September 2020 - Maven Collective Marketing

The COVID-19 outbreak has touched every part of our day to day lives this year. With much of the population spending an increasing amount of time at home, so it’s no surprise that internet usage has skyrocketed.

There has been a massive shift in time spent on social media or streaming videos to stay entertained. As well, people are turning to the internet to find answers that will reassure them as they face uncertainties in this ‘new normal’. Do I qualify for emergency financial support? Is it safe to fly domestically? Where can I buy a high-quality mask?

Now more than ever, it’s vital to help your audience find the information they need to make day-to-day decisions and to help them find answers to the many questions they may have. With that in mind, we have created this guide to provide our top COVID-19 SEO tips so you can help your audience to find your resources with ease.

COVID-19 Keyword Planning: Keyword Blocking

First things first, it’s important to note that search terms containing COVID-19 related keywords have been blocked by keyword planning tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs.

This move from keyword planning tools and digital ad platforms was essential to prevent organizations from advertising and profiting from the pandemic as a result.

However, it does mean that if you are looking for search volumes for COVID-19 related keywords, then you are likely to struggle. The good news is that there are other SEO tools that you can use to guide you and many different ways you can ensure your content is optimized, so your audience can find it easily.

COVID-19 Keyword Planning: Research COVID-19 Search Trends with Google Trends

Google Trends is an excellent tool to gain insights into the popularity of search terms over time.

It won’t give you a breakdown of exact search volumes for specific COVID-19 keywords, but it does provide a clear insight into the demand for COVID-19 related content and how it has changed as the pandemic developed.

covid-19 search trends impacting seo — *Google Trends Results: COVID-19 & Coronavirus Search Trends Over 12 Months*

Unsurprisingly, the number of people searching for coronavirus queries peaked in March. The coronavirus outbreak had just become a pandemic, and we were all frantically searching for more information.

Since then, the number of people searching for ‘coronavirus’ has decreased and leveled out, but the demand for information is far from over. Searches related to masks, for example, continued to increase after the coronavirus search frenzy began to calm.

masks search trends impacting seo — *Google Trends Results: Masks Search Trend Over 12 Months*

As people have gained a clearer understanding of COVID-19, they are shifting towards searching for information around how it is affecting them personally and adjustments they can make to live with it.

Whether that’s searching for the best masks to buy or further information on emergency financial support, there is a lot of important information that people need to be able to find with ease.

Choosing Relevant COVID-19 Keywords that Don’t Contain ‘COVID-19’

Depending on the content you are writing, there are likely to be several related keywords that you can gather search volumes for when completing your keyword research. For example, when researching keywords for this blog post, it would have been helpful to know the keyword volumes for searches such as ‘COVID-19 Keyword Planning’ or ‘COVID-19 SEO Tips’.

As that wasn’t possible, we instead used for similar keywords, just without ‘COVID-19’, such as ‘Keyword Planning’ or ‘SEO Tips’.

seo tips from google keyword planner — *Google Keyword Planner: SEO Tips and Keyword Planning Search Volumes*

As you can see, there are still considerable search volumes for these keywords. Given the trends of COVID-19 related search queries this year, it’s likely that variations of these keywords that include ‘COVID-19’ are popular too.

New to SEO?

At Maven Collective Marketing, our team are expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and can help your site to rank higher in search results to drive the organic traffic you deserve.

If you would like any help with your SEO, get in touch today and see why we just got our fourth straight 5-star review!

COVID-19 SEO Tips

Keyword planning is, of course, a crucial part of optimizing your resource for search. However, there are many other pieces of the puzzle. Here are our top COVID-19 SEO tips that you can implement to make it easier for your readers to find your content.

COVID-19 SEO TIP 1: Keep Content Compelling, Educational & Factual

First things first, creating thorough, high-quality content is essential to SEO. Your content needs to provide a great answer to the searcher’s question, so should be well researched, well written and give a good user experience.

When discussing COVID-19 SEO tips and content, this is more important than ever. There is a lot of false information out there, so it’s important to build content on thorough research to avoid contributing to the spread of misinformation.

Also, we recommend including links in any COVID-19 content back to core sources of information such as the World Health Organization, or your local government response. This ties into our next COVID-19 SEO tip…

COVID-19 SEO TIP 2: Build Links to Other Sites with Relevant Content

It’s good practice to link to other sites and resources from your content. Although it may feel counterintuitive, there are several good reasons for doing this.

Search engine algorithms learn a lot about your site by looking at the websites that your content is linking to. Linking to other resources and reputable sites will help search engines determine the relevancy of your content, and relevancy is key to ranking well in search results.

Providing outbound links to other high authority web pages is likely to increase the trustworthiness of your website. Therefore, search engines will have higher confidence in your site and will be more likely to suggest your content to its users.

Linking to other sites can also encourage them to link back to your content…

COVID-19 SEO TIP 3: Encourage Other Sites to Link to You

When a reputable site has an external link to your content, this is called a ‘backlink’. Backlinks are really important for SEO as they are essentially another site giving your site a stamp of approval.

The most valuable backlinks are those that come from popular, high-authority sites. If you can encourage these sites to link back to your content, it will go a long way to increasing the trust that search engines have in your content and improve the overall authority of your site.

There are many backlink analysis tools that can help you to review your backlinks and help you discover the types of sites that are linking to yours, for example, Moz Link Explorer and Google Search Console.

COVID-19 SEO TIP 4: Fix Anything That is Slowing Down Your Site

page speed insights by google — *Google PageSpeed Insights*: *Example of Results*

Having a fast page speed, or page load time is vital to ranking well in search results. And, it goes without saying that it’s a massive factor in user experience. The longer it takes for your page to load, the higher your bounce rate will be.

You can easily find out your page load speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. When you enter the URL for the page you’d like to examine, PageSpeed Insights will give you an overall page speed score followed by opportunities for improvement.

COVID-19 SEO TIP 5: Monitor and Respond to Your Web Analytics

web analytics for latest seo tips — *Monitor your Web Analytics with Google Search Console*

SEO isn’t something that is ever ‘done’. There will always be ways that you can improve, tweak and adjust your content or website to improve your search engine rankings and authority. Analytics platforms like Google Analytics are a great way to track the results following any changes you make. Another great tool is Google Search Console, which you can use to determine the keyword phrases that are driving the most traffic to your site.

Keeping a close eye on your analytics platforms can provide invaluable insights that you can use to guide further updates and improvements to your site, or even as inspiration for new content ideas.

COVID-19 SEO Tips: Final Thoughts

We hope these COVID-19 SEO Tips help you to get more from your content and provide useful, engaging content to your audience. Organic SEO can take a long time to build, but by following best practices, you will be able to experience long term benefits and get the most from your web content.

At Maven Collective Marketing, our team are expert in organic Search Engine Optimization. So, if you would like some help improving your sites ranking across search engines, get in touch today! We’d love to hear from you.

We’ve all heard the phrase: “if you build it, they will come.” But if no one knows where it is, how will they get there?

It used to be enough to create quality content, but if content promotion isn’t a key part of your content marketing strategy, the only engagement you are likely to get is a thumbs up from your mother. And while we appreciate kudos from family, that doesn’t usually turn our posts or pages into high-traffic, lead-generating machines.

In the world of online marketing and content marketing, content promotion acts as the road that gets visitors to arrive at our destination. So, how do we get people to show up?

Back to the Basics: SEO & Content Marketing

It goes without saying—SEO isn’t optional, it’s a mandatory part of the process. According to Ahrefs, over four million blog posts are published every single day. To help yours stand out from the crowd, there are some important on-page tactics to employ as part of your content marketing strategy:

Use strategic keywords in HTML elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags, and alt text.
Create relevant and well-written content that is optimized for short and long-tailed keywords.
Ensure page URLs are simple, well-formatted, and incorporate keywords.
Optimize page load speed on mobile and desktop devices (this can be as simple as limiting large video and image files).

