If so, a strong backlink profile is an absolute necessity. 

Backlinks are simply links on other websites that point to yours, but they have a special importance on search engines. 

On Google, a backlink acts as an endorsement of the page it links to.

This endorsement vouches for the quality and trustworthiness of a web page, AKA its ‘authority.’ 

So, it doesn’t take long for newbie site owners to realize they need to build backlinks to rank higher on Google and other search engines. 

The only problem is..

Where are you supposed to find high-quality websites that are willing to link to yours?

After all, 91.5% of all cold outreach emails get ignored. 

This makes it especially tricky for new site owners to find reliable backlink sources, but there is a solution. 

It’s to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. 

This is beneficial because:

1. They’re in your niche
2. They likely have lots of backlinks from relevant websites 
3. You can also pitch guest posts and link insertions to these sites 

When done properly, a competitor backlink analysis will provide you with a ton of new opportunities. 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to conduct a thorough backlink analysis of your competitors, so stay tuned! 

Why Do Competitor Backlinks Matter for SEO?

Why are your competitor’s backlinks such a powerful tool?

To understand why, it’s important to understand some link-building fundamentals. 

As mentioned in the intro, we stated that backlinks on Google and other search engines act as endorsements of your content. 

Accordingly, backlinks are an official ranking factor used by search engine algorithms.

When determining the order to rank search results for a given keyword, hundreds of ranking factors are taken into account, and backlinks are one of the most significant. 

In particular, the algorithm looks for:

1. Backlinks coming from reputable websites 
2. A natural-looking backlink profile (diverse backlinks with no evidence of manipulation)  

If it finds both, the content is more likely to rank well, unless the website’s competitors have better content with stronger backlinks. 

Therefore, backlinks are something every website needs to compete in the search rankings. 

Preface: Understanding domain authority 

The best backlinks will have strong domain authority, which is a metric (a numerical score of 1 – 100) that represents how likely a domain is to rank in the SERPs. The higher the number, the more ‘authority’ a domain has, which means that Google trusts its content and views it as high-quality. 

How do you build a higher authority score for your domain?

By building high-quality backlinks, of course! 

You can use Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) or Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) score (we use both)  to determine if it’s worth pursuing a backlink from a website or not. 

Our free domain authority checker tool is a great way to quickly measure a website’s DA, and it won’t cost you a dime! 

Benefit #1: Analyzing competitor backlinks will help you gain the edge 

Okay, now it’s time to dive into why it’s a good idea to study your competitor’s backlinks. 

In a nutshell, it’s like letting someone else do your homework for you. 

Let’s explain. 

New websites face a daunting task whenever it comes time to build backlinks, mainly because they typically don’t know where to start. 

While they know they need backlinks coming from relevant sites in their niche, it can be extremely difficult to know where to look, let alone pitch a guest post or draft an outreach email. 

Like we said earlier, most cold outreach emails are outright ignored, so getting your footing with link-building can be a real crapshoot. 

Things will become easier, though, once you start viewing your competitor’s backlink profiles. 

As long as the competitor you analyze shares the same target audience, their backlink profile is bound to be chock full of:

1. Relevant business directories 
2. Backlinks from websites that accept guest posts in your niche 
3. Websites that are open to link insertions (where you place a backlink into an existing piece of their content) 
4. Possible link partners 

These are all perfect opportunities to pursue, especially since you have social proof that they provide backlinks. 

Not only that, but you also can use a competitor’s backlink profile to customize your outreach. 

Benefit #2: Using competitor backlinks to tailor your outreach methods 

As a real-world example, imagine you run a website that sells gardening tools.  

One of your top competitors, then, would be https://www.gardeners.com, an extremely popular gardening supply store. 

When using a tool like Ahrefs to analyze their backlink profile, you notice that one of their backlinks is a link insertion coming from a site with a high DR.

Obviously, you’d like to score a similar link to improve your ranking power, so you decide to pursue a link insertion of your own. 

First, it’s time to do some detective work. By analyzing the link insertion on the web page, it can help you form a more compelling pitch. 

Here’s the backlink in question:

As you can see, the link insertion is for their Cat Scat plastic mats, and it comes from a website with a very high DR of 75. 

This tells us two things:

1. The Alley Cat website is open to product link insertions 
2. You could likely acquire a similar backlink for one of your products 

Therefore, your strategy should be to find an article on their site that directly relates to one of your products. From there, reach out to the site owner with a personalized email requesting that they link to your product since it would add tremendous value to their users. 

This is a simple example of how you can use a competitor’s backlink profile to your advantage, and it didn’t take very long at all to find! 

Benefit #3: You can uncover backlink gaps you need to fill 

Whenever another website has more backlinks than you do, it’s called a backlink gap. 

As we’ve already gone over, backlinks are credibility votes to Google, and they’re a significant ranking factor. 

This means it’ll be very tough to outrank a backlink-rich competitor who has significantly more links than your website (assuming that they’ve built decent links that aren’t manipulative or spammy). 

Because of this, your best bet is to close the gap by building as many or more backlinks as the competitor. 

First, however, you need to know that a gap exists in the first place, which is where a competitor analysis enters the picture. 

By monitoring your competitor’s backlink profiles, you’ll know exactly how many backlinks they have in comparison to yours, helping you quickly identify any gaps. 

Benefit #4: Replicate successful strategies 

Analyzing your competitor’s backlink profiles helps you learn from the best. By studying your most successful competitors, you can reconstruct the strategies they used to build their links. 

For example, let’s say your strongest competitor has a backlink profile consisting of:

1. Guest posts on high-quality sites 
2. Listings in online business directories
3. Social media profiles and forum comments 

Going by this evidence, you can gather that their primary strategy was to build authority with high-value guest posts while peppering in backlinks from other sources to appear natural. 

The best part?

They’re your most successful competitor, meaning that the strategy must yield great results. Since there’s no law preventing you from engaging in similar tactics, give it a go! 

4 Steps to Find and Analyze Your Competitor’s Backlinks 

By now, it should be clear that analyzing your competitor’s backlinks is a fantastic way to:

1. Reengineer successful backlink strategies 
2. Brainstorm outreach ideas 
3. Uncover relevant websites that provide backlinks 

Whether you’re a new site owner or a seasoned webmaster, knowing how to conduct a competitor backlink analysis is a must-have skill. 

Without further ado, here are 4 steps to quickly find and analyze your top competitor’s backlinks. 

Step #1: Find your competitors 

Before you can peep at their backlink profiles, you need to know who your primary competitors are first. 

This actually isn’t as straightforward as it may seem, as there are two main types of SEO competitors:

1. Search competitors
2. Traditional competitors 

Search competitors are a little bit different than traditional competitors because you need to include every website that targets the same keywords you do. 

Let’s dive deeper to learn more. 

Understanding search competitors 

First, let’s take a look at search competitors, of which there are two types (yes, it gets even more complicated). To make these easy to understand, we’ll use Apple as an example in both cases:

• Page-level competitors. A page-level competitor is any website that targets the same keywords you do, but they may not be in the same line of business. For example, Forbes is a page-level competitor of Apple, even though they aren’t in the computer business. This is because Forbes regularly publishes reviews of Apple’s latest products, and they target the exact same keywords. 

• Domain-level competitors. A domain-level competitor is any website that’s in the same market as you. In the case of Apple, their domain-level competitors would be other computer and smartphone companies like Samsung, Asus, and Dell. 

The best way to find your primary search competitors is to search for your most important keywords on Google and list the domains that appear the most. 

From there, you can determine if they’re a page-level competitor or a domain-level competitor. 

Finding traditional competitors 

Locating these competitors is more straightforward. A traditional competitor is any website or company that provides the same products or services as you to the same target audience. 

They’re all the alternative solutions to your business, so you probably already know who they are. 

If not, simply do a Google search for the ‘top companies in (x) industry.’ 

For SEO, it’s crucial to compile a list of both your traditional competitors and search competitors. 

This is because you’re going to need to outrank both. 

Even if a website isn’t advertising products and services to your audience, having them outrank you for important keywords is still disadvantageous. 

Consider the Forbes example mentioned previously. 

Imagine that Apple just released a new product, and they’re trying to rank in the top #3 for keywords related to it. Well, if their page-level competitors like Forbes and C-NET hog those spots for their review posts (which target the same keywords), this can directly impact Apple’s online visibility, and not in a good way.

That’s why it’s crucial to consider both traditional competitors and search competitors. 

Using Ahrefs to find competitors 

If you have a paid subscription to Ahrefs (which comes in handy for countless SEO tasks), you can use it to quickly pinpoint your main competitors. 

Here’s how to do it. 

First, sign in to your account and select the Site Explorer tool. Next, enter your domain and hit the Search button. 

This will take you to the Overview report, which lists all sorts of details about your website’s SEO performance. 

From the top of the report, scroll down until you reach the Top Organic Competitors section that looks like this:

Here, you’ll get to see where your website lies in relation to your top competitors on this chart. 

If you scroll down a bit more, you’ll have the option to view your top 20 competitors:

Doing so will take you to a more detailed Organic competitors report:

Here, you’ll get to see not only a list of your top competitors but also helpful data about keyword overlap, including how many keywords you share in common. 

You can also export this list as a PDF to insert into other programs (and to print a hard copy) for further analysis. 

Step #2: Analyze your competitor’s backlinks 

Once you have a complete list of your competitors at the ready, you can start analyzing their backlink profiles. 

A quick and easy way to do so is to use our free backlink checker tool. 

Simply enter a URL into the tool and hit View Backlinks Report to see any website’s backlinks. 

As an example, here’s what some of Forbes.com’s backlinks look like:

As you can see, our tool tells you:

1. The total number of backlinks and referring domains 
2. The percentage of dofollow backlinks the domain has (dofollow links pass link juice and nofollow links don’t) 
3. Referring IPs 
4. Anchor text (the text masking the hyperlink) 
5. The URL for each backlink plus the page it links to 

Also, each backlink receives a numerical score representing its overall strength. 

It’s entirely possible to conduct a thorough competitor backlink analysis just using our tool, and it’s a great option if you don’t have a budget. 

However, if you want to do a more in-depth analysis, you’ll need to use a paid service like Ahrefs. 

Conducting a competitor analysis using Ahrefs 

Once again, we’re going to use the Site Explorer tool for this example, so log in to Ahrefs and enter your domain of choice into its search bar. 

Next, navigate to the Backlinks report on the left-hand sidebar. 

This will show you a list of every single backlink the domain has. In this case, we’re sticking with Forbes as our example:

You have the option to visit each backlink, and the tool includes the anchor text and target URL. There are also valuable metrics like each backlink’s domain rating, traffic, and referring domains. 

Here’s a quick rundown of what you should look for in a backlink:

• Domain Rating or domain authority score. Here, you’ll want to look for high ratings to ensure the link is worth pursuing. The closer you can get to 100, the better, but it’s not always feasible to generate backlinks from extremely high DA sites. On average, stick to DA scores of 30 and above (give or take). 

• Relevancy. Even if a domain has a sky-high DR, if it comes from an irrelevant website it won’t count. For backlinks to matter, they must come from websites that relate to your website in some way. 

• Anchor text. You should also pay attention to the anchor text your competitor used for the backlink. In general, anchor text that contains target keywords plus a few other phrases tends to work best, but it’s important to mix things up. You can read more about achieving the ideal anchor text ratio here. 

• Link type. Check to see if a backlink is dofollow or nofollow before you try to build one from the same domain. Dofollow backlinks pass link juice and impact SEO, while nofollow links don’t (technically they do, but the amount of link juice they pass is minimal compared to dofollow). 

Next, head over to the Referring domains report to take a closer look at all the individual domains that provide backlinks to your client. 

