Create powerful content for even the smallest searches

Adelina says: “My number one tip is that we have to start creating very powerful content even for the smallest searches. The competition is very high and we need to provide an answer for our audience. If it’s short and brilliant that’s much better, because that’s the way we are going to position and rank our content.”

How do you define smaller searches and what is powerful content?

“Powerful content is content that answers the user’s search, and a smaller search is something that is more niche. It means doing a lot of work with long-tail keywords, which is how you’re going to find that required content.”

What’s your favourite way of finding long-tail keywords?

“I use a lot of tools. I go over my website and I try to find relevant searches for my audience, then I do keyword research with Ahrefs - and I also use AnswerThe Public. I will then mix everything together, look for that search intention on Google, and find the perfect content for my audience.

AnswerThePublic is very useful but it doesn’t come with any associated keyword volume, which is why I use Ahrefs as well. I also try to select keywords that have relevance to my business. You have to create content for people, but you need to find an audience as well if people are actually going to be able to read that content.”

How do you decide on which keyword phrases need longer form content and which keyword phrases can be answered just with one answer?

“I study my competitors. I look at what their answers are and how we can do it better. It’s basic content SEO; you see what is going on in the world and then you try to improve it.

Sometimes it’s just about the text but sometimes is about adding something new, like a photograph, a video, or any kind of multimedia item. That way you can offer a better solution compared to your competitors.”

How do you decide who your competitors are?

“It depends. If you are working on a project, then you have clear competitors. If you are writing something new, however, you should be looking for some context first. The first three search results are obviously the ones that I look at the most because it means they have something that really appeals to my audience.

Sometimes, checking those first three results will give you a hint as to whether that is the right content for your audience or not, because that search intent might not be exactly what you need for your product.

You start with the idea of what the keyword phrase and target audience might be, that you think you want to write content for. Then, you can look at the SERP for that particular phrase. If those first three results are actually talking about something completely different that doesn’t suit your target audience, you might rethink the value of making that content.”

When you’re improving on what your competitors are offering, how do you decide whether to include an image or a video and what’s likely to appeal to your target consumer?

“This is something you learn after working for some time on a project. It really depends on what you are selling. If you’re selling information, then a video or an infographic is likely to be more specific and useful, depending on the content. If you are selling a product, however, a comparison table can often be more useful to the consumer than a picture or a video.

It really does depend on the product – I know SEOs love that word, but it does depend. What I’ve also learned is that, when you are spending a long time working on the same project, the content you are releasing will tell you what works and what does not. You can make decisions based on that as well.”

If you were to incorporate a video as part of your content, would it be an embedded video from YouTube and would you be attempting to rank on YouTube as well?

“Why not? We can do SEO on YouTube as well, and try and pick up some new users that way.

There are also some websites where, if you upload the video and it’s not embedded, it’s going to be really heavy. That means it will impact your WPO, which is bad for the website as well. There are a lot of things you can do to improve that, but an embedded option is easier - and faster as well.”

What sort of process do you go through to try and get more people to view your content, and get your content ranking reasonably quickly? Do you reach out to journalists to get them to mention your piece?

“It depends. If you’re writing for your website’s blog, then you are just going to try and create the best content possible. Then, you make sure Google is indexing and ranking it, and you are carrying out fundamental optimisation and looking for anything that you can still add to that article.

If you’re launching something, then you might want to reach out to journalists and newspapers. I’ve also worked with ads: Google ads, Facebook ads, and social media ads in general. Pinterest can be a good option if you have visual content. When I worked for a DJ, YouTube ads were great for pushing my SEO strategy.

Study your product to see what channels are better. Look at the money and the hands that you have as well, that’s very important. Then, create a plan that will push your SEO-based strategy. For me, SEO is fundamental. Everything else is just going to push that base strategy.”

Is there a certain type of content that you find resonates more with different countries?

“Yes. Infographics are very relevant for USA audiences, for example, which actually surprised me when I first started working in the American market. They aren’t as relevant for Spanish people; we are not as accustomed to them.

You need to really think about your target audience. Think about the kind of content that they actually want, rather than assuming that everyone around the world is going to resonate with the same thing.

Something that does work worldwide is short videos. They are a big thing right now, and we need to implement those into our strategy as soon as we can.”

What shouldn’t SEOs be doing in 2023? What’s seductive in terms of time, but ultimately counterproductive?

“We have this ‘great’ thing called AI, and automatic content, which is something I highly recommend SEOs stop doing. Google has recently released a new update specifically targeting these kinds of websites.

I know it’s hard to rank a website. I know it’s time-consuming and costly in terms of resources, but I can assure you that it is worth it. If you do a good job and produce high-quality content, it’s going to bring you a lot of money and traffic in the long term.

You might use AI to generate content if you don’t really care about a particular website, or if it’s a project or experiment that you want to try out. However, don’t use it on your main website. It’s unlikely that it will work out well.”

Is it dangerous to use AI content even on pages that don’t bring in a lot of traffic? Does it potentially send a signal to Google that you’re publishing inferior-quality content on your site?

“It depends on the size of your website, but sending these kinds of signals is never good.

If you have some URLs that don’t bring in as much traffic, then ask yourself: ‘What is this useful for?’ Maybe it’s not an SEO page. It might just be something that you have for your return users, or something that mentions a tool or feature of your company that shouldn’t be erased. If that page isn’t useful anymore, then try and blend it with another piece of content on your website.

I would suggest that you never use those kinds of AI tools. I don’t know if Google is going to change the rules of the game and we will be surprised by a sudden positive shift towards using AI, but it’s unlikely.”

Adelina Bordea is an SEO Content Specialist at Freepik and you can find her over at her work-in-progress adelinabordea.com