What is Content Site Strategy SEO?
A content site strategy SEO is a method used in search engine optimization (SEO). It involves taking your website content and structuring it around keyword-based themes. In short, when you create a ‘silo’ structure, distinct sections on your website are created by grouping any related content together.
Implement a Deeper SEO Strategy for Your Silo Structure
This strategy comes after you’ve completed the initial research, strategy and set-up. It’s time to create, optimize and publish your primary and subcategory pages so they have a chance at ranking competitively.
You already have the theme, topics and outline ready for these pages. You also have the keywords for optimization handy, so it should make content creation a quick process.
Day 1: Learn SEO Guidelines for Silo Content
Today, you’re going to start by learning and planning your SEO requirements for your silo content. You want to make a checklist or cheat sheet that ensures you’re doing everything right.
Some people like using an SEO plugin that makes things easier to fill in, but you also need to understand how it works so that you can write the content to rank, too. This starts with utilization of keywords.
They have to be used in the title and URL, in the subheadings, as post tags, in alt text and woven naturally in the content itself. You have to be careful not to stuff too many keywords to the point where your content no longer reads well.
Google and other search engines will be looking at quality. Follow the E-E-A-T guidelines (Expertise, Experience, Authority and Timeliness) to cover all bases and ensure your visitors won’t be disappointed.
Make sure you’re using header tags (H1, H2, and H3) for easy structure and skimming of the content. It helps people navigate within the page itself. You can also have a table of contents menu that’s hyperlinked at the top of each page or post.
For each page, create a meta description that leverages a keyword phrase but summarizes what the content is about. You can use AI to help you with this process if you’re unfamiliar with it.
We’re going to cover interlinking and backlinks later, but that will be an important part of your on-going SEO process. Remember, there are technical issues, too – like whether or not your page loads quickly, if it’s mobile-friendly, etc.
Day 2: Create Content for Your Primary Content Site Strategy SEO Silos
Today, you’re going to finally draft the content for the primary silo pages. These are your main pages that show what your site is going to be known for. Create deep content for these pages – very thorough and engaging.
The goal is for this to become an entry page for your site because it ranks so high competitively for broad keywords, so you need to spend ample time working on this to make sure it’s top quality.
For your primary silo pages, dive deep into research so that you make sure you’re covering it comprehensively. It should encompass everything in your sub-category topics because those will be supporting the primary silo.
Look at news, research, social media, trends, and forums to see what is being discussed. Also look to AI tools with current access to online databases and ask it to help you outline the content you should include to have it resonate as a valued pillar blog page.
Anything you can add that enriches the content will be good. Not just text, but multimedia pieces like video and images, and links or quotes to showcase support for your ideas. Publish them once you’re sure they’re ready to go live.
Day 3: Craft Your Optimized Subcategory Pages
Now that your primary pages are uploaded, it’s time to work on the subcategory pages. You may or may not be able to do this in one day, but with outlines and research ready, it might be a fast task for you.
Optimize the content just as you did your primary silo pages. You don’t want to stuff keywords into the content. Your page needs to be thorough and valuable to visitors. That means you go back to your audience and competitive analysis data and write it based on what you learned from that.
Your subcategory page is not only comprehensive about the topic at hand, but it also supports the main silo page. So if your main silo page is Survival Skills and you’re working on the fire-starting subcategory page, make sure you reference the overall topic as well.
Later, you’ll be going back to add links, but for now, use the same SEO lessons that you used for primary pages to create the subcategory ones. Make sure you work on the introduction to hook your readers right off the bat.
Day 4: Set Up an Internal Silo Linking Strategy
Interlinking is a task you can go back and do once your initial pages and subcategory pages are up and continue doing as you build posts from that point on. On your primary silo pages, you’re going to include links to the relevant subcategory pages that are supporting it.
Your subcategory pages are going to link back to the primary silo pages as well as any closely related subcategory page in that silo. Make sure you’re not overlinking on your content to the point where it causes a distraction for readers.