This report cleans things up and provides a list of all the websites that link back to your client. As a quick clarification, a referring domain is different from a backlink in that one domain can provide you with multiple backlinks. 

On Google, it’s more powerful to have three backlinks from different referring domains than it is to have three backlinks from the same domain, as their impact begins to diminish after a while. That’s why it’s worth checking this report to see how many referring domains you can gain from analyzing a competitor’s profile. 

Step #3: Uncover your competitor’s strategies 

Ahrefs’ Backlinks report is great for understanding competitors’ backlink strategies, as you can easily tell if a backlink is from a link insertion, guest post, or business directory. 

In the example above, most of the backlinks are from journalists quoting Forbes articles and referencing their statistics, meaning these links were most certainly built naturally. 

What’s that?

Natural links are backlinks that you built without any intervention on your part. In other words, another website chose to link to your content because they found it relevant and valuable, not because you sent them an outreach email. 

Prioritizing prospects and backlink types 

You should also prioritize your prospects using the metrics we mentioned earlier. This means placing websites with high DR scores, relevant content, and dofollow links at the top of your list. 

Creating a priority list ensures that you only focus on building the strongest links first. 

Besides your prospects, certain types of backlinks should also take priority. 

These include:

• Guest posts. These are blogs that you write on related websites to gain a backlink and generate referral traffic. They’re a powerful type of backlink to build, so they should shoot to the top of your list. 

• Link insertions. This is where you ‘insert’ one of your backlinks into an existing piece of content on another website. A common example is to add a backlink to a relevant product or service to enhance an existing blog and provide a helpful resource for readers. These links can also be quite powerful, so take note of any website in your competitor’s profiles that accepts link insertions. 

• Podcast backlinks (and other types of media). If you find backlinks that came from a podcast or a webinar in your competitor’s profile, you should definitely check them out. This is because they’ll likely accept you as a guest too (since you’re in the same niche), meaning you can also pick up a backlink (and referral traffic). 

Other types of backlinks, like business directory links, are also good to include, but they won’t be as valuable as the ones listed above. 

Step #4: Start conducting outreach to build backlinks 

Alright, the final step of the process is to start building backlinks of your own by reaching out to site owners. 

In particular, your goal is to mimic the backlinks you found in your competitor’s profiles, so you’ll be targeting lots of guest posts, link insertions, podcasts, webinars, and more. 

This is also where you’ll need to be the most creative because you’ll be working without a roadmap. 

Up until this point, you’ve been able to use your competitor’s past actions as a guide. However, you won’t have any way to view the exact outreach emails they sent each prospect, so you’ll be on your own. 

What we can give you are candid tips for conducting successful outreach. 

Site owners receive hundreds of backlink outreach emails a day, so you need to find a way to stand out. 

Here’s what we recommend you do:

• Personalize the introduction. It’s integral to mention the site owner’s name and a bit about what they do. Do some digging beforehand to uncover their names, the type of content they produce, and maybe a little bit about their background. Mentioning these things in your pitch can increase the chances that they’ll grant you a backlink, but don’t go overboard (a sentence or two will suffice). 

• Reference their content. Here’s where doing your homework really helps. Mention an article or other type of content that you checked out and enjoyed. Besides singing their praises, you can also bring up how their content relates to yours, or that it sparked an interesting idea or concept in your head. 

• Highlight the link opportunity. Don’t take too long to get to the point and highlight the link opportunity in question. In particular, mention the value that adding the backlink will provide to their website. 

• Suggest the link location and anchor text. Lastly, tell the site owner where you think the backlink would work best, and propose some anchor text to use. It’ll ultimately be up to the site owner to write the anchor text, but providing them with a suggestion can help achieve the ratio you’re looking for. 

Here’s an example of an outreach email that incorporates all these elements:

Hey (site owner’s name), 

I checked out the piece on (content) and found it really insightful. In fact, it sparked an idea that I think you’ll enjoy. My online store sells (relevant products) that I think would be an amazing resource for your readers. After all, it gives them the chance to purchase the very thing you’re describing in the article. 

I think adding a backlink on (specific area of the page) would be valuable to your audience, and it would help my SEO. You could use anchor text like (preferred anchor text), but that’s just a suggestion! 

Thanks so much for your time. 

(Your name)

If you don’t hear back after a week or so, don’t get discouraged. It’s perfectly acceptable to send a polite follow-up email, and doing so may speed things up. 

Start Using Competitor Backlinks to Improve Your SEO Today 

We’ve gone over a whole lot so far, so let’s take a moment to recap:

1. It can be difficult to find relevant link-building opportunities 
2. Your competitors provide the perfect hack for this 
3. Analyzing competitor backlinks is a great way to spark ideas and find opportunities 
4. Tools like Ahrefs and our free backlink checker make the process easier 

Now that you know what to do, what are you waiting for? Get out there and start analyzing your competitors! 

Do you need help conducting outreach to capitalize on your competitor’s backlinks?

If so, we’d love to take the process off your hands. Our 5-star Link Outreach services are your ticket to securing the guest posts and link insertions you found from your competitors, so don’t wait to get in touch today.   

The post How to Leverage Competitor Backlinks in Your Favor  appeared first on The HOTH.

Why is the relationship so synergistic?

There are lots of reasons why, but let’s start with the fact that blogs are an incredible way to make use of the SEO keywords you uncover. 

Keyword research involves uncovering the search terms your target audience looks for the most, but just finding popular keywords isn’t enough. 

You need to find ways to use these keywords in your website’s content to rank for them on search engines like Google, and a blog post is the perfect candidate. 

Basing a blog post on an SEO keyword lets you:

1. Appeal to your target audience by covering topics they’re searching for 
2. Get noticed by search engine algorithms whenever you use the keywords in your content 

Do your on-page and off-page SEO right (backlinks, metadata, etc.), and you’ll start ranking in the #1 organic spot for your keywords. 

From there, if your blogs are designed to convert via calls to action (CTAs) that link to product and service pages, you’ll increase your sales. 

It’s a business model that’s worked wonders for many years now, and 2024 is no exception, despite what some may say. 

The dominance of social media platforms like X and TikTok and generative AI tools have led some to declare that blogging is dead, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

According to a recent study by Orbit Media, 82% of bloggers claim their blog drives at least some results. Moreover, 50% of bloggers receive a majority of their traffic from social media, proving that social platforms can help blogging instead of hinder it. 

These stats prove that blogging is still alive and well in 2024, so stay tuned to learn how you can use blogging to benefit your business. 

Do People Still Read Blog Posts?

At this point, it becomes trendy every couple of years to declare that blogging is an antiquated content format. 

Currently, with everyone glued to TikTok and YouTube, it may seem like blogs truly are a thing of the past at first glance. 

After all, why read a blog post when you can just watch a quick video?

Well, the main reason blogs aren’t obsolete is the continued prevalence of Google Search and other search engines. 

Search engines are still the #1 way to find information online, whether someone is looking to buy a product, answer a question, or learn more about a topic. 

In fact, there are now 8.5 billion searches (99,000 occur each second) on Google in a single day, with 94% of users landing on organic search results. 

What comprises a majority of the organic search results?

You guessed it, blog posts. 

Out of all the types of content and web pages Google ranks in the top 10, blog posts are the most prevalent (excluding homepages). 

The proof?

According to a study by BrightEdge, out of 23,785 pages analyzed in the top 10, 3,254 of them were blogs. 

Blog posts appeared in:

1. The top 3 results 511 times 
2. The top 10 results 1,014 times 

Overall, blog posts appeared more often than any other type of content or webpage, accounting for 19% of results in the top 10. 

There are blogs that answer questions, review products, teach new skills, and so much more. 

For example, say you want to find the best Italian restaurant in your neighborhood. You do a quick Google search and land on a blog post listing the top 10 Italian restaurants in your town. Just like that, you sought out and consumed a blog post – even though you probably don’t consider yourself an avid blog post reader. 

Most people assume they don’t read blogs because they’re picturing travel blogs and opinion pieces. 

In actuality, it’s highly likely that you regularly consume blogs. Any time you’ve searched for information online and clicked on a result, it was most likely a blog post. 

As long as people continue to use search engines to find information online, blogging will still be a viable and profitable practice, especially for SEO strategies. 

Does Blogging Have a Future?

Starting on May 14th, 2024, Google introduced AI Overviews to Google Search, a move that was concerning to most bloggers. 

What’s an AI Overview?

It’s where Google’s generative AI directly answers a search query at the very top of the results page. It typically provides an answer to the question posed by the search (in the example below, the question was ‘what is AI?’) and cites a few online sources for further reading. 

Here’s an example of it in action:

As you can see, the AI provides us with some information about artificial intelligence, and there are a few links at the bottom where users can learn more. 

The problem?

This feature further contributes to the zero-click search phenomenon, where a user’s search on Google ends without clicking on any of the organic results because they got what they need from an AI Overview, featured snippet, or knowledge bar. 

Google’s SERP (search engine results pages) features have been stealing clicks away from websites for a while now, but the AI Overview has only exacerbated the issue. 

In fact, 60% of all Google searches are now zero-click searches, which definitely concerns not only bloggers but also all websites engaging in SEO. 

However, while this statistic seems to paint a grim picture, it’s actually not something bloggers (or site owners) need to worry about.

As technical SEO consultant Pedro Dias pointed out on X, many zero-click searchers aren’t prospects who you’re targeting with your content anyway. They’re simply users who need quick answers to their questions. 

Also, note that in the AI Overview provided above, 2 of the 3 provided sources are blog posts. If a user truly wanted to educate themselves on AI, the brief description provided by Google wouldn’t fully scratch their itch. 

Therefore, it’s highly likely they’ll click on one of the blog posts provided to further their education. 

How blogs can stand out in the age of generative AI

The good news is that generative AI tools can only provide so much information on a given topic, and it’s usually pretty basic. 

To continue to rake in traffic to your blog despite the prevalence of AI Overviews, you need to embody Google’s E-E-A-T acronym:

• Experience. One thing AI chatbots don’t have is first-hand experience, which is where your writing will shine. Wherever possible, include your real-world experiences regarding the topics you write about. 

• Expertise. Your content needs to convince readers that you’re an authority on the subject, which is where expertise comes in. Do your best to cite instances where you exhibited your expertise, such as winning an award or solving a complicated problem. 

• Authoritativeness. For both users and Google to trust your content, your site needs to have links coming from other trusted websites in your industry. Link-building is the name of the game here, and your goal is to acquire as many valuable backlinks as possible. 

• Trustworthiness. Lastly, you build trustworthiness by exhibiting experience, expertise, and authoritativeness in your content. 

This acronym is what Google uses to train its human team of quality raters, and they’re who determine what constitutes a ‘quality’ website in the eyes of Google’s search bots. 

Following these guidelines will ensure your content is unique, contains valuable insights, and demonstrates your authority on the topics you cover – which are all things AI chatbots can’t do. 

Does Blogging Still Deliver Results? 

At its core, blogging is about delivering results for your SEO strategy, such as achieving higher keyword rankings, improving conversion rates, driving traffic to your site, and generating backlinks (whenever someone shares your post). 

So far, we’ve shown that blogging is still relevant, but does it still deliver the goods in terms of an ROI?

This is another resounding yes. 

Take it from us; one of the top-performing pages on our entire website is a blog post:

This post has been putting in serious work for us, as testified by the fact that it’s up there with our homepage and free SEO tools (which are our most popular pages). 

It’s a piece on buying backlinks, and it has an impressive organic traffic value of $4.9k. 

It also ranks for 232 keywords, 10 of which are in the top 3. 

