legal CBD products that our company sell. Endoca make a RAW CBD Oil product from hemp containing CBD + CBDA that is very similar to Rick Simpson oil but without the THC
So this is where I started brainstorming for headlines and titles.
This is what I finally came up with.
What’s the difference between Rick Simpson Oil and CBD Oil?
It is a common question people ask who are looking for legal alternatives to Rick simpson oil and who don’t want to make it at home. Again this title is right on the boundary line between info seekers and buyers. It’s totally aimed at someone doing their online research and getting ready to pull the trigger.
Buzzsumo
My next step is to visit buzzsumo to see the most popular articles that are being written around my particular subject.
As you can see, this post got 71K shares. It includes several main keywords like Rick Simpson, Cannabis Oil and Cancer. It’s showing a magic bullet linked to implied social proof.
Ricks healed his own cancer using cannabis oil and implying that it healed other people’s too.
If I was going to be really clever I would try and re-work my first headline and angle it in a similar way.
What’s the difference between Rick Simpson Oil and CBD Oil?
Maybe it could become something like this:
The legal Cannabis oil you can use to heal cancer that Rick Simpson never knew about.
The legal alternatives to Rick Simpson Oil.
Rick Simpson might have used this legal cannabis oil if only he had known about it.
CBD Oil : The legal alternative to Rick Simpson Oil for healing cancer.
The reason I chose to stick with the original title was because we are in an industry where we are not allowed to make any medical claims. I had to avoid the more clickbait titles and stick with the one that will help real people make the right decision and speed up their online research.
Gain the trust of your audience
The next step is writing the content. Filling in the blanks, and padding the article with a mix of hard facts, myth busting, scientific research and simplified explanations in laymans terms. The goal is add value to your audience and become a trusted advisor.
At the same time I educate them about the very real dangers of buying Rick Simpson oil and position our product as the natural safer alternative to buying something illegal or making it at home.
WARNING: NEVER COPY PASTE – always rewrite content in your own words. Even though for SEO, google doesn’t care so much about duplicate content, your audience might notice, especially if they are doing a lot of online research. Your competitors also won’t appreciate it if you just blatantly rip off their stuff without showing attribution. This advice goes for images too, create your own original images to go with your blog post.
Check for Plagiarism
After re-writing content from other websites I will always double check my work with a plagiarism checker tool like the one from Small SEO tools. If you pay freelance writers to create original content for you this is also a great way to check their work.
The final call to action
At the end of the article include a call to action such as “find out more, contact us, visit our webshop, download a pdf guide, share this post, make a comment”.
After spending so much time and energy making a high quality post you have earned the right to make a recommendation and bring your audience deeper into your sales funnel. Many business owners spend ages writing content and then forget this crucial step.
How long should the final article be?
Aim to make the article between 1000 and 1500 words. Longer posts are ranked better and have more longer lasting value. Make sure you include H1,H2,H3,H4,H5 tags and think about the skimmers and scanners. Many readers will just scroll down a post, skimming the main headlines and bullet points. These should tell a story on their own. Use bolding of specific words to highlight the important points to make the story easier to understand.
Ways to make it even better
There are always ways to improve things.
Add some more original images and keyword optimise them.
Weave some more secondary keywords into the article copy in my case this would be keywords like:
Rick Simpson oil for sale
Rick Simpson oil sale,Rick Simpson oil buy
Rick Simpson cannabis oil for sale
Cannabis Rick Simpson oil for sale
Rick Simpson hemp oil
Make an infographic around the subject
Add a keyword targeted video and embed it on the page.
SUMMARY
- Pick a topic that people are actually searching for
- Do some initial keyword research
- Read around the subject to see what the main issues and talking points are
- Use Adwords keyword tool to find buying intent and advertiser interest.
- Pick a main keyword on the boundary between buying intent and info seeker
- Structure your content logically
- Use sub headings for all the main questions and issue around the topic
- Create an engaging headline that includes your main keyword and other related keywords
- Improve the headline using inspiration from the most popular and shared posts
- Write for your audience to gain their trust
- Check for plagiarism
- Include a final call to action – tell your audience exactly what to do next.
