About 4.4 million blog posts are published every single day. That’s approximately 120 million a month and billions of blog posts each year.
And while these involve different companies across different industries covering different topics, you’ll be shocked to look at the number of companies covering the same topic trying to rank at the top of Google.
While producing this blog post, we conducted thorough research, hopped onto Google, and typed in the keyword “what is seo.”
Here are the Page #1 results:
And here are the Page #10 results:
NOTE – Positions are subject to change – depending on different factors.
Literally, thousands of companies are trying to rank at the top for “what is seo” keyword.
This means – the competition is incredibly fierce. Ranking at the top of search engines is no piece of cake.
And if we look at the first or second result, you’ll find these blog posts or pages to be highly-detailed guides with lots of internal and external links. However, that’s not always the case. Some can be pretty short – and the reason why their page may be ranking at the top may be due to their domain ranking being extremely high.
While determining search engine rankings, Google and other search engines take into consideration different factors, of which a few of the most important ones are website domain rating, page backlinks and more.
At redfox visual, we roll out high-quality, value-adding content every single week. And we rank at the top for different GEO keywords that help us put ourselves in front of amazing Idaho-based business owners just like you. Since our target audience involves Boise-based businesses (we’re expanding to the rest of Idaho), we are targeting GEO keywords.
We know what it takes to rank at the top of Google for relevant keywords. And we’d love nothing more than to share our knowledge with you.
That’s the reason we’ve crafted this blog post – where we’ll be discussing how to write content that ranks at the top of search engines in 2023 and further.
So without further ado, let’s dive straight into it.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Content That Ranks at the
Top of Search Engines in 2023
Follow these steps to unlock our secret to building high-quality content that ranks at the top of Google or other search engines:
- Step I – Know Your Audience
- Step II – Conduct Thorough Keywords Research
- Step III – Conduct Rigorous Competitive Analysis
- Step IV – Build a Results-Driven Content Marketing Strategy
- Step V- Write High-Quality Content that Actually Delivers Value
Step I – Know Your Audience
If you run a dog food eCommerce store, then you should avoid writing content focused on cat food or other irrelevant topics. Instead, you should stick to topics like:
“4 Things to Watch Out While Buying Dog Food.”
Or something relevant that speaks to dog owners. Otherwise, you’ll just end up wasting your precious dollars building content pieces that don’t even relate to your business model.
You need to understand who your target audience is. We know exactly who our target audience is – it’s amazing business owners like you that are trying to establish their online presence. That’s the reason we produce and publish blog posts that actually can help you ace your marketing efforts. Here’s our blog section:
Every single topic we cover is laser-focused on helping business owners conquer their goals and boost their marketing efforts. At the same time, it helps us put ourselves in front of business owners.
But if you want to begin producing blog posts, you need to first know who your target audience is. And once you figure that out, divide them into different buyer personas. This will further simplify the process for you and strategically build blog posts for different people (based on their target demographic or activity.)
Conduct Thorough Keywords Research
The next step is to conduct thorough keywords research to identify the keywords people are searching for. But at the same time, you need to make sure that the keywords you are targeting aren’t that competitive. That’s because if your domain rating is 10, then you can’t rank at the top for a keyword with 50 or 60 or 70+ difficulty. In fact, ranking at the top for keyword with 40 difficulty can turn out to be hard.
Hence, you need to build a fool-proof strategic plan, of which the second stage involves conducting thorough keyword research. We’d advise you to use a tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush for the purpose.
Let’s say you run a pest control company. Now, let’s try to find the keywords you should be targeting. We looked up “pest control” on Ahrefs and here’s what we got:
For “pest control,” keyword difficulty is 78 and volume is 164K. But obviously, if you are starting from scratch, you can’t rank at the top for this keyword.
Now, let’s dive in deeper and try to find keywords that you can actually target.
Here are the matching items:
Now, let’s set the “Keyword Difficulty” between 0 and 30:
Here, you’ll find many results to be irrelevant and completely unrelated to your business. We’d advise you to go through these and try to find out relevant ones that you can cover.
Here’s a potential keyword:
- Keyword – Pest Control Cost
- Volume – 2.6K
- Difficulty – 19
Now, let’s click through this keyword. Here’s what we got:
Let’s scroll below and you’ll find SERP overview for the keyword:
These are the blog posts ranking at the top for the keyword “pest control cost.”
You can take inspiration from this and list down the topics that you’d like to cover. You can also look at some long-tail keywords and question-based keywords to build a results-driven content strategy.
Step III – Conduct Rigorous Competitive Analysis
Now, if you are trying to rank at the top for the keyword “pest control,” you need to take inspiration from your competitors. Again, let’s assume that you run a pest control business in Idaho. A good practice is to conduct rigorous competitive analysis and try to look at the keywords your competitors are ranking at the top for.
Pestcom Pest Management is a popular pest control business based in Boise, Idaho. What we’ll do is copy their URL, paste it on Ahrefs and fetch some meaningful data. Under the “Organic Search” section, select “Top Pages” and you’ll come across the pages Pestcom Pest Management is ranking for.
Here’s what we got:
Their “Tips to Stop Cockroaches Coming Up From Bathroom Shower Drains, Sinks & Pipes at Night in Meridian, ID” is doing pretty well with traffic standing at 468 (as of this writing.)
Similarly, you can gain insights into your competitors’ top pages and learn which of their pages are ranking at the top and bringing in the most traffic. Now, your job is to build a better version of the blog post to boost your chances of ranking at the top.
But remember, if their domain rating is 70 and yours is 30, then even though you build a high-quality, better version of the blog post, you may still find it hard to beat them. So, we’d advise you to approach your content marketing efforts in a strategic manner in conjunction with other SEO strategies.
Step IV – Build a Results-Driven Content Marketing Strategy
Now, based on the data you’ve gathered, it’s time to build a content marketing strategy that helps you steer in the right direction. Here’s what our content strategy looks like:
After digging the internet and conducting thorough competitive analysis, we build monthly or annual content strategy for ourselves and our clients for the best possible results.
Similarly, we’d advise you to build a fool-proof, results-driven content marketing strategy that helps you strategically boost your search engine rankings and grow your website traffic.
Step V- Write High-Quality Content that Actually Delivers Value
Now, you’ll find most content pieces across the internet to be nothing but filler – crafted just for the sake of SEO. While doing this may help some companies increase their rankings, it’s not beneficial in the long term.
“Businesses should understand who their target audience is, their pain points, and their problems. Based on that, they should craft blog posts or content pieces that help them deliver actual value.”
For example, if you are struggling with social media marketing, we’ll roll out a content piece that delivers actionable tips and tricks to help you boost your social media marketing efforts.
At redfox visual, we build strategic, actionable content pieces that are laser-focused on helping our clients deliver value to their audience. And we’ll do the same for you.
That’s How You Build Content That Ranks
at the Top of Search Engines
Last but not least, you also need to focus on on-page SEO, off-page SEO (link-building, guest posting, and more), as well as technical SEO to put your content in front of your audience and maximize its reach. Google takes into consideration different factors like backlinks, user engagement, and more to determine search engine rankings.
Hence, you need to make sure that you focus on these elements as well. While content development may seem easy, the truth is – it’s not. You need to spend hours conducting competitive and keywords analysis. At the same time, you need to brainstorm different ideas and make sure that your audience is actually searching for them.
Without a strategy, you’ll be pouring your money down the drain. And at redfox visual, we have an amazing content marketing team that will help you write content that ranks at the top of search engines.
So, what are you waiting for?
Reach out to the #1 content marketing agency in Idaho today!