Moreover, it’s been a huge hit amongst our audience, as it’s generated hundreds of comments:

As you can see, our audience truly appreciates our insights, which helps further establish us as thought leaders in the digital marketing/SEO space. 

The post also features a CTA at the end that directs to our Link Insertion and Link Outreach services to help us drive conversions. 

All that value and it’s all from a single blog post. 

We have countless other posts on our blog that receive similar numbers, which is why we’re such strong advocates of the practice.  

Also, according to in-depth research from Hubspot, 82% of marketers see a positive ROI from consistently blogging. They also see 126% more lead growth than businesses that don’t blog at all. 

How Does Blogging Affect SEO?

Blogging will impact your SEO in a variety of helpful ways, including: 

• Satisfying user search intent 
• Improving click-through rates (CTR)
• Targeting SERP features and AI Overviews
• Generating high-quality backlinks 
• Better index coverage

These are all significant benefits, so let’s unpack each one in further detail. 

Blogs satisfy all forms of user search intent 

Search intent refers to the ‘why’ behind a user search. In other words, it represents what they hope to achieve with their search. 

For example, if you search for something like ‘how to play guitar,’ it’s clear that you want to learn something, which would make the intent informational. 

In general, there are four types of search intent, which include:

• Informational: The user wants to learn something from their search (i.e., answer a question, learn how to use a tool, etc.).

• Navigational: The user is trying to navigate to a specific page online (i.e., the Netflix login page). 

• Commercial: The user is doing research to eventually make a purchase (i.e., buyer’s guides, reviews, etc.). 

• Transactional: The user is ready to make a purchase that very session (i.e., demos, pricing, reviews, product pages, etc.). 

What’s great about blogs is that they can satisfy all types of user intent (except for navigational, which has no SEO value anyway). 

This means you can create informational (how-to’s, guides, FAQs), commercial (buyer’s guides), and transactional (reviews, testimonials, case studies) blog posts, which also correspond with the different stages of your sales funnel. 

When prospects are at the top of your funnel, they want to learn more information about what you do (informational). When they’re in the middle, they want to learn more about your products (commercial). Lastly, at the bottom of your funnel, you have to convince them to make a purchase (transactional). 

In short, blogs are a simple yet highly effective form of matching content with all forms of search intent. 

A higher organic click-through rate (CTR)

Your click-through rate refers to how many users click on your website in the SERPs compared to how many times it shows up in user search results. 

A low CTR means most users skip over your web pages in favor of others, which isn’t good for your SEO. 

Arguably, the most reliable way to raise your organic CTR is to produce lots of high-quality blog content. If your blog post titles are attention-grabbing, relevant, and exciting – users will begin clicking on your web pages over competitors, raising your CTR as a result. 

They enable you to target SERP features and AI Overviews

Another reason blogs work so well for SEO is they allow you to target Google SERP features and AI Overviews. 

We already provided an example of an AI Overview above, and it listed two blogs as sources for further reading. 

Therefore, if your content is valuable and optimized for SEO, you’ll stand a greater chance of appearing in the AI Overview. 

SERP features and AI Overviews are both special elements that appear above the top paid and organic results in what’s known as position zero. 

Here’s an example of a featured snippet, one of the most common SERP features:

There are also knowledge panels, video carousels, image packs, local packs, map packs, and more. 

Position zero is a powerful spot to hold on Google, and it’s a surefire way to give your SEO profile a much-needed boost. 

Excellent link-building opportunities

Another major reason why blogs are integral for SEO is the amazing opportunities they provide to include internal links and external links. 

Well-written, informative blog posts also attract backlinks from other content creators online. The more backlinks you acquire from trusted websites, the easier it will be for your web pages to reach the top of the SERPs. 

Link building is an important aspect of SEO because:

1. They’re an extremely important ranking factor since they act as ‘credibility votes’ for the quality and accuracy of your content. 
2. The number of backlinks AND referring domains are considered in addition to the authority (ranking power) of the linking domains. 
3. Cracking the top 10 on Google is incredibly difficult without a decent backlink profile. 
4. You should only target backlinks from trusted websites to increase your ranking power. 

Producing high-quality blog posts that contain videos and infographics will increase your chances of other creators sharing your content. 

This is because visual content attracts 12x more shares than static content, so include visuals whenever possible! 

When vetting backlink opportunities, check the authority score of the domain in question to see if it’s viable. 

How do you do that?

You can with our free domain authority checker tool. It will help you determine if a backlink is worth pursuing from a domain or not (stick with DA scores at or above 20). 

Better index coverage

If you want to rank on Google Search, then Google must have your web pages in its index, which is something that doesn’t happen instantly. 

Instead, Google regularly crawls the web to update its index, but it does so with a budget (since crawling takes resources). 

To improve its efficiency, Google’s crawler bots focus on websites that are popular and receive frequent updates first. This means that if you regularly publish blog content, Google will index your website more often, which will speed up the time it takes for your optimizations to impact your rankings. 

Beyond AI Summaries: 7 Tips For Creating Blog Content that Stands Out in 2024

By now, it should be clear that blogging still has a bright future, even amidst emerging search trends like generative AI. 

Ready to jump on the blogging bandwagon to enjoy more traffic, leads, and sales?

Before you write your first post, check out these helpful tips for drafting blog content that appeals to both target audiences and search engines. 

Tip #1: Find the sweet spot between quality and quantity 

While longer blog posts have become the norm, with the average post now clocking in at 1,427 words, don’t forget that quality reigns supreme. Data from Semrush reveals that top-performing posts average 1,152 words, highlighting that it’s not about reaching a magic word count but about delivering valuable content.

This means you shouldn’t inflate your blogs with fluff only to reach your desired word count.

It should come as no surprise that excessive wordiness is a turn-off for readers. 

Research from Adobe found that 39% of consumers find verbose or poorly written content the most annoying aspect of online articles.

So, what does this mean for bloggers in 2024?

Prioritize value: Focus on providing in-depth information, actionable tips, or unique perspectives that your readers can’t find elsewhere. You always want to stay one step ahead of your competition and generative AI tools quality-wise, so stay away from generic rundowns. 

Edit ruthlessly: Trim the fluff! Every sentence should serve a purpose. Cut out unnecessary words, repetitive phrases, and tangential ideas. 

Write for readability: Use clear and concise language while breaking up the text with subheadings, bullet points, and images to enhance the reading experience.

Consider your audience: Tailor your content to the specific needs and interests of your target readers. What kind of information are they seeking? How much detail do they prefer? What tone of voice do they respond to?

Don’t force it: While longer posts can rank well in search engines, don’t artificially inflate your word count. If you’ve said all there is to say about a topic in just 800 words, there’s no need to stretch it to 1,500. 

In a world filled with information overload and AI-generated word salad, readers crave substance over fluff. 

By prioritizing quality, you’ll build a loyal following of engaged readers who value your expertise and insights. It’s better to have a few stellar blog posts than a dozen mediocre ones.

Tip #2: Tailor content to match user intent behind keywords

The rise of AI and evolving search algorithms have made understanding and matching users’ search intent more crucial than ever before for bloggers.

Remember, search intent refers to the ‘why’ behind the search. 

Google’s algorithms have also become increasingly sophisticated in determining user intent. 

This is because they want to deliver content that directly answers the searcher’s question or solves their problem. 

If your blog post doesn’t align with that intent, it will likely be buried in the search results, regardless of how well-written or informative it might be.

Here are a few ways to match user intent in your blogs:

Keep it focused: Be crystal clear about the specific question or problem your post aims to address. Don’t try to cover too much ground; focus on delivering a comprehensive answer to a single query.

Front-load the answer: Don’t make readers hunt for the information they need. State your main point or solution clearly and concisely in the first few sentences.

Be strategic with keyword placement: Include your target keyword early in the post (ideally in the title, introduction, and first heading). This signals to Google (and readers) what your content is about.

Concise and value-driven: Get to the point quickly. Avoid filler content and unnecessary details. Every sentence should contribute to meeting the search intent.

Provide rich context: Supplement your answer with relevant examples, data, visuals, or external resources that add value and deepen understanding.

Address related topics strategically: If you want to include additional information that doesn’t directly answer the main query, do it towards the end of the post. This ensures you’ve first satisfied the primary user intent.

Tip #3: Leverage AI in Blogging 

When ChatGPT went live in November 2022, it kicked off the AI chatbot revolution, and it had bloggers around the world raising their eyebrows. 

Why is that?

The cause for concern was that AI chatbots like ChatGPT have the ability to generate human-like writing in an instant. 

Moreover, chatbots can handle just about every type of content, including blog posts, landing pages, emails, and more. 

This caused many to declare that human writers would soon be obsolete, and lots of websites began auto-generating blogs using AI-powered tools. 

So, did the AI chatbot revolution kill blogs created by humans?

We’re nearly two years separated from the launch of ChatGPT, and it’s relatively safe to say no. 

In fact, there’s been quite a bit of backlash against AI-generated content on search engines. This is because AI can’t generate original insights or exhibit first-hand experience. As a result, most AI-generated blogs were generic summaries of existing information. 

AI also has problems with hallucinating and making things up out of thin air, which isn’t good. 

Not only that, but Google also started to fight back against AI spam with its now famous March Core Update earlier this year. 

All this has led to a stronger appreciation for human-generated content that provides true value. 

Does this mean AI is completely useless?

Not at all! 

While it’s not a replacement for human writers, AI technology is the perfect way to make human writers even stronger. 

AI tools are excellent for:

• Brainstorming ideas 
• Conducting keyword research 
• Rephrasing sentences 
• Getting rid of writer’s block 
• Creating outlines 

Using AI tools like ChatGPT to supplement your blog writing is the way to go, so don’t be shy about pulling one up should writer’s block rear its ugly head. 

Tip #4: Make your blogs easy to skim

In the modern era, human attention spans are shorter than ever. The average attention span is only 8.25 seconds, which is actually less than a goldfish, which is a scary thought (but it’ll be gone in 8.25 seconds, so it’s fine). 

Blogging-wise, this means that your blogs MUST be easy to skim and scan. 

According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of readers scan a page (meaning they read the subheadings first) to see if it’s worth reading. Only 16% read posts word-for-word, which is why you need to make your blogs scannable. 

To make your blogs easy to skim, you should use the following tactics: 

• Headers: Break up your text with clear, descriptive heading tags (H2, H3, etc.). This creates a visual hierarchy and allows readers to jump to the sections that interest them most.
• Lists and charts: Lists and charts present information in a concise, scannable format. Use bulleted or numbered lists for steps, tips, resources, and charts or graphs to visualize data.
• Short sentences and paragraphs: Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and to the point. Aim for 1-3 sentences per paragraph to avoid overwhelming your readers.
• Visuals: Break up long stretches of text with images, videos, infographics, or other visual elements like emojis. These make your content more engaging and help illustrate your points.
• Formatting: Use bold, italics, or underlining (sparingly) to highlight key points or important terms. This draws the reader’s eye to essential information. 

Tip #5: Optimize content for SEO

You need to write SEO-friendly copy that contains focus keywords in all the right places. The days of spamming keywords are long gone, so you’ll need to place them organically in the following locations:

Besides keyword usage, there are other key on-page SEO best practices you need to follow to rank #1 on Google, so let’s briefly look at the most important ones. 

Keyword research

• Identify Relevant Keywords: Use keyword research tools (like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Semrush) to find keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for.
• Include Long-Tail Keywords: These are more specific phrases (e.g., “best hiking trails in Cape Town“) that have less competition and are often easier to rank for. Evidence shows that long-tail keywords have high conversion rates (36%, which is higher than most optimized landing pages), so you’ll want to include them to boost your sales. 

