How do you structure a content outline for SEO?

Choose keywords with purpose and priority while ensuring that you have a robust view of multiple sources. For example, don't just create content to gain share of voice in your customer's journey. Poll your competitive set and see which keywords you have the most "shelf space" to gain: high volume keywords which you lack against multiple competitors. (Instead of searching for a few keywords that seem to be good content opportunities.)

A great tool to get great keywords for your topics is ascendily. com/keywordchef. It'll search the SERPs for long tail questions about your topic, which will help you rank easier since they have less competition. I highly recommend building out your articles for these types of keywords as it'll help you gain topical authority faster. By answering questions some haven't written for.

The SERPs are some of the most valuable tools hiding in plain sight. You must evaluate search intent for your target keyword: Is it a keyword you should target, is it a keyword you can win? Failing to answer these questions can result in a failure to rank, and eroded trust in your SEO efforts. Look for big things like the types of ranking pages. Are you trying to cram a product page into an informational query that features blogs? Look for little things like title re-writes, or mismatches of keywords in titles vs. your target term. Your page 1 rankings truly start with the research, and the devil is in the details.

It's always a good idea to further leverage the SERPs mentioned above. Poll top-ranking competitors to get the price of admission on topic outlines. However, remember those are only table stakes. Look for your brand or client's unique expertise and unique perspective on the target customer to bring a unique content experience that speaks directly to the users' pain points or aspirations. If you want to consistently rank well for a keyword, you need to be able to affirmatively answer the question, "Is my page the best experience and resource for users, bar none?"

When possible, every page of content on your website should pay its own rent! And that includes a huge section missing here - internal linking. Pages you create should both be pointing customers to deeper engagement with your site and supporting your other pages with internal linking and targeted anchor text. For example, as an e-commerce retailer writing a style guide for women's fall fashion, you would also want to use descriptive anchor text linking back to your PLPs (category pages), PDPs (product pages) or other guides. Ex: linking to a jeans category page with the text "high-waisted jeans"