#067 Content Marketing Newsletter
"Content creation is a process, not a task, and it shouldn't have an end date." – Dave Snyder (CEO of CopyPress).
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5-minute reads that make you a better marketer, scale your startup, and are straight to the point.
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🎯 Actionable Insights
💡 1. How To Use Internal Links To Increase Rankings Fast
Internal linking in SEO is a key to higher ranking as internal links pass PageRank from one page to another.
But how do you strategize your internal linking process?
Here’s a 3-step process to optimize your site with internal linking (by Jeremy Moser):
Step 1. Pages with High-Quality backlinks
Make a list of pages with the highest quality backlinks. Don't obsess over the number of backlinks, as quality is more important than quantity of backlinks.
Next, add internal links to related posts and pages from these pages to pass the PageRank.
Tip: Do not force a link where it isn’t required. Keep the anchor text natural and helpful to the user.
Step 2. Pages with the most Organic traffic
Generally, pages with high organic traffic usually have more backlinks pointing to them.
So, find the pages with the most traffic and use internal links to direct traffic to other relevant content, or even BOFU or MOFU landing pages.
Step 3. Link to Hub Pages and Pillar Posts
Instead of linking to all kinds of pages, you can internally link to pages based on categories and create your content network. This helps in establishing content depth and building topical authority.
“It helps you narrow your focus on link building: build to the hub, distribute authority to the dozens of spokes INSTEAD of trying to build dozens of links to every single spoke (spreading yourself too thin).
Overall, your goal with internal links is to distribute authority from authoritative pages on your site to less authoritative pages on your site.” – Jeremy Moser.
👉 Insights from Jeremy Moser (CEO at uSERP)
💡 2. Does Google have enough information about your brand
Take a moment and Google the following questions now:
Who is the founder of [your brand]?
Where [your brand] is located?
When [your brand] is founded?
Ideally, Google should show a clear and accurate answer (with a featured snippet) to these questions.
Here’s an example:
If Google shows wrong or unclear information, it may not have enough information about the entity. If that's the case with your brand, follow the action items.
Action Items:
First, make a list of all the important branded queries.
Second, cover these questions either on your website (recommended), third-party websites, or both. e.g. you may create a separate page for the founding team members.
This is why you should also focus on building social profiles with accurate information about the brand (team, about, foundation, etc.)
Benefits:
Branded queries (navigational intent) can contribute to the bottom of the funnel.
When users don’t find a clear answer to their branded query, it gives a bad user experience from a branding perspective.
In fact, Google prefers to rate a website low-quality if the following information is not covered:
Who’s behind the brand?
What’s the expertise of the brand?
Contact information
Information about who created the content
Tip: First, answer the question (if any) in the 1st paragraph.
✔️ Sk Rafiqul Islam is the founder of Content Marketing VIP…
❌ Sk Rafiqul Islam started Content Marketing VIP newsletter to provide SEO insights…
This can help in getting featured snippets for the branded queries.
👉Insights from Sk Rafiqul Islam (Creator of Content Marketing VIP)
💬 Bite-sized Insights
💡 1. How To Use Google Search Console For SEO Auditing (by Cyrus Shepard)
Crawl stats is one of the underutilized features of the Google search console.
Here’s how you can effectively use the crawl report for the SEO audit process:
Before that, follow the below path to find the report in your GSC dashboard:
Google search console dashboard > Settings > Crawl stats report
1. 301 Redirects or 404 Errors
You can find a list of the most recent URLs that were 301 or 404 when Googlebot crawled. Google even provides a timestamp for the crawls.
The best part is: You can export the result and identify which pages Google wants to crawl the most. This helps you find issues like 404 errors, redirects, etc.
2. File Type Report
Besides the standard HTML, Javascript, Image, and CSS files, Google might be spending the crawl budget on specific file types.
If the number is disproportionately high, you can examine them and eliminate them if not needed.
👉 Insights from Cyrus Shepard (Founder of Zyppy, an SEO tool)
💡 2. How To Create ‘HelpFul Content’ Always (by FoundationInc)
With the “Helpful Content” update rolling out, you must focus on creating helpful content for the readers.
Here is the list of elements to add to make your content helpful:
1/ Add New Takeaways:
Are there new things for people to understand about the topic?
Are there new strategies or techniques worth noting?
Include them in the updated piece as new takeaways for the readers.
2/ Add Third-party Quotes: Have an expert who can be quoted? Insert their comment in your content.
3/ Add New Research: New research studies are held constantly in all industries, and you can cite them with facts.
4/ Embed Video/Podcasts: Google loves embedded YouTube videos and other forms of content. Add them to your blog articles.
5/ List Downloadable Templates: Any checklist, resource or utility tool helps the audience and makes stuff easy for them.
6/ Incorporate New Sections: Add new sections to improve your content. The goal should be to make your content as actionable as possible.
7/ Update Old Data and Dates: Are fresh data and statistics available on the same topic? Update your content with the latest study data.
8/ Improve the Visuals: Update the existing images and screenshots. Use custom images instead of stock images.
Prioritize writing helpful content, and you will start seeing results.
👉 Insights from Ross Simmonds (CEO at FoundationInc)
🗓️ Learning Resources
1. Free checklist to create quality and helpful content
Google is launching a 'helpful content' update, which will affect the website's overall performance if Google identifies that content seems to have little or low-added value.
Now, audit your content inventory with the below checklist (created by Aleyda)
👉 Download the free content quality checklist (By Aleyda Solis)
📹 Behind The Scene
[This new section is added to the newsletter where I will share all the backend moments. I hope you'll find it interesting]
Sharing the desk from where I create and publish 😊 each episode of Content Marketing VIP.
I would love to see your desk setup. Send your desk image in the reply.