On-page SEO

• Compelling Title Tag: Include your target keyword in a catchy title tag (the headline that appears in search results).
• Meta Description: Write a concise, informative description that accurately summarizes your blog post and encourages clicks. The meta description is strictly for users on Google, so don’t worry about using keywords here. 
• Header Tags (H1, H2, H3): Use header tags to structure your content and include relevant keywords in them.
• Keyword Placement: Place your target keyword throughout your content (title, headings, body text), but avoid keyword stuffing (throwing keywords all over the place), which can harm your rankings and turn off readers.
• Image Optimization: Use descriptive filenames and alt text for images, including relevant keywords when appropriate (especially for alt text).
• Internal Linking: Link to related pages on your website to improve your user experience and help search engines better understand your site’s structure. 

Technical SEO

• Website Speed: Optimize your website’s loading speed for both desktop and mobile devices. A slow website can negatively impact your ranking. The Google Lighthouse Chrome extension includes a very useful tool for measuring your site speed and suggesting improvements, so check it out.  
• Mobile-Friendliness: Ensure your blog is responsive and easy to read on different screen sizes.
• URL Structure: Use clear, descriptive URLs that include your target keyword.
• Sitemaps: Submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console and other ‘command centers’ like Bing Webmaster Tools to help search engines crawl and index your content successfully (there are numerous ways the process can go wrong, so uploading a sitemap is a must).

Backlinks

As mentioned previously, you need to earn high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites to signal to search engines that your content is trustworthy and valuable.

How you go about securing said links is up to you, but there are some tried and true techniques for generating backlinks. 

These include guest posting, citation building, press releases (digital PR in general), and link insertions, just to name a few. 

Link-building is too big of a topic to get into here, so check out our Learning Hub post on why link–building is so important for SEO. 

Tip #6: Create An Omnichannel Content Strategy 

Believe it or not, many marketing experts claimed blogging was dead when platforms like X and YouTube became popular. 

Noticing a trend here?

No matter what it is, everyone loves to declare that SEO and blogging are dead whenever something vaguely new comes along. 

The thinking this time was that everyone would turn to social media for information, in turn making blogging an archaic form of content. 

Of course, now we know that didn’t happen. 

Not only did blogging outlive social media, but it also continued to thrive in spite of it. Much in the same vein, blogging is also outliving and thriving in the age of generative AI, so there’s that. 

Additionally, many bloggers discovered that their content could also work on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X.

How’s that?

There are several ways to make your existing blog content work on other platforms. For instance, if you have a successful tutorial blog post, why not use it as a script for a short YouTube video?

Now, one blog post has transformed into a post and a video, expanding your reach to include YouTube. 

Or, if you want to generate more traffic for one of your blog posts, you can link to it in an X or Instagram post to encourage your followers to give it a read. 

In other words, you should use social media to bolster your blogging efforts, not replace them. 

Tip #7: Other Channels to Help Build Your Blog 

Besides social media platforms, there are other channels that are worth using to promote your blog content and brand in general. 

Newsletters 

Starting a newsletter is a great way to drive traffic to your blog posts. 

Your newsletter should contain updates relevant to your target audience, as well as links to your latest posts to learn more information. 

It works similarly to a push notification, although your subscribers will receive an email instead of a notification on their smart device. 

Podcasts 

People love listening to podcasts during their commute to work, and they’re also a great way to promote your website, business, and blog. 

You can interview guests from your industry or simply discuss relevant issues in your field by yourself. 

Besides the additional exposure, podcasts are also a great way to build backlinks. 

Whenever you agree to appear on a podcast, ask the host to include a link back to your website in the episode description. 

Voila, now you’ve generated a valuable backlink for your website. Beyond that, if the website you contribute to is truly eye-opening, you can gain additional backlinks and referral traffic through shares.  

Podcasts are inexpensive to produce and can yield impressive results, so starting one is well worth your time. 

Guest posts

Another battle-tested way to build brand awareness and acquire high-authority backlinks is to write guest posts for other blogs in your niche. 

Make sure the guest post you write is unique and contains relevant information, as spamming guest posts won’t get you very far. 

As long as your guest posts are high-quality, you’ll receive a boost in traffic and a backlink to help your SEO profile. 

60% of blogs write 1 – 5 guest posts per month, which is a testament to its effectiveness (why would they waste their time on a fruitless endeavor?). 

The key to scoring consistent guest posts is mastering the outreach process, which you can learn more about here.

Antiquated Blogging Tactics to Avoid in 2024 

Sometimes, learning what NOT to do helps, and there are definitely some outdated blogging practices you should avoid at all costs. 

Google updates its search algorithms thousands of times each year, not to mention the handful of core updates they inform the public about. In particular, these updates crack down on spammy, obsolete blogging practices like the ones we’re about to cover. 

Do your best to stay away from these ancient blog SEO techniques to avoid missing out on potential traffic. 

YMYL niches 

This tactic isn’t out of date; it’s just such a crowded and oversaturated space dominated by large enterprise-level companies with deep pockets. 

What’s YMYL?

It’s an acronym that stands for ‘Your Money, Your Life,’ and it refers to the financial and healthcare niches. Any business that offers advice or products that will affect your health or your bank account qualifies as a YMYL business. 

Granted, if your business is in finances or healthcare, you won’t be able to avoid YMYL. 

Yet, if it’s possible for you to focus on another niche besides what’s included in YMYL, you’ll have a much easier time finding success with blogging for SEO. 

That’s because YMYL websites receive additional scrutiny from Google’s crawlers and algorithms than other sites do. 

Why is that?

It’s because Google’s reputation is on the line every time it ranks a YMYL site in the top 10 results. If they rank an untrustworthy site at the top, users may wind up losing money or adversely affecting their health, which is bad news for everyone involved. 

Clickbait titles 

In the past, nefarious marketers noticed that they could rake in a ton of clicks (and, in turn, ad revenue) by creating outrageous (often very misleading) titles for their posts. 

Clickbait was born, and there’s been an intense battle between search engines and clickbaiters ever since. 

While clickbait was effective at one time in generating quick boosts in traffic, it’s become so frowned upon by search engines and users that it’s no longer worth it. For one, posting clickbait will be devastating for your reputation, especially if you’ve been creating high-quality content otherwise. 

All it takes is one clickbait title to start losing readers for good. 

For two, Google has also become quite good at cracking down on clickbait, so it’s not even a good way to boost traffic. 

Google will be able to find out if your readers had a positive or negative experience with your blog. So, if you deceive users into clicking on your posts with clickbait, you’ll tank your user experience, which will eventually spell disaster for your SEO profile. 

Text-only blogs 

The days of writing a few paragraphs of plain text and hitting publish are long gone, as you’ll lull readers to sleep if you don’t use any visuals. 

Besides images and videos, your blogs must be extremely easy to read. 

That means breaking up long paragraphs with bulleted lists, short sentences, and other copywriting tricks. 

High-resolution images are necessary for any blog post, regardless of the topic. At the bare minimum, you should include one featured image at the beginning of a post and one at the end. Ideally, four to five relevant, high-resolution images will do a lot to make your blog more engaging. 

Also, infographics are a superb visual addition that provides eye candy and adds to your content in various ways. 

Spamming dozens of posts 

In the Wild West days of SEO, websites would spam many blog posts for specific keywords in their niche.

The thinking was to become the #1 authority in a specific niche due to the sheer volume of posts they have on it. 

These were the days when there wasn’t too much information online, so websites could hold a monopoly of sorts for certain niches and industries. 

This led to websites creating truckloads of posts at a time, with the quality of each post suffering as a result. It was a time of quantity over quality, and some companies still adhere to this principle. 

Today, there are thousands of websites for every niche, and they all contain high-quality content. As a result, attempting to spam dozens of blog posts won’t yield any fruit. Instead, you’ll just waste a ton of resources creating subpar blogs that are useless to users or search engines. 

As we mentioned above, quality matters more than quantity in the modern age of SEO, so you’re better off producing one high-quality post instead of five low-quality ones.

Personal blogs 

Before social media influencers and vlogs on YouTube, hordes of personal blogs detailed the author’s daily routines. 

These ‘slice of life’ blogs were more akin to journals than content marketing posts. 

This type of blog typically deals with family life, traveling, photography, or entertainment reviews. 

While most personal blogs were created for fun, some were monetized and successful. It’s not impossible to score big with a personal blog in 2024, but it is highly unlikely. That’s because this content style has migrated to other platforms like YouTube, X, and TikTok. 

Final Thoughts: Is Blogging for SEO Still Relevant?

Whenever anything new comes along, a few marketers will sound the alarm claiming that blogging is dead. It’s happened a million times now and it’s never true. It wasn’t true for social media, and it’s turning out not to be true for AI, either.  

While some forms of media may be more convenient (Facebook and X), and AI shows enormous potential, you can’t beat the sheer power blogs wield to educate, inform, and convert readers online. 

Do you not have time to produce top-level content for your business?

Then don’t wait to check out our renowned content creation service at HOTH Blogger. If you’re looking for something even more hands-off, check out HOTH X, our fully managed SEO service.    

The post Is Blogging Still Relevant In 2024? appeared first on The HOTH.

The isolated lemonade stand will obviously see more customers since it has virtually no competition.  

If you’re only targeting keywords with high search volume for your SEO strategy, your website is the equivalent of the second lemonade stand, the one overwhelmed by competitors. 

Targeting long-tail keywords, which are highly specific search queries that don’t have a lot of search volume, is how you mimic the first lemonade stand. 

Granted, you won’t have a bustling beach filled with tourists to serve, but you will have an isolated neighborhood filled with thirsty homeowners all to yourself (and you won’t have to worry about getting sand in your shoes). 

Also, it’s now 2024, and the search engine landscape looks drastically different from just two to three years ago. 

AI chatbots, voice search through assistants like Alexa, and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) are all changing how users interact with search engines. 

Instead of typing brief phrases to find what they need, users are beginning to use more conversational language – which means long-tail keywords are on the rise. 

Accordingly, it’s time to alter your SEO strategies to include more long-tail keywords, which we will show you how to do today. Stick around to learn everything you need to know about long-tail keywords.

Understanding the Search Demand Curve 

What’s all this business about keywords having tails?

To understand why SEOs label keywords as either short-tail or long-tail, you need to look at the search demand curve. 

It’s a graph that illustrates the relationship between the number of keywords users search for and how much search volume they receive. The demand curve features three distinct sections, so let’s look at each. 

The fat head 

The first section of the search demand curve is called ‘the fat head’ because it represents a small number of keywords that receive a ridiculous amount of search volume. 

In other words, keywords in the fat head are all short-tail, brief, and extremely broad. 

For example, phrases like Amazon, Netflix, and NBA are three popular keywords in the fat head, as they all receive hundreds of millions of searches each month. As a result, it’s nearly impossible to rank in the top 10 for these keywords due to the sheer mass of competitors all targeting them. 

Legacy websites like Wikipedia and Amazon tend to have a stranglehold on keywords in the fat head of the curve, meaning most other sites are better off looking elsewhere. 

The chunky middle 

The next section of the search demand curve is the ‘chunky middle,’ representing millions of keywords that receive a decent amount of search volume. 

Queries in the chunky middle tend to have a few thousand monthly searches instead of a few million. 

Most non-legacy websites will have to target short-tail keywords in the chunky middle to stand a chance at penetrating the top 10 on the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

These keywords tend to contain a few more words than keywords from the fat head, such as Netflix’s top 10 instead of just Netflix. 

The long-tail 

The final section of the search demand curve is by far the largest, hence the name long-tail. It represents billions of keywords that only receive a minuscule amount of monthly searches (think less than 100). 

While long-tail keywords tend to have a longer length than short-tail keywords, that’s not a strict rule. 

