In a previous post, I offered some thoughts on how to write SEO friendly content. In this post, I’m interested in addressing a question that might be even more important: how do you choose SEO writing topics for your blog? After all, no matter how determined you are to create content for your site, that first step of topic selection is often the hardest. What’s more, for the most effective writing in terms of SEO, choosing the right topic can do a great deal of the work for you. In this post, I’ll focus on one answer, namely how you can use information you all ready have from your clients or customers into good SEO writing.
What is a Good SEO Writing Topic?
A good SEO writing topic is one that will answer a question, offer useful information, or get others to link to it. In other words, it’s quality information that offers something that searchers need. A good starting point is to address what you really want to accomplish with your content.
- Do you want to attract links from outside sources? Focus on creating content that will appeal to a web-savvy audience that will reference your content (i.e. web designers, tech bloggers, etc.).
- Want to create a page that will work as a funnel for searches? Use blog content to create an “organic” landing page, and users can explore your site from there.
- Looking to move potential customers along in the process of using/buying your product or services? Provide them with information they need to make the next step.
How to Find a Topic
Now that you have a clearer idea of what kind of topics will equal effective SEO content, the question remains, where do I find these quality SEO writing topics? There are a few places, but keeping your goals in mind will certainly help you along the way.
One method is so obvious, it may not have occurred to you—ask the customers you all ready have. What are the questions they would like to have answered easily on your website? If you have a brick-and-mortar store, what do they like about coming in every day or week that they would enjoy seeing duplicated online? Maybe the enjoy recommendations from staff that regular product reviews could provide.
If you do not have the opportunity to ask customers for this information in person, there are other ways to get their feedback as well. You could make use of surveys that you can develop easily with free tools like SurveyMonkey among many others. If your company is large enough to have dedicated customer service representatives, they can also serve as a valuable resource for helpful topics. What are the issues that come up frequently when a customer calls or emails to get help? By publishing a blog post containing that information you can help push clients or customers along in the sales cycle and prevent a call to your representatives—all while creating something that might well be searched for. All of it means good SEO content.
Final Thoughts
In another post, I will address how you can use search data to determine good SEO writing topics as well, but for now, I’ll leave you with these final thoughts—write good content. Remember the intent behind every search is to find useful information and you will be well served. Ranking is all well and good, but if it’s achieved with lousy content, it will not lead to conversions or a high ROI.