Whether you are an in-house or agency marketer, strategic content development is crucial to drive qualified web traffic that converts. Learn how to develop strategic content backed by data to drive SEO success and beyond. Originally presented at WordCamp Riverside 2019 by Michael Tesauro (slides 1-9) & Rob Bonham (slides 10-19) https://2019.riverside.wordcamp.org/session/the-art-science-behind-killer-content/

2. So, Your Blog Is Looking A Little Thin...
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TAKE A DEEP DIVE INTO YOUR BLOG
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KNOW WHEN TO RETHINKING YOUR BLOG STRATEGY
Consider how often you reevaluate your blog strategy, if in fact you blog at all.
To truly assess your blog strategy, ask yourself the following:
Am I posting multiple times a week?
Do I know what my competitors are doing on their blog?
Am I 100% clear on why exactly I have a blog in the first place?
These questions are really to spark a larger conversation about your blog: if it isn’t top
of mind, it should be.
IF YOU ANSWERED NO TO ANY OF THOSE QUESTIONS, GREAT!

3. Content is Still King
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CONTENT MARKETING HAS GONE BEYOND SIMPLY BRAND
BUILDING
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YEP. BILL GATES WAS RIGHT IN 1996
While the phrase is cliché, it rings very true in today’s digital marketing
landscape. Consider: the Content Marketing Institute found that 61% of
online consumers in the U.S. then decided to make a purchase after
reading about it on a blog.
One of the most effective ways to generate leads is to educate your
customers. And not just on your product — you can educate them
on your industry, on trends, on topics that are relevant to them.
Understanding the current digital landscape helps you determine
how much you need to invest in your content strategy and what
results you want to get from this.
A WELL OILED CONTENT STRATEGY CAN BE A
MAIN AVENUE TO ACHIEVING BUSINESS GOALS

4. “But What Are My Business Goals?”
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THINK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS GOALS LIKE A CONTENT MARKETER
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YOUR KILLER CONTENT SHOULD WORK TOWARD YOUR BUSINESS GOALS
Identify your organization’s goals should be the umbrella under which your own
content goals fits. If the company’s main goal is growth, your content and blog
strategy should align with this directly.
Who are my existing and potential customers?
What kind of experience are they looking for?
What is the competitive landscape?
How do my top competitors market their brands?
What is my brand’s unique value?
What problems does my product help to solve?
What makes it a better choice over my competitors?

5. Identifying (and Filling) Content Gaps
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TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK AT WHAT EXISTS (BUT BE KIND
TO YOURSELF)
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YOU PROBABLY HAVE CONTENT GAPS THAT COULD EASILY BE FILLED
Auditing your current content is an important first step in rethinking your blog strategy.
What is this piece about?
Is it accurate, timely, and up-to-date?
Does it support content and business goals?
Is it logically organized?
Does it have consistent voice, tone, and style?
Does it have basic SEO elements?
TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMER-FACING PEERS
If your organization has sales support or account management teams, they’re probably a wealth of information. They know
what customers know or don’t know, which should 100% inform your content strategy.
The world’s largest manmade hole—
aka your content gap.

6. Data Mining Your Way to Better Content Strategy
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APPROACH YOUR DATA LIKE AN ANALYST (AND A JOURNALIST)
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USE PAST METRICS TO INFORM, REINFORCE, OR VALIDATE YOUR CONTENT AUDIT FINDINGS
Past behavior from all relevant sources of data should be top of mind. Look at the following:
User behavior: unique visitors, pages per session, bounce rate, time on page
Engagement: likes, shares, comments, mentions
SEO results: organic traffic, dwell time, backlinks
Revenue: number of leads, quality of leads, conversion rate
Even if it’s not obvious, your data will tell you a story about your product and what customers think about your product.
What content did your customers engage with before, during, and after a purchase?
Which combinations of content pieces indicate that a customer has moved further down the funnel?
Are repeat customers still engaging with your content?

7. Your Audience is Full of Secrets
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YOU’VE SEEN WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE IS DOING, DO YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE?
Rethinking is the perfect time to reassess your user personas. Understand how
your audience engages with your content and how your content fits into the
current sales funnel. What stage are they in?
ALWAYS CREATE CONTENT FOR YOUR AUDIENCE FIRST
Great content can inform and expediate the purchasing cycle, but can also transform customers
into your best marketers (no they won’t put you out of a job). IF you keep customers top of mind,
there’s a very good chance they will direct others to your blog .
Awareness Stage – Or ‘top of funnel’ because they’re becoming aware
of the problem they may need to solve with your product
Consideration Stage – Now that they're aware of the problem, they’re
considering how to solve it and want to know more
Decision Stage – They’re getting closer to a decision, but want to
know how your product specifically will help them solve the problem
Purchasing Stage – Sometimes called the ‘bottom of funnel’ or action
stage; essentially, they’re ready to buy and they just need that final bit
of information

8. Managing an Editorial Calendar (And Staying Sane)
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AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR IS MORE THAN A SPREADSHEET WITH DATES
A good calendar maps your blog strategy, identifies key stakeholders, targets personas,
CTAs, keywords, etc. Simplify your editorial calendar by determining the following:
YOUR CALENDAR WILL BE YOUR ROADMAP TO ACHIEVING BUSINESS GOALS
As much as you hope you can simply “just create great content,” strategy and planning will
always be the important first step to this process. Plus, and this is important, you can look back
on it to measure your success as a content marketer.
Quantity - How much content you will need? If your calendar is
quarterly (it should be), consider how many content pieces will go
live that quarter.
Buyer Persona - Which persona are you targeting the most? The
least? What type of content will appeal to them?
Production - Who is producing the content? Consider who is writing
content and building the creative; this key for planning and allocating
resources.
Frequency - How frequently will you deliver content? Daily? Weekly?
You don’t want to overload, but you also don’t want to let your blog
run dry (it happens though).