What truly makes a keyword a long-tail keyword is the amount of search volume it receives each month. If the search volume is low, the keyword will appear on the ‘long-tail’ section of the search demand curve. 

In fact, there are single-word keywords that technically qualify as long-tail keywords due to their minimal search volume. 

An example would be a super obscure word like usageaster (it’s a real word, we promise). 

If we plug it into our free keyword planner tool, we can see that the term receives an average of 20 monthly searches, which qualifies it as a long-tail keyword. 

However, most long-tail keywords will contain three or more words, which has led some to falsely assume that the length of the keyword determines whether it’s short-tail or long-tail. 

Why are Long-Tail Keywords Gaining So Much Traction Lately?

Now that you’re clear on what qualifies as a long-tail keyword let’s dive into their recent explosion in popularity.  

More and more websites are opting to use long-tail keywords in their SEO strategies, and there are more than a few reasons why that is. 

As stated in the intro, targeting long-tail keywords greatly reduces the number of competitors you have to deal with, meaning that it’s not too difficult to start ranking for them on the SERPs. 

Here’s a look at the top reasons why long-tail keywords are all the rage in 2024. 

Voice search and natural language processing (NLP) 

Do you regularly chat with AI-powered virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri?

If you have, you’ve been using long-tail keywords without realizing it. 

Since virtual assistants like Alexa feature natural language processing, they can comprehend conversational-style language. 

Instead of saying something rigid like, ‘Japanese restaurants near me,’ most virtual assistant users will ask something more natural like, “Alexa, what’s a great Japanese restaurant in Plano, Texas?”

They can even get more specific and ask things like, “Alexa, which Japanese restaurants serve crab rangoon in Plano?” 

These are highly specific long-tail keywords that will have far less search volume than something like ‘Japanese restaurants near me,’ which has hundreds of thousands of monthly searches (165,000). 

Therefore, if a Japanese restaurant in Plano targets more conversational long-tail queries, they’ll stand a much better chance at generating traffic from voice search users. 

While they won’t receive as many organic visitors as they might with a short-tail keyword, the visitors they do acquire will have very specific intent and are more likely to convert into paying customers at their restaurant. 

Also, since long-tail queries have low search volume, ranking for them in the top 5 search results will be twice as easy due to the reduced competition. 

Google SGE, Microsoft Copilot, and AI chatbots in general 

Voice-powered search is by no means the only trend geared toward long-tail keywords to emerge in recent times. 

Microsoft’s Copilot, their chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, is now available to Windows 10 and 11 users through Bing. 

Bing users can now enjoy a combined search and chat experience, as they can hit the Copilot button on their taskbar, begin asking conversational-style questions, and receive direct answers. 

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) also incorporates an AI-powered chatbot that directly answers user queries. The AI Snapshot, which has been available through Google’s Search Labs since May 2023, also cites 3 online sources when providing its answer to a search query. 

These trends alter how users interact with search engines, and they all encourage a heightened emphasis on using long-tail keywords for SEO. 

If websites want to appear in SGE’s AI Snapshot, they must create content that answers the questions users ask AI chatbots. 

These longer keywords are similar to the ones users ask virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri. Rather than sticking to brief phrases that only outline their intent (like gardening tools), they can get far more specific (such as which gardening tools are best for arthritic hands). 

That brings us to the next reason why long-tail keywords are gaining popularity: they largely remove the guessing game involved with search intent. 

It’s easier to identify search intent with long-tail keywords 

If you want your SEO efforts to bear fruit, then your content needs to match a keyword’s search intent as closely as possible. 

Search intent refers to the ‘why’ behind a query on a search engine like Google. In other words, a user’s search intent represents what they hope to find by conducting an online search. 

Their intent could be:

• Informational (looking to learn about a subject)
• Navigational (trying to find a specific site/login page)
• Commercial (browsing products and services to make a purchase eventually) 
• Transactional (looking to make an immediate purchase) 

The only problem is determining a user’s search intent from short-tail keywords (which often contain only one or two words) can be extremely tricky. A long-tail keyword, on the other hand, tends to wear its intent on its sleeve. 

Matching search intent with long-tail keywords: an example 

Let’s use the previous example involving gardening tools. 

The short-tail keyword ‘gardening tools’ is pretty vague with its intent. 

Are they looking to buy gardening tools, learn about gardening tools, or navigate to a site about gardening tools?

It’s difficult to determine because it could be all of the above. 

Most likely, their intent is informational, meaning they want to learn more about the subject, but nobody can say with 100% certainty if that’s true. 

The long-tail keyword we used in the example, ‘Which gardening tools are best for arthritic hands, ’ leaves far less to the imagination. 

It’s crystal clear that the user has commercial intent, meaning they’re browsing their available options in order to make a purchase eventually. 

If you happen to run a website that sells easy-grip gardening tools, the aforementioned long-tail keyword would be perfect for your business. To capitalize on it, you could create a blog post entitled ‘Which Gardening Tools are Best for Arthritic Hands? 2024 Buyer’s Guide.’

Long-tail keywords have higher conversion rates 

If you want to squeeze the most out of your SEO budget, you need to include long-tail keywords in your strategy due to their high conversion rates. 

This benefit goes hand-in-hand with the last one, as the primary reason why long-tail keywords convert more is how easy it is to match their intent with content. 

Users also tend to use longer keywords whenever they’re ready to make a purchase, which also contributes to more conversions. 

On average, long-tail keywords have a conversion rate of 36%. 

To put that into perspective, the highest-performing landing pages only have a conversion rate of 11.45%. 

Since long-tail queries have a sky-high conversion rate, it makes up for their shortcomings with search volume. 

That means the small number of organic visitors you generate have a strong chance of making a purchase or signing up for your newsletter. 

If you’re targeting tons of long-tail keywords related to your products and services, the revenue you can generate will start to add up in a big way. 

While you definitely shouldn’t exclude short-tail keywords from your strategy, these perks prove that long-tail keywords are worth adding to the mix. 

How Can You Find Long-Tail Keywords to Target for Your Content?

Your entire SEO strategy will live and die by the strength of your keyword research, so you need reliable ways to uncover the perfect long-tail keywords for your business. 

However, researching long-tail keywords involves looking for different metrics than broader, short-tail keywords. 

Mainly, you’ll want to exclusively look for keywords with low search volume, such as only a few hundred monthly searches or less. 

This may initially seem counterintuitive, especially if you’re accustomed to looking for the highest search volume possible. 

The good news is since the search volume is low, the keyword difficulty score (KD score) won’t be a cause for concern. 

In fact, it’s pretty easy to rank in the top 5 for long-tail keywords that receive 100 or fewer monthly searches, which is definitely a plus. 

What factors do you need to look for, then?

The main thing you need to confirm is the search intent behind the keyword. For the most part, you’ll want to target long-tail keywords with commercial and transactional intent. 

That’s because informational keywords tend to be shorter, as the user only wants to educate themselves at that stage in the buyer’s journey.  

Here are the top ways to research relevant long-tail keywords for your business. 

Use keyword research tools 

You can find plenty of tools online specifically designed for keyword research. 

In fact, we have a keyword planner tool that anyone can use for free, so don’t hesitate to use it right now. SEMrush powers it, so the data is highly accurate. 

Metrics available for each keyword include the following:

• Search volume
• Search intent (represented by a small image) 
• CPC (cost-per-click for pay-per-click campaigns) 
• Keyword difficulty score (how hard it will be to rank for it) 
• Search trend (represented by a line graph) 

Armed with this information, it becomes extremely easy to find relevant long-tail queries that you can use for content creation. 

All you need to do is enter a phrase or term related to your industry, and the tool will provide up to 50 results at a time for your review (you can also request even more results). 

Remember to look for a low search volume that’s in the hundreds instead of thousands. Otherwise, the keyword isn’t truly long-tail. Besides that, look for keywords with commercial and transactional intent, represented by dollar signs (transactional) and skyscrapers (commercial). 

Don’t limit your keyword research to our tool, though, as you’ll find the best results by using a mix of research tools. 

Google Trends, Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, and SEMrush’s Keyword Overview tool are all top-notch sources for long-tail keyword research. 

Dive into Google Analytics Traffic Sources reports

If a dog is man’s best friend, then Google Analytics (GA) is definitely an SEO’s best friend – and there are many reasons for this. 

When combined with Google Search Console, GA provides invaluable insights into the habits of your target audience, including which keywords drove them to your website. 

Yes, with Google Analytics, you can uncover long-tail keywords that are already driving traffic to your site that you don’t know about. 

From the GA dashboard, navigate to Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic. 

Here, you’ll find a complete list of all the key phrases that directed visitors to your website. That list is bound to be quite vast, but you can still comb through it in search of valuable long-tail keywords. 

If your list is too massive, the good news is GA provides plenty of search filters to narrow things down. 

You have complete control over the time frame, so you can set it to something large or small, depending on your traffic flow. 

For example, you could set the time frame to 3 months and then analyze your key phrases for patterns. 

Are there lots of question-based queries? Do certain products or services keep popping up in the keywords? 

You can also use the search bar to filter the results even further, such as only including keywords that contain phrases like ‘what is,’ ‘best,’ or ‘buy now.’ 

Check Q&A platforms online (Reddit, Quora, etc.) 

Since the prevalence of AI in search is causing users to ask more conversational-style questions, platforms like Reddit and Quora are goldmines for these types of keywords. 

The great thing about these sites is the users are clearly looking for content that answers their questions. As long as you stick to questions related to your products and services, these platforms are goldmines for content topic ideas. 

However, you should vet each long-tail keyword you find on Q&A platforms through a keyword tool to verify that it has the right metrics. 

The main things you’ll need to verify for long-tail keywords are that the search volume is low, the keyword difficulty isn’t too high, and the intent aligns with the content you want to create. 

eHow and Wikipedia 

These two websites feature immaculate keyword research and on-page optimization, which is why you should use them as sources for keyword ideas. 

eHow’s strategy is to find relevant long-tail keywords and then rank for them by creating hyper-focused content. In other words, they incorporate an airtight, long-tail keyword strategy that you should try to replicate. 

The good news?

You can use eHow to brainstorm long-tail keyword ideas for your business. Despite their rock-solid keyword research, eHow’s content is on the thin and weak side. 

That means it shouldn’t be difficult at all to outrank them by creating content that is 10x stronger than theirs. 

Wikipedia’s on-page SEO is both something to admire and to copy. 

In particular, the headers for their table of contents often translate into valuable long-tail keywords. 

How to Use Long-Tail Keywords in Your SEO Strategy 

Once you have a list of long-tail keywords, the next step is to create outstanding content for them, but how do you do that?

Here’s a look at our favorite ways to utilize long-tail keywords based on their search intent. 

Informational: tell interesting stories 

Storytelling is one of the most powerful marketing tools, and you can use it in the content you create for your long-tail keywords. 

If you’re informing and educating your readers, don’t just deliver rigid information – as it doesn’t take long for that to get boring. 

Instead, include personal anecdotes and stories from your experiences to make your content more relatable and fun. 

For example, sticking with the gardening tool example, you could relate a story where you realized you needed to provide easy-grip tools on your website due to your mother struggling to prune her bushes. This adds a much-needed human touch to your content, making it easier to build a loyal audience of readers. 

As a bonus, including first-hand experiences will appeal to Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) Quality Rater Guidelines. 

Commercial: create in-depth buyer’s guides and product comparisons

Long-tail keywords with commercial intent mean the user is weighing their options before making a purchase. 

Buyer’s guides and product comparisons are perfect for commercial intent keywords. They allow your readers to compare and contrast your products with others on the market, which can help sway their loyalty toward your brand. 