Don’t Wait for Indexing

A common misconception is that as soon as a post goes live, Google will immediately crawl your website, index your content, and voila! A flood of visitors will find themselves knocking at your door. While it’s a nice thought, it likely won’t happen.

It can take up to three months (sometimes more) for Google’s bots to find new pages—unless you re-index your website after every new addition (still, please don’t wait for indexing).

indexing website for content marketing strategy

Include Organic Content Promotion in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Once you’ve written high-quality content, optimized for SEO, and published to your website, it’s time to shout your new content from the rooftops. Organic content promotion is used to amplify the visibility and effectiveness of your content or marketing campaigns.

Unlike paid promotion, it doesn’t involve spending money on advertisements or boosting posts. There are several ways to include organic content promotion within your content marketing strategy, but here are five that can yield the most significant results.

Content Promotion with Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to spread the word. There are loads of great software solutions for marketing automation to help you send targeted campaigns. Begin by identifying the segment(s) of your list that would be most interested in your latest content.

A/B test your subject lines and CTAs to see what resonates. Add a little personalization for good measure, [FIRST NAME]. And do some research on your personas to find out what day of the week and time is best to hit SEND.

Always remember to test your emails on different devices and mail clients before circulating to ensure nothing breaks.

Content Promotion with Social Media

using social media as content marketing strategy for promotion

Social media marketing is a necessary component of an effective content promotion strategy. While you likely aren’t active on all of the different social media platforms, it’s safe to assume your brand probably engages with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. Here is a useful tip for each:

Instagram: Hashtags are like signposts, but using too many can appear spammy. Wrap your hashtags in “[…]” to hide from followers while still appeasing Instagram’s algorithm.
Twitter: Hashtags are also relevant on Twitter, but even more so is building authentic relationships with your audience. Think of Twitter as a telephone rather than a megaphone.
Facebook: It may be tempting to ask viewers to like, comment, or share your content, but Facebook views these explicit requests as click-bait. With their transition to focusing on meaningful interactions, click-bait is seen as spam and the antithesis to providing value for users.
LinkedIn: The more people you can get your content in front of, the better. Tag team members or friends in your network to encourage dialogue and sharing.

An additional tip for all social media platforms: You can craft multiple social posts from one piece of content. Repromote by using different snack-size bites, such as sound clips, videos, or quotes.

Content Promotion with Backlinks

One of the most important ways to improve the search ranking for your content is to build backlinks. When a high-ranking site links to your content, search engines see that as a “vote of confidence” and elevates its importance in their results.

Backlinks can be notoriously challenging to obtain, but guest blogging, answering questions on Quora and Reddit, or pushing out a PR campaign are a few great, no-cost options to organically promote content and build brand awareness.

Content Promotion with Schema Markup

Technical SEO tactics were once enough to show search engines the value of your content, but not since the advent of semantic search. Structured data markup is a type of in-page code that enables Google, Yahoo, and Bing! to crawl, organize, and understand the information in a similar way people do.

When implemented correctly, structured data markup can enhance your site’s search results leading to rich cards, carousels, and interactive features. These elements increase the findability of your content and make them more appealing to potential visitors as they wade through millions of returned results.

Content Promotion in Online Communities

Most social media platforms offer opportunities for professionals or people with similar interests to form online communities—think, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter Chats.

Joining these groups as an active member can be a great way to share your content and drive strong, relevant traffic. The key here is to be an active member, not just a content pusher. Adding true value to the conversation will yield higher results than dropping in just to push your own agenda.

Need Help Content Marketing Strategy and Content Promotion?

You invest a lot of time and resources in creating valuable content. Using some or all of the tools recommended above will not only tell visitors where you live but also pave the road for getting them there.

If you’ve tried the tactics above and didn’t see a measurable difference or want additional guidance on organic content promotion, Maven Collective Marketing is here to help. We drive web traffic, build audiences, and specialize in SEO content creation and promotion for B2B software and software service companies. Get in touch to find out how we can produce meaningful and measurable ROI for your business together.

Month: September 2020

COVID-19 SEO Tips: Help Your Audience Find the Information They Need