If you’re unfamiliar, SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is a useful skill for entrepreneurs to learn. SEO is important because utiliz
If you’re unfamiliar, SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is a useful skill for entrepreneurs to learn. SEO is important because utilizing it can help your content show up better in the search engine results page. If your content is showing up then you’ll attract new leads and sales. Since we believe in the importance of SEO, we chatted with Akilah Thompkins-Robinson, an SEO expert about how you can leverage SEO to create content that attracts and converts.
Here are some of the SEO strategies to help you get visible and paid.
What is Content?
Before we help you create SEO content and SEO strategies let’s get crystal clear about what content means. While creating TikTok videos counts as content, the SEO strategies we’ll be talking about are more relevant to your podcasts, YouTube videos and your blog.
SEO, search engine optimization, is really about making your content on your site look good for the search engines
Now that we have that cleared up, let’s get into our SEO strategies.
1. Link Your Content Back to Your Website
Even though you may have your podcasts on Spotify and your YouTube video on YouTube, you still want these pieces of content to live on your site. You can do that by embedding your videos and podcasts on your website. This is important because you want search engines to send people to your website.
Akilah says “I find that a lot of people especially if you’re more advanced in your business you have content in all these places but you don’t have that good through line that brings it back to your site. Which means you most likely aren’t getting found for it in the search engines at least not for those people to come back to your site.”
When it comes to blogs, it’s better to do your blogging onsite. As Akilah tells us, Medium may be fun but it’s not great for SEO. She mentioned two reasons why Medium is not great for SEO.
Akilah says, “The search engines know that people use it as a way to quickly come up on SEO and that they they pretty much shut that down so that doesn’t really work anymore but two it doesn’t lead people back to your site.”
In addition to that, if someone stumbles across a really good blog post from you on Medium, since it is not on your site, they’re not getting tracked by your pixels. That also means they’re not seeing your products or joining your email list.
They’re pretty much just reading a good article and that’s not what we want people to do. We want people to not only find us and consume our content but also go to that next step.
2. Gather Backlinks
Backlinks are links to your content on other people’s platforms. For example, if you write a guest blog for another website and leave a link to your website, that’s a backlink. Another example is if someone who is writing a blog, links back to one of your blogs, that’s also a backlink.
Gathering backlinks are an important part of your SEO strategy. Search engines not only look at your content but they look at where you’re being referenced. If you’re being referenced by other websites, search engines like Google will see your content as valuable. Therefore, you’ll get a boost in your SEO.
So, while being a guest blogger or guest on a podcast isn’t necessarily going
to add more content to your page but it will add more credibility to your website and help your SEO efforts. A boost in your SEO efforts mean that you’ll show up higher in the search results and therefore attract more people to your website where you can convert them to paying customers.
3. Listen to Your Audience
One great way to get started is by simply listening to your audience.
Ask people who come in contact with your business how they found you. Find out what search terms they used that led them to your website.
For example, let’s say they searched “how to grow a community” and came across you, that’s a good topic for you to center your content around.
Akilah told us, “Lots of people hear about the keywords or the technical parts of SEO which is important but even more important to get the right kind of traffic is to listen to your audience.”
She mentions that once you spend the time listening to your audience, you’ll be able to anticipate what your audience will ask you before they do.
As a matter of fact, listening to your audience includes finding out their pain points.
Being keen to your audience needs and wants can increase your credibility and will make you their go to person.
4. Do Your Research
Research is one of the most important SEO strategies. When you’re deciding what kind of content to create that will really engage your audience and turn them into paying customers, you need to find out what your audience is searching for. There are three main places Akilah recommends you go to do your research no matter what your industry is.
Amazon
The first place Akilah mentions is Amazon. She says, go to Amazon and look for
for books that are related to your topic. Then read through the reviews. In the reviews you’ll find a lot of information about people. You’ll find out what people like, what they don’t like and what they thought was missing from the books. So, write down key information from the review and talk about them in your own words on your platform.
If they’ve taken the time to get a book and they’re taking time to leave comments they’re taking the time to search.
Facebook Groups
The next place Akilah recommends you check out is Facebook groups. However, she cautions against going into the Facebook groups to simply ask people what topics they want. That’s because when you research people, you want to see them in their natural, normal habitat.
Before you start spending hours going through all of your Facebook group, take a second to think which groups are the most relevant to your research. Once you find those groups, read the questions that they ask and make a note about it. The next step is to create content answering those questions.
Once you’ve created the content, post it on your platforms. Be mindful that not every Facebook group allows you to link back to content you’ve created. It doesn’t matter either way because if one person asks that content out loud, there are many others with that same question waiting for an answer.
YouTube
Hop on YouTube and look for videos that are related to topics your target audience would be interested in. Once you find those videos, look through the comments and make notes. Make notes about people’s likes and dislikes and questions they have.
5. Do Keyword Research
Akilah recommends doing keyword research after searching Amazon, Facebook Groups and YouTube for ideas.
Doing that allows you to zoom in on your specific niche and audience.
For example, Akilah, as you know, is an SEO strategist. However, the topics of SEO and even SEO strategist are broad and targeting those keywords won’t lead her to her target audience. Therefore, she focuses on the fact that she works with online business owners, thought leaders, podcasters and YouTubers. That way she can appear in the search results for keywords like “SEO strategist for course creators” or “how do I use SEO within my course”.
Those keywords are ideal because those are the search terms people use when they’re looking for someone with Akilah’s expertise.
When it comes to doing keyword research for your own content, Akilah mentions a couple of tools that she uses:
- Ubersuggest
- Long Tail Pro
- SEM Rush
All you have to do is take your topics and plug them into the keyword tools and you’ll get vital information you can use to create content.
The next thing you’re probably wondering is how to rank for certain keywords. Akilah says, “Just go after one keyword you want. I like to start with at least five good keywords
and start working on getting rankings in those five areas. Once you get rankings in those do five. By the end of the day you’re now racking up all of these
different medals because every keyword is going to bring you some traffic.”
How to Use the RACE Method
When it comes to keyword research, Akilah recommends the RACE method. The R stands for “round everything up”. This is in reference to gathering your keywords that you want to rank for.
The A stands for analysis. Analysis is a critical part of your keyword research. When you plug your keyword into one of the keyword tools we mentioned above, you’ll get certain data you need to pay attention to.
One piece of data you’ll get is the volume which is how many people on average are searching for that specific keyword. Another piece of data you’ll notice is the keyword competitiveness. This will tell you how competitive the keyword is.
Aim for a specific and longer keyword, which is 3-5 words. People searching for these specific keywords are more likely to be your target audience.
The C represents connecting. Too often we utilize keywords that do not connect to the things that we sell. Therefore when you’re thinking about what keywords to use, make sure they align with the things you want to sell right now.
Finally, the E is for engagement. Don’t wait until you put these keywords on your site to use them. Use these words on your various social media platforms and find out whether or not your audience is resonating with them. If they’re not resonating with them, those are not the keywords you need to use.
Next Steps
Using SEO is an excellent way to get more traffic to your platforms. When done right, you’ll attract the right audience and increase your chances of making sales. Now that you’ve learned these SEO strategies, you’re on your way to create better content and reaping the rewards.
However, if you’re looking for SEO help, we recommend getting in touch with Akilah. Akilah is an SEO Strategist, Tech Founder, author, and speaker, who has worked in IT since 2002 and for the last 7 years has been helping online businesses to stand out and get found online using SEO and search marketing strategies.
Founder of SEO Assist and GirlGetVisible.com and the award-winning Girl Get Visible Podcast, Akilah works to help female entrepreneurs learn SEO and utilize visibility to grow their business.
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