9. To SEO or Not SEO
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TRICK QUESTION – ALWAYS SEO
Now that you have your plan – tap into your SEO resources. Or, if you’re a one-
person shop, keep up with the latest tools, trends, and best practices that today’s
SEO experts use to create killer content.
THE “ART” OF KILLER CONTENT IS ONLY ONE HALF OF THE EQUATION
Everything I listed out is just step one when I tackle content strategy. Step two
involves tapping into the ‘science’ of SEO.
My SEO Secret Weapon

10. Developing SEO Content
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KEYWORD RESEARCH – OF COURSE!
CONSIDER USER INTENT
SET GOALS
APPLY DATA & MONITOR SUCCESS
Once a topic has been decided, keyword research is an absolute must. This will dictate how your content shapes up, including
the creation of the page URL, title tags, meta descriptions, headings, body content & more.
Get a good understanding of how your audience might search for the content you will be publishing. Search queries typically
can be classified as navigational, informational or transactional so plan what type of content will meet the search query best.
Determine what you are trying to gain from your content development efforts. Above all other objectives, create content
that will have a high likelihood of reader engagement.
Leverage tools/software that will help you conduct keyword research, evaluate topics & your competition. Measure your content
success with Google Analytics & Google Search Console.
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11. Killer Content Rules Of Thumb
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ALWAYS WRITE FOR HUMANS, NOT BOTS/SEARCH ENGINES
WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES, SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SEO CONTENT
Content should be as natural as possible & easily digestible.
Creating content without a purpose or direction is a futile exercise.
Good ideas can happen at anytime. Be ready to jot them down at any time.
Forget the title of my previous slide, there is only quality web
content backed by good SEO.
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CONTENT SHOULD ALWAYS BE USEFUL FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

12. Keyword Research
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STEP 1: ENTER TOPIC INTO KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOL
STEP 2: DISCOVER POTENTIAL TITLES, SUB-TOPICS & RELATED QUESTIONS
STEP 3: FIND SEARCH VOLUME FIGURES USING UBERSUGGEST.COM
A segment of Ed2Go’s audience are beginning web developers, so we want to capture their interest by speaking to their needs.
HTML tables are a common element used throughout web development, so let’s discover more about this topic.
Gather search query data surrounding the topic’s root keyword and try to put yourself in the shoes of those searching for
your content. Determining query intent will lead to which content medium is needed.
Knowing relative search volume allows you to see how big of an opportunity there is at hand.
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Screenshot from
AnswerThePublic.com
“how to html table center”…
Could be a feasible blog post
title with better rewording
Informational Query

13. Leveraging Search Volume
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HOLY SMOKES… WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!
These are great search volume figures, so we know there is a lot of potential to drive traffic. As you assess search volume for
your topic term & related terms, you can use those frequently searched terms to create useful, digestible content.
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14. Before You Write, Check Google!
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UNDERSTANDING THE SERP LANDSCAPE IS PARAMOUNT
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15. Writing Useful & Digestible Content
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USING KEYWORD DATA WITHIN YOUR CONTENT
Combine keyword data from all sources to establish an outline for your content. In general it’s best to start at a high level & get
more explicit while writing your content to satisfy the intent of the search query as much as possible.
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• Use Logical Language
• Consider Literacy Level of Audience
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing!
Always…
Title Tag:
How To Center An HTML Table
Sub-Heading 1:
Coding A Centered Table
Post Title:
Learn How to Center an HTML Table Using HTML5
Sub-Heading 2:
Creating A Responsive HTML Table

16. Addressing On-Page SEO
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GETTING YOUR CONTENT READ BY BOTS & PEOPLE… OR BOT PEOPLE?
• Make sure it gets crawled & indexed!
• Search engines tend to reward highly topical content,
especially in cases where it relates to the overall theme of
the website.
• Use your main topic keyword (“center html table”) &
variations strategically within the body of your content as
well as these HTML elements:
- Meta Title -
- Meta Description -
- Headings (H1, H2, etc.) -
- Image Alt Text -
Advanced Elements
- Load Speed -
- Structured Markups (Schema) -
- AMP -
Ideally the following should be addressed:

17. Measuring Content Success
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USING GOOGLE ANALYTICS & GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE KPIS
• Clicks
• Impressions
• CTR
• Position
GOOGLE ANALYTICS KPIS
• Users
• Sessions
• Bounce Rate
• Pages/Session
• Session Duration
• Goal Completions
• Transactions
• Revenue

19. THANK YOU
FOR ATTENDING
@Rob_Bonham
Tweet At Me Bro!