You need to adhere to some basic rules for your interlinking structure. Use anchor text to begin with. This is often done using relevant keyword phrases. It not only helps human visitors but gives search bots better indications of which content pages are related.
Anytime you happen to add content to your silo, make sure you have a system for updating the interlinks. It may help to create a spreadsheet so you can keep track of all of this.
If you ever delete content or change the URL, you have to make sure you go in and fix the internal links so that you don’t end up with broken links on a page that can sabotage your SEO.
Day 5: Conduct Quality and Readability Checks
Today is an overview analysis day. You’re going to go in and refine your content quality to ensure it’s all top notch. You’re looking for both the information being provided but also readability, making sure there are no glaring issues.
You’re also going to double check your SEO elements and interlinking. When checking the content, make sure you’re using the right language for your audience and that your message is conveyed easily.
If you have big blocks of text, break them up. Your content needs to be inviting at a glance. Use images and other elements to break them up if necessary. You can also proofread your content or run it through a tool like Grammarly to make sure there are no mistakes.
Also check your tone. Is it in line with your branding goals? Do you feel like it caters to what your audience was hoping to get from you as a niche leader? Test the pages on different browsers and devices, too.
Week 2: Begin an On-Going Process to Publish and Measure the Success of Your Content
You’re in the last week of setting up a silo SEO structure for your site. This is the time where you’re going to finally be putting the preliminary strategic and technical issues behind you and focusing on the on-going tasks ahead of you.
These are the things that give momentum to your goals and ultimately help you achieve success. By the end of this week, and your 4-week silo journey in general, you’re going to have a soup-to-nuts approach to optimizing your content for discoverability in the SERPs (search engine results pages) and engagement from your audience.
Day 6: Create a Content Site Strategy SEO Publishing Workflow
Today it’s important to establish a workflow for the upcoming posts that will be used to fill your silo structure. Your primary and subcategory pages are permanently in place, and now everything going forward supports those.
If you want your site to rank in the SERPs, you need to be consistent in your publishing, and it can be a lot of work to churn out value-packed blog posts on a regular basis. That may mean daily or a few times per week, depending on how competitive you are.
Set up a systematic workflow for publishing content according to the silo structure. You have a content calendar in place along with topics brainstormed that you need to be covering.
From now on, you need a system for the posts. That might look something like this: Brainstorm a topic for a post that supports the subcategory, research the topic thoroughly and source things to enhance the value of the content, outline the piece, create the content, insert SEO elements like anchor links and keywords, and finally, publish.
You might want to create a template for how your content will flow, such as a placement of an infographic – something that streamlines the look and layout of your blog content. Before publishing, make sure you read through it and review the content.
You can begin publishing content from this day forward, creating new posts regularly that are categorized in a way that supports the subcategories in your silo. Your publishing schedule will be up to you, but don’t take too long in between posts because it can sabotage your SEO efforts.
Day 7: Develop a Promotion Strategy for New Content
You also need a promotional strategy for the content that you publish. This can be done in different ways, such as via email to subscribers, on social media, and other channels like a podcast.
The first thing you always want to do is schedule a note to loyal subscribers who have trusted you enough to sign up to your list. They’ve shown interest in your content, so alert them whenever a new post is ready that provides value to them.
Next, share your links and a summary or call to action on social media. You can use whatever platforms host your target audience, such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn or even Pinterest.
If you belong to or run any online communities such as a forum, Discord or other group and have the ability to share the link, do that as well, without being spammy and inconsiderate.
In some cases, you may even want to drive paid ads to a certain page, depending on how you want to convert those visitors into subscribers and buyers so that your efforts and investment pays off.
Day 8: Engage in Basic Analytics and SEO Monitoring
You’re close to completing your silo structure journey. Today, you want to learn how to review the analytics and SERP ranking of your content. This is helpful in letting you see what’s working (and what’s not) so you can adjust your strategy as time goes on.
Your site will have analytics built in, but you may also prefer to use various tools that deliver more specific information about how your site is operating. This is something you may need to invest in whenever you can afford it.
The things you want to look for include where your traffic is coming from. You’ll be looking for it to rank in Google and other search engines, but you also might discover that certain social platforms or communities are a hit, requiring more focus from you.
Another thing you need to track are the page views and sessions. This shows you how the visitor is navigating and consuming information on your site. This is very helpful when your goal is to deliver a well-organized structure for your content.
Is your site experiencing a high bounce rate? That means either you’re getting the wrong traffic or the page is disappointing. You need to see if the page loads quickly and easily, and if so, adjust the content to perform better in terms of value and stickiness.
The longer they stay, the better it looks and it can help you rank higher when you engage visitors. Are your visitors converting for you with your intended goal? Every piece should have some sort of call to action statement leading them to sign up, buy something, or engage in some way.
You also need to monitor your keyword rankings. There are tools that can show you improvements or drops and even alert you when things change so you see the gradual uptick in rankings that you achieve with this silo strategy.
When you see something working well for you, try to do more of the same. Analyze what makes that particular page or post work well. Likewise, if a page or post ends up with problems, don’t let it continue – fix the issue as soon as possible so search bots can reindex and give you a boost.
Day 9: Implement a Solid Backlink Strategy
We’ve covered internal linking, but you also want to develop a plan for securing formidable authority backlinks. These are various ways you can do this, but when you start seeing people link back to you from quality domains that are relevant, you’ll notice your SEO stats improve.
The reason for this is because it tells Google that others view your content as valuable, and that’s not something that often happens naturally. Sometimes someone will stumble upon your content and link back to your site.
But you also need to be proactive in getting those backlinks. You want to get them for your primary silo pages and subcategory pages as well as the quality individual posts that support the silo.
When you get a link to a primary silo page, it’s going to help boost you for the broader keyword topic. But it’s just as important to get backlinks to quality posts, and that’s often easier because they’re much more specific.
To launch a proactive backlink strategy, start by offering to guest blog for other authority domains. Many bloggers need to take a break and they’d be happy to give you a hyperlinked byline if you have content suitable for their site.
You can also look for broken links that are on authority sites, where they’re linking to a post or page somewhere that no longer exists. Create a quality post on that same topic and contact them to alert them, giving them your link as a handy replacement.
You can also leverage the skyscraper technique, where you basically look at a top competitor’s post that has good backlinks and you create content that’s even better, letting the original site know so they can swap that old resource out with a link to you.
There’s also the ordinary idea of just asking. You can contact site owners and request a backlink. It’s important to network with the right people and don’t expect anything for certain.
Day 10: Have a Plan for Scaling Content in the Future
It’s the last day of your content site strategy SEO structure process! Today, you need to just plan for your future. How will you scale your silo creation now that the foundation work is done? By keeping up the good work, you’ll attract a bigger audience, improve your discoverability and start outranking all of your competitors.
Have a plan to not only continue researching and blogging about your niche with innovative ideas, but also analyze the preferences of your visitors. If they engage more with content that’s longer or that has infographics, let that be a sign that you should do more of that.
There may come a time when you need to expand a silo with more subcategories. Just make sure it supports your site theme and is organized well with the others. There might even be a day where you realize a new silo is needed.
For example, when artificial intelligence technology took the marketing world by storm, many marketers added that topic as its own category on their site because there’s so much to learn and share.
Once a week or once a month, work on your upcoming content calendar and pay attention to evolving trends and keyword usage by your audience. Things like this may not change nightly, but there may be a time when you realize they’re searching differently or for new things.
Creating a content site strategy SEO isn’t difficult. It’s tedious in the very beginning because you need to make sure you’re being thoughtful and thorough in your planning and structure. But once that work is done, you’ll have a good handle on how to keep the publishing process going in a way that caters to your audience and appeases search engines, too!
I’m Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Connie Ragen Green, helping newer entrepreneurs all around the world to create a lifestyle by design with time and financial freedom from an online business.
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