This type of content also positions your brand as an authority figure in the field, increasing the chances that your readers will return to your site to learn more about future purchases. 

Transactional: case studies, testimonials, and expert opinions 

At this stage in the buyer’s journey, the prospect is ready to make a purchase during their online session. That means the content you create for these types of keywords must convince them to go with your brand over the competition. 

That’s where social proof comes into the picture. 

Detailed case studies, honest testimonials, and expert opinions are all great forms of content to create with transactional long-tail keywords. 

Quotes from industry experts will add credibility and depth to your offerings, and case studies will demonstrate the value you provide to your customers. 

Start Using Long-Tail Keywords to Beef Up Your SEO Strategy 

To summarize, long-tail keywords are the way of the future in SEO. 

That doesn’t mean that you should stop using short-tail keywords altogether. 

On the contrary, short-tail keywords are still crucial for boosting your organic traffic numbers, so don’t forget to include a healthy balance of long-tail and short-tail. 

Yet, the days of ignoring long-tail keywords are over, especially if you want to compete in the changing search landscape. 

Long-tail keywords enable you to perfectly match search intent, achieve higher conversion rates, and limit the competition – so there’s no reason not to use them. 

Do you not have the time or expertise to incorporate long-tail keywords into your SEO strategy?

Then you need to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO service that combines all our SEO products into one mighty package. A dedicated campaign manager will work with your brand to elevate your online visibility to new heights, so don’t wait to get in touch with our team today.     

The post Why Long-Tail Keywords Will Dominate SEO Strategies in 2024 appeared first on The HOTH.

It could be that you’re an expert fisherman or something as simple as being a total authority on everything Star Wars or Game of Thrones. 

Either way, you should know there is a way to profit from your knowledge (even if you thought it was seemingly useless).

By starting a blog, you can share your expertise, opinions, and interests with the world, and if you play your cards right – you can even make money doing it. 

You get out what you put in, so it’s up to you whether you want to pursue being a full-time blogger or want to earn some extra cash on the side. 

But isn’t blogging dead? Does anyone even still read blogs anymore?

That’s a common myth, as blogging is still alive and strong today, even alongside AI chatbots, TikTok shorts, and YouTube videos. 

In fact, you’ve probably read a blog within the last month or week and probably didn’t even notice.

A staggering 409 million users read WordPress blogs each month, and there are more than 600 million blogs online. 

If you’ve Googled a question and quickly found an answer on a professional, well-written website – you’ve consumed a blog post. 

By harnessing the power of SEO (search engine optimization), you can propel your blog posts to the top of search results so you can reap the rewards.

Are you seeing dollar signs yet?

Then stick around to learn how to start a successful blog right now. 

Developing a New Blog Step-by-Step 

Creating a new blog doesn’t have to be a painful process. That’s because there are only a few key steps to knock out before you can start writing and publishing your first post. 

However, it’s crucial to plan a few things out before you pick a CMS and pay for a domain name and hosting services. 

Also, you’ll want to do your SEO homework beforehand to ensure that your blog topic has a marketable audience and that the competition isn’t too steep.

Here’s a step-by-step process for setting up a new blog. 

Step #1: Select a topic or niche 

First things first, you need to know what you’re going to write about. 

Certain blog topics are more popular than others, which is something you need to take into account. 

The highest-grossing blog topics are as follows:

• Food (avg. monthly income $9,169)
• Personal Finance (avg. monthly income $9,100)
• Lifestyle/Mommy (avg. monthly income $5,174)
• Travel (avg. monthly income $5,000)

Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to pick one of these topics to start a successful blog. 

However, if your passion and expertise align with one of these groups, you’ll have your work cut out for you (although you’ll still need to find a way to stand out from the competition to build an audience). 

Other topics are a bit more niche, meaning they aren’t as mainstream, but that doesn’t mean you can’t build a loyal following with them. 

To do so, you’ll need to vet your topic of choice by conducting SEO keyword research, which brings us to the next step.

Step #2: Conduct keyword research 

Next, it’s time to check the viability of your chosen blog topic or topics. 

How do you do that?

By conducting keyword research! 

A keyword is a term or phrase that a user enters into a search engine like Google to find information. 

By using a keyword planner tool (like our free offering from The HOTH), you can check the search volume, keyword difficulty (how steep the competition is), and search trends for each topic.

Try entering a few variations of your topic of choice to get a better overview of the interest surrounding it. 

If you want to blog about golf, try searching for keywords like ‘golf techniques,’ ‘golf accessories,’ and ‘golf news’ to see what’s out there. 

Look for keywords that have high search volume (in the thousands), a relatively low keyword difficulty score (lower than 65%), and a search trend that’s rising (meaning it’s still gaining popularity). 

If your topic ideas have these metrics, it’s a strong sign that people want to read what you’re going to write about. 

Pro tip: The keyword research phase can also help you refine the core focus of your blog. Going with the golf example, LIV golf news is a keyword with great metrics, which could inspire you to provide the latest LIV championship updates to your readers. 

Step #3: Know how you’ll monetize 

How do you plan to make money from your blog?

You’ll have quite a few options, including:

• Becoming an affiliate and promoting products from another company
• Displaying digital ads
• Offering coaching/counseling services
• Selling a book 
• Online courses

These are all legit ways to make money from blogging; you just need to decide which you’ll use before designing your blog.

Step #4: Choose a CMS, domain name, and hosting provider

Now it’s time to make your blog a reality, which isn’t nearly as difficult as it may sound. 

You’ll need to pick a content management system (CMS), as it’s where you’ll draft and publish your blogs online. 

After that, you need to pick a domain name and choose a hosting service. 

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS platforms today, and it’s completely free since it’s open-source. 

Other popular options include Wix, Squarespace, and Blogger (which Google owns). 

On the hosting side, popular platforms include:

• Bluehost
• Hostinger
• HostGator
• GoDaddy 

Some CMS platforms, like Wix, also feature their own hosting. 

The most important part of this step is choosing your blog’s name and domain name. 

They need to be:

• Catchy 
• Memorable
• Keyword-rich 

Don’t hesitate to work some creative magic here, as the more unique your blog name is, the more you’ll stand out from competitors. 

Step #5: Design your blog 

Now that you’ve got a blog website up and running, it’s time to trick it out with all the bells and whistles. 

Besides making your blog look super cool, the colors, style, and layout you choose will serve as your official branding. 

Most modern CMS platforms have tons of fully customizable templates that you can use, which serve as fantastic starting points.

From there, you can tweak the colors, fonts, and buttons to your heart’s content. 

Step #6: Create an editorial calendar and start writing 

Now, all that’s left is to plan out a few months’ worth of content and start writing. 

If you run into writer’s block or aren’t sure of a good topic, you can always turn to AI to kickstart your creativity. 

AI copywriting tools like Copymatic are excellent secret weapons for bloggers. 

Based on a few simple prompts, you can generate entire blog posts that you can customize and add your own voice to. 

To plan out your content, inform your strategy with keyword research (much like you did in step #2, but for each post). 

Once your first post is done, it’s time to promote it like freaking crazy. Share it on all your social media platforms while including relevant tags, and tell all your friends and family to read it. 

After that, you need to monitor your progress using free tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Pay close attention to your average organic traffic and SERP rankings. If you aren’t seeing your desired results, it’s time to return to the drawing board and try something different. 

Don’t Wait to Start Captivating Readers Today 

Starting a blog is easier than ever in today’s age, and you can even get AI to assist you if you’re drawing a blank. 

Moreover, blogging is still highly relevant, and it’s still a great way to make money. 

If you need help creating an outstanding blog for your business, don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO services.  

The post How to Start a Kickass Blog That Ranks on Search Engines appeared first on The HOTH.

It’s also expected that 20.8% of all retail purchases will happen online this year. 

Additionally, at least 75% of customers shop online at least once a month, and that number continues to grow every day. 

That’s all great news if you’re an eCommerce store owner. 

However, if you want your store to take off and build a following – you need to master product description SEO. 

What’s that?

Product description search engine optimization (SEO) involves tweaking your eCommerce product pages to rank better on search engines like Google. 

The better your SEO, the higher your product pages will rank – in turn leading to more organic traffic, leads, and conversions. 

Also, there’s a true art to writing good product descriptions. 

Besides appealing to search engines for better online visibility, your descriptions also need to encourage your target audience to take action.

That means using persuasive writing, highlighting the benefits of your product (how your audience will transform), and using CTAs (call-to-action) to boost your conversion rate. 

As you can probably tell by now, there’s quite a bit that goes into product description SEO. 

That’s why we put together this guide breaking down everything you need to know about writing stellar product descriptions, so read on to learn more. 

What Makes a Product Description SEO-Friendly?

How do you know if a product description you wrote will rank well on search engines?

To make a product description SEO-friendly, you need to appeal to certain ranking factors that search engines use to gauge the quality & relevancy of a search result in comparison to the user query (keyword). 

A keyword or search query is a term or phrase a user types into a search engine like Google. 

For example, if a potential customer is looking for gardening tools online, they may search for keywords like ‘best gardening tools,’ ‘affordable gardening tools,’ or simply ‘gardening tools’ on a search engine like Google or Bing. 

The search engine then crawls its index to find high-quality results that directly relate to the user keyword. 

In other words, it searches for content that contains keywords like ‘gardening tools’ in its title, headings, and copy. 

Additionally, search engines also look for results that are trustworthy, readable, informative, and load fast – among other things. 

Therefore, a product description becomes SEO-friendly when it contains the right keywords, provides value to its audience, and comes from a trustworthy source. 

To improve the rankability of your product descriptions, you need to strategically place keywords, write valuable copy, and improve the technical factors of your online store (loading speed, backlink profile, etc.). 

It also takes strategic keyword research to uncover the terms your target audience searches for regularly (more on this down below). 

Why Does SEO Matter for eCommerce?

If you start a new eCommerce site, one of the best things you can do for it is start an SEO campaign.

That’s because a large number of eCommerce transactions begin on search engines. 

53% of all website traffic comes from organic searches, and 33% of all eCommerce visits start the same way. 

Also, SEO is one of the most reliable ways to boost your online visibility, which will help you develop a loyal following of customers. 

For eCommerce stores, your product descriptions will serve as the bread and butter for your SEO efforts. 

While you can and should start a blog to help with your SEO campaign and attract new prospects, you’ll primarily be conducting keyword research to promote specific products. 

Targeting the right keywords for your niche also plays a big role in product description SEO. 

Competition is always fierce, especially on Google, so you’ll need to find keywords that have decent search volume without too many competitors. 

If you attempt to rank for keywords already dominated by larger competitors with better SEO profiles, you likely won’t make any progress at all. 

Additionally, it’s essential to note that while SEO is integral for eCommerce stores, it’s only half the equation. 

SEO is what generates organic visitors to your store, but it’s up to you to convert them with unique, well-written product descriptions that contain CTAs. 

When you combine a solid SEO strategy with excellent copywriting designed to convert, you stand the best chance of increasing your revenue by a significant margin. 

Product Description SEO Writing Tips 

Now that you know a bit more about product description SEO and why it matters, it’s time to learn how to write unique product descriptions that appeal equally to search engines and your target audience. 

That means using persuasive writing geared at your buyer personas while tastefully including your primary and secondary keywords. 

Here are our top tips for writing product descriptions for your online store. 

Target the right product keywords 

As stated before, keyword research is extremely important for product description SEO. 

That’s because there are thousands of potential keywords out there, and you need to know how to choose wisely. 

You want to uncover keywords that are currently popular with your target audience.

That way, you’ll know that there’s plenty of interest in a particular product or topic. 

If you randomly pick keywords to use, you’ll have no way of knowing if they’ll attract any attention from the right people. 

For instance, if you’re selling gardening tools but your keywords attract users looking for construction equipment, you won’t land many sales. 

At the same time, if you target gardening-related keywords that have too much competition, you won’t gain much traction either. 

Keyword research is all about finding keywords that land in the sweet spot of being popular with your target audience yet is light in the way of competition. 

How can you find these types of keywords?

There are multiple methods, but the quickest and easiest way is to use a tool like our free keyword planner from The HOTH. 

All you have to do is enter a phrase related to the keywords you want to generate, and the tool will provide a list of real keywords your audience searches for every day. 

You’ll also get to view essential metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty. 

Ideally, you want to target keywords that have a high search volume but a low keyword difficulty score. 

Tips for proper keyword placement 

Once you’ve compiled a list of relevant product keywords to target, you’ll need to place them in your product descriptions. 

However, you can’t just place them anywhere and hope to see better rankings. 

Instead, there are some key areas where you’ll need to use your keywords to provide the most impact. 

First, do whatever you can to avoid keyword stuffing, as that’s a huge SEO no-no. 

What’s keyword stuffing?

It’s where you use your keywords excessively throughout your content in the hopes of gaming the system and achieving better rankings.

However, Google and other search engines have long caught on to this tactic, so it’s no longer viable. If you keyword stuff your descriptions, you’ll likely receive a penalty that will negatively affect your SERP rankings, so avoid it at all costs. 

Where should you use your target keyword, then?

Here are the areas you should use your keyword:

• In the page’s URL (this matters only a little bit to Google, but it’s EXTREMELY important for Bing & Yahoo)
• A maximum of two times in the body of the description 
• In the title of the product description 
• In the product image, alt text 

If your target keyword is in all these spots, then you can rest easy knowing your product description is well-optimized. Go beyond these recommendations, and you’ll be in danger of keyword stuffing, so beware. 

Focus on benefits instead of features 

A mistake new copywriters make when writing product descriptions is they focus too much on the features of a product instead of its benefits. 

In other words, instead of statically listing a product’s features, focus on how your product will change your customers’ lives for the better. 

After all, the main reason people buy products in the first place is because they want to transform in some way. 

For instance, a prospect may be interested in gardening tools because they want to take up landscaping as a side business. In other words, they want to transform into a landscaper. 

Or it could be that they want to transform into a gardening expert, a DIY’er, or a farmer. 

Either way, it’s best to focus on how your products will improve customers’ lives and help them transform in the way they want instead of merely listing a product’s features. 

An example of benefits vs. features 

To illustrate what we mean, let’s consider two examples. 

Here’s a boring product description that only lists the features of hedge shears:

These state-of-the-art hedge shears feature telescoping steel that provides 2x the cutting power, thanks to its groundbreaking power-lever technology. Its 9-inch frame extends to an impressive 32 inches, and the high-quality steel provides superior durability. 

Yawn. While this description lets us know the key features of the product, it doesn’t tell us much about what it’ll do for us. 

Here’s a better description that focuses on benefits rather than features:

Got a stubborn hedge or bush that just won’t go down? Then you need our powerful hedge trimmers that provide 2x the cutting power of average shears to cut through it with ease. Their 9-inch frame easily extends to 32 inches to take care of those hard-to-reach areas. With our state-of-the-art hedge shears, you can finally become the expert landscaper that you’ve always been. 

That’s much better. Now instead of only listing the features, we mention how each feature can benefit the consumer and how the product will allow them to transform. 

Write to your buyer personas 

Besides harping on benefits instead of features, you should also write as if you’re speaking directly to your buyer persona (also called customer avatar). 

A buyer persona is the personification of an average member of your target demographic. 

Creating a buyer persona is one of the best ways to learn how to speak your audience’s language, as well as uncover their innermost wants, desires, and needs. 

No matter the focus of your eCommerce website, there’ll be people out there interested in what you have to offer. They’re your most viable prospects, and you need to learn how to relate to them on a very personal level. 

How do you develop a buyer persona?

You need to create a fully fleshed-out persona that contains the following:

• A first and last name
• Their age 
• Shopping habits 
• Interests and hobbies 
• Wants and desires 
• Average time spent online 
• A job and income level 

To fill in these blanks, you’ll need to use a tool like Google Analytics to learn more about your customers’ behaviors & demographics. 

You can also take to social media groups and user forums that are popular amongst your prospects to learn more about them. 

Once you have a buyer persona or personas developed, imagine that you’re speaking to them when writing your product descriptions. 

For instance, what type of language do they commonly use (formal, informal, slang, etc.)? What makes them get excited? What do they hope to become more than anything?

Answering those questions will help you directly relate to your audience through your product descriptions, which is what you want. 

Stay consistent with your brand voice 

This tip goes hand-in-hand with the previous one. 

Ideally, your brand voice should fall in line with your target audience’s voice, but that isn’t always the case. 

If you have an established brand voice that you’re known for, you should stick to it like glue. 

However, if your brand isn’t taking off the way you want, it may be time to give your brand a makeover. Using the previous tip will help you understand the type of tone your audience responds to, which is helpful. 

Once you’ve developed a brand voice that your audience responds to, it’s crucial to remain consistent with it throughout all your content, and product descriptions are no exception. 

So if your blogs and homepage have a professional, authoritative tone – your product descriptions should follow suit. Just remember that your brand voice needs to align with your target audience. Otherwise, you’ll be working against yourself. 

You should also consider your brand’s voice for product titles, as that can help you rank higher. 

Why is a brand voice such an important factor?

It is because, according to research, 81% of customers need to trust a brand before they consider buying its products and services. 

That’s why you need to create a distinct and recognizable brand voice, as it’ll help customers trust you and look to your brand whenever they need a question answered. That’s especially true if your online store also has a blog containing lots of unique content that solves user pain points. 

Write compelling meta descriptions 

While meta descriptions are separate from product descriptions, it’s still necessary to optimize them if you want users to click through to your product page from the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

A meta description is a brief line of text that appears under blue hyperlinks on the SERPs. It describes what your web page is about, and it needs to convince a user to click through to learn more. 

That’s why writing a convincing meta description that contains a CTA is so important. 

Using your target keyword is a good idea here, but including it in the title tag is far more crucial for your SEO. 

Instead of helping with rankings, your meta description is more for your target audience. 

Accordingly, you should appeal to them by writing in their language while staying true to your brand’s voice. 

A meta description should never exceed 160 characters, as there won’t be enough room to display it on results pages otherwise. 

Let your audience know why they should click on your result above competitors, and include a quick CTA containing a phrase like ‘don’t wait to check it out’ to further encourage users to click on your result. 

Master the art of writing meta descriptions, and your click-through rates will start to improve drastically. 

Avoid duplicate content 

An eCommerce SEO challenge nearly every online store faces is avoiding duplicate content. 

Why is duplicate content bad?

It is because if there are two identical pieces of content attempting to rank for the same keyword, Google can become confused and not know which to rank – causing both results to disappear from the SERPs. 

Duplicate content is such a challenge for eCommerce stores because they often have dozens of product pages that are nearly identical save for a few product details. 

For instance, if you sell two different sizes of garden shears, you’ll have two product pages that are an exact match (keywords and all) except for the difference in size. 

As a result, Google’s algorithms will see both pages as duplicates, throwing a wrench into your SEO strategy. 

This becomes a real problem when eCommerce stores sell thousands of products that each have pages for varying sizes and colors. 

The solution?

You need to designate the default version of each product as ‘canon’ by using a canonical tag and then marking all the duplicates with ‘noindex’ tags. 

That way, Google Search will only rank the canon version of each product, and the non-canon pages won’t affect your SEO. 

That means that you should only write product descriptions for canon pages. If you can’t write a completely unique product description for each product page, then you should hit it with a noindex tag to avoid duplicate content. 

Compress and optimize product images and videos 

Including high-resolution pictures and videos for your products is a no-brainer, but there are a few tweaks you should make to them to help with SEO. 

First, EVERY product image needs alt text containing your target keyword for that product page. 

Why is alt text so important for SEO?

It’s because search engine crawlers don’t have computer vision, so they won’t be able to see any images that you upload. Instead, they look to the alt text to understand what an image displays, which is why optimizing it is so important. 

Using your target keyword in the alt text is another ranking signal that crawler bots will pick up on. 

Besides including keywords in your alt text, you also need to compress your images and videos so they aren’t too large. 

If your images and videos are too big, they could slow down your product pages, which you definitely don’t want. 

Not only do online users detest slow loading speeds (and will most likely click off your page when it doesn’t load, hurting your bounce rate and dwell time), but search engines also don’t care for slower pages. 

In fact, Google runs a Core Web Vitals test on every page in its index to ensure it loads quickly. If your website isn’t able to pass the test, your content won’t appear in the SERPs. 

So if you want to find success with your product description SEO, don’t forget to ensure your pages load extremely fast. 

To find out if you’re having trouble with loading times, you can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights, which is a free tool that will let you know if your loading speed is up to par or not. It also provides suggestions for speeding up your site, so it’s a great tool to add to your repertoire. 

Include CTAs at the end of each description 

No product description is truly complete without a call to action at the end. 

After all, why spend so much time buttering up one of your products if you aren’t going to encourage the reader to actually buy it?

It’s imperative not to beat around the bush with your CTA, either. 

Writing a CTA is as easy as telling your audience to ‘add the product to their cart now.’ 

You can also use CTA buttons that enable users to add items to their cart or to a wishlist for purchase later on. 

Final Thoughts: Product Description SEO 

Product descriptions are the heart and soul of eCommerce SEO, which is why you need to optimize them to generate more traffic and sales. 

Besides writing a compelling product description, you must add relevant keywords, compress product images, add alt text, and include a clear CTA at the end. 

Do you need help writing SEO-friendly product descriptions at your company?

Then don’t wait to check out our managed content packages from The HOTH. Our content creation experts will develop a strategy to help you dominate the SERPs, so don’t wait to contact The HOTH team today.     

The post Product Description SEO: Optimizing Your Product Copy appeared first on The HOTH.

Small businesses often outsource jobs like accounting, human resources, payroll, and many more projects to stay on budget. 

Actually, freeing up resources to be able to focus on core businesses is the most widely cited reason for outsourcing.  

The remaining article will explore how you can outsource blog writing if you should hire a ghostwriter, and everything else you need to know about buying high-quality content. 

Ready to start outsourcing?

When Should You Consider Outsourcing Blog Writing?

A company should begin blog outsourcing when they need to focus more on business-critical aspects rather than smaller projects. 

Adding people to your team to do skills that are not part of your core business can not only save your business money but will also offer a wide variety of experts to choose from. 

Here are a few things to consider before you should begin outsourcing: 

• If you are having trouble keeping up with your workflow
• Your employees are doing too much
• Mistakes are costing too much money
• Budgets are getting tight
• You can’t find the right talent for the project
• Routine tasks are taking too much time and effort

How to Find Writers for Your Blog

When you are looking for ghostwriters for your blog, your primary goal should be to find someone who has solid writing experience. 

It could be someone with a background in journalism, copywriting, blogging, etc. 

When deciding on a writer, you may want to find one that has knowledge regarding your niche or industry. 

However, you don’t need an industry expert if your writer has excellent research skills and is able to learn a topic quickly. 

Here are a few ways to find good writers:

Freelance Marketplaces 

Freelance writers can be found on websites such as FreeUp, Fiverr, and even LinkedIn.

FreeUp pre-vets their freelancers so clients can have the best experience possible. One of the biggest benefits of using a freelance marketplace is that it makes it easy to connect with writers. In addition to writing, you may be able to use a freelance marketplace to find someone you can outsource other kinds of work to.

Marketing Agencies

Many marketing companies offer content writing services. These agencies can even help come up with blog topics and other content ideas that will fit your brand. For example, when you purchase content through HOTH Blogger, you can rest assured that your articles will be relevant to your niche and match your company’s voice.

Did you know that websites with active blogs get a whopping 55% more organic visitors from search engines? 

With that said, hiring a professional freelancer or blog writer service can be an asset to your team or project. 

Outsourcing blog posts require specific content that is loaded with messages you want your target audience to see. 

Here are a few tips to consider before you get started:

• Don’t begin outsourcing until you have a strategy and content calendar set up
• Have a budget set aside for outsourcing 
• Have a basic understanding of content marketing
• Create a tone and brand guidelines for your writer
• Test content lengths, headlines, and CTAs

What are the Benefits of Outsourcing Blog Writing?

Blogs offer an audience a unique chance to learn knowledge related to a specific search query. 

That is one reason why many business owners choose to use blogs to promote their services or products. 

In fact, 64% of B2B marketers that use blogging to promote products and services are outsourcing their written content. 

In addition, 88% of businesses also outsource their blogs to add credibility to their business. 

Here are some benefits to outsourcing a ghostwriter: 

• Blog outsourcing allows you to find experts in content creation
• Improvisation in marketing strategy
• Can save you money

Not everyone is skilled in blog writing. For example, a lyricist may not be the best fit for an SEO content writer. 

That is why it’s best to either hire a freelancer that you vet yourself, or use a writing service that hires professionals to get the job done. 

Prices always vary depending on your choices, but hiring a ghostwriter is always a choice if you need to outsource your content creation. 

Many blog writers are aware of the latest blogging trends. They are usually aware of what information to put into your blog. 

Although every website has its own objective, most blog writers can use experiences in blogging to make their content more impactful. 

Realistically, outsourcing is cheaper than hiring a new employee. 

According to a Deloitte survey, 62% of companies report 10% to 25% savings when they begin outsourcing. Additionally, 38% of companies reported saving as much as 40%. 

How Much Does it Cost to Outsource Blog Writing?

Research from Orbit Media suggests that on average, you can expect to pay an experienced writer for at the very least 6 hours to write a high-quality blog post of 2,000 words or more. 

That’s also not counting research or depth of industry topics. 

The fact is, writing takes time and good writing, such as creating an optimized, purposeful, and written for both human understanding and search engines, may take even longer. 

The cost of outsourcing blog writing can vary depending on the quality, word count, and complexity of the article. 

On average, you can expect to pay a freelancer anywhere from $25 to $250 or more per blog post.

Blogging agencies vary depending on your plan. However, you could expect to pay an agency anywhere from $35 to $135, depending on the writer’s experience and the length of your chosen blog post. 

Most writing services will create the following content for you:

• Blog posts
• Articles
• Videos and social media content
• Thought leadership articles
• White papers

Also, keep in mind agencies usually have in-house editors, whereas most freelancers are strictly writers.  

Things to Know Before You Outsource Blog Writing to a Ghostwriter

Now that you’ve decided to outsource your blog writing, you may be wondering what you should know before you begin. 

Blog outsourcing is a business investment, so it is vital to have a clear path moving forward. 

You need a good content strategy and it would be best to be well prepared and know what you need before you begin taking those first few steps. 

To ensure that the content writing topics you will be publishing will be a hit with your core audience, here are a few things you should know:

• Scope of projects
• Content needs
• Size of your team, if you can need a full-time writer, or if you need an in-house writer
• Your brand voice and culture

Some things you should consider for your blogging strategy are:

• Define your outsourcing and blogging goals
• Plan your budget
• List your requirements for onboarding
• Choose the best outsourcing partner for you
• Assign relevant roles and responsibilities
• Establish the best channels for communication 

Additionally, using tools like SEMrush Topic Research, or Buzzsumo, you can find blog topics that are gaining traction with your target audience.

Scrutinize Writers Heavily

Finding writers isn’t a hard process, however, finding the right writer for you can be daunting. What can be hard is finding a high-quality writer. 

That’s why you’ll have to sift through a lot of writers to find one that can write–without the fluff.

You’ll want to scrutinize or vet your writer thoroughly. 

Check for writing quality, turnaround time, and consistency.

Here are a few tips for screening your ghostwriter:

• Interview them
• Read their samples
• Ask about industry specialties
• Ask about any SEO experience
• Offer a paid-test article
• Decide to hire

Write & Format For The Web

Make sure your writer knows how to write for search engine crawlers. This is very different from standard college papers or other types of writing.

Using clear, plain language will help readers understand the message you’re trying to convey.

More than just the language, formatting for the web is crucial.

Breaking up your article into subheads, using line breaks, bullet lists, and spacing can keep attention spans higher and help skimmers find what they are looking for.

Here are a few tips for writing for the web:

• Use short paragraphs
• Understand your first paragraph is the most important
• Write in an inverted pyramid style
• Headings and subheadings are used to clarify subjects
• Don’t waste space with fluff

Optimize for SEO

The ghostwriter should also understand SEO.

y optimizing your titles, metas, and other basic OnPage factors, you’ll boost your chances of ranking.

Here are some tips for optimizing your SEO: 

• Publish relevant content
• Update pre-existing content regularly
• Metadata
• Link building
• Use alt-tags 
• Keyword research 

Pre-Format HTML & Upload

Have you ever tried to copy and paste a word document into WordPress? It’s a nightmare.

Make sure your ghostwriter can format your posts in HTML so they are ready to go.

Bonus points if the writer will actually upload the post for you.

It would be best to make sure your ghostwriter has a basic understanding of SEO. 

They need to know how search engine crawlers work, and the basic details of your website architecture. 

It would also be best to use your target keywords and track your metrics after your posts are published.

Track your keywords for each topic and each page, and it would be best if your ghostwriter has a basic understanding of keyword fluffing and how not to do it. 

That’s about it! 

Finding a ghostwriter can be difficult–which is why we created our own blog content service that solves all these problems.

Book a call with one of our experts to discuss your needs! 

Don’t forget to sign up for free and take advantage of our free SEO tools and resources. 

The post Blog Outsourcing: Should You Hire A Ghost Writer? appeared first on The HOTH.

Not only that but every month, 70 million+ blog articles are posted on WordPress websites, generating nearly 80 million blog comments. 

Most bloggers start their blogs to monetize their expertise and knowledge and create an extra income stream. 

The remaining content is a beginner’s guide to the most popular blogging topics.

If owning a successful blog is your goal, keep reading to learn how to improve your chances.

The Most Popular and Most Profitable Topics to Blog About

Most bloggers blog about what they know. 

However, starting a great blog isn’t as easy as simply writing about something you’re an expert on.

One of the keys to preparing a blog is ensuring you have sufficient topics and ideas to blog about. 

One way to do this is to write at least 100 blog topics and ideas before beginning. 

If you were to write two blogs a week, 100 topics would give you nearly 2-year’s worth of blog ideas.

Additionally, when starting out, you may want to consider the concept of guest blogging. 

This involves contacting other blogging influencers and posting guest blogs on their website.

This can help gain you traffic and exposure to a new audience. 

How to Pick a Blog Niche

Another essential task before starting a blog is to pick a subject to blog about. 

If the blog is for your business, the most likely niche would be something about that business.

However, if it’s not about your business, there are many other methods to blog. 

Below are several different methods for choosing what to blog about.

• Pick a blog niche you’re passionate about
• Understand how often you should blog
• Look for a niche with low competition but will gain more interest from your target audience
• Choose a niche in which you have some expertise, especially if you’re blogging about healthcare, finances, engineering, etc.
• Will your topic stay relevant over time? 
• Choose a blog niche where advertisers will want to place ads

Here are some different topics and types of blogs you can choose from:

Food & Drink Blogs

Food in all its glory is an insanely popular blog topic with a huge variety of subtopics and niches. 

That means there are a lot of people out there trying to do the same thing as you. Don’t fall into the category of blog niche saturation.

However, if done right, blogging about food can be very profitable.  

Food critic bloggers, for example, go from restaurant to restaurant, sampling their dishes and passing judgment on their cuisine, service, ambiance, and prices. 

Infatuation is one of the best, but there are thousands more.

However, food blogs on different blogging platforms with recipes, instructions, and cooking lessons are more popular than food critic blogs. 

The subtopics are just as varied, from preparing certain foods to finding the right ingredients, cooking tools and utensils that are best for preparing food, and step-by-step instructions.

One of the biggest subtopics in the food blog niche is wine, beer, and spirits blogs that search far and wide to find the best adult beverages. 

Craft beer bloggers are very popular, especially with craft breweries opening nationwide. (Beervana out of Portland is a standout.) 

Wine blogs are no different, plus whisky, gin, scotch, and, well, name the spirit, and it’s likely got its new blog. 

The Top 5 food and drink blogs include:

1. Food52– One of the premier food blogs online today.

2.  Serious Eats– A leading resource for all things delicious.

3. Deliciously Ella– A simple blog turned into a successful business!

4. A Pinch of Yum– Delish recipes are the heart of this top food blog.

5. Balanced Bites- A virtual nutritionist with tips on eating whole and healthy.

Fashion Blogs

The fashion industry is massive and provides an equally massive number of niches to blog about. 

Blogging about fashion and beauty has made some top fashion bloggers wealthy, although you must note that the topic is highly competitive. 

Fashion blogging can also be time-consuming and require extensive travel and expense outlay. Plus, getting recognition usually takes several years and Herculean effort. 

As with many of today’s blog topics, fashion and beauty have a wide range of subtopics. 

You’ll find it all in one fashion blog or another, from the newest style trends to luxury, bespoke garments, textiles, footwear, fashion shows, and even how to sew fashionable clothing for yourself.

Some of the perks of being a fashion blogger are pretty sweet. 

Free clothing is one of the best, often given to fashion bloggers in exchange for promoting a certain brand or model on their blog. 

Some top fashion bloggers get invited to the swankiest fashion shows in cities like Milan and New York. 

Even lesser-known fashion bloggers can do well as the topic is so big and in demand. 

With literally thousands of sub-topics to choose from, fashion blogging is one of the most popular blog topics on the internet today. 

The Top 5 fashion blogs include:

1. The Zoe Report– All you need to know about fashion.
2. Elle– One of the top fashion blogs by a top fashion mag.
3. Yes Style– Focusing on style in Asia.
4. Popsugar Fashion– All the styles and fashions being worn by celebs.
5. Who What Wear– Celebrity style with a blog name to die for.

Travel Blogs

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t like to travel or constantly dreams of their next travel adventure. 

One of the most popular searches on the internet is for travel, as millions hunt for information, advice, and reviews to plan their next vacation or trip. 

Review blogs are some of the most popular in the travel niche, including reviews of resorts, hotels, vacation spots, tour packages, etc.  

The subtopics for travel blog ideas are seemingly infinite. 

Some focus on a specific city or country and give you everything you could want to know about the people, culture, and attractions. 

Other travel blogs concentrate on getting great discounts for their followers on travel arrangements, including flights, accommodations, rental cars, and tour packages. 

There are travel blogs for hikers, bikers, mountain climbers, and wine enthusiasts, all geared towards letting readers know the best and most beautiful places to enjoy their specific sport, hobby, or interest.

Perks can be fantastic for top travel bloggers, including free hotel stays, travel to specific locations and experiences, and discounts on various travel-related products. 

One drawback is that you have to travel a lot if you want to write about traveling, which can be stressful. 

Five of the top travel blogs include:

1. Dan Flying Solo– A very well-done travel blog by a Lonely Planet Ambassador
2. Y Travel Blog– A blog based on traveling with family
3. The Planet D- Comprehensive travel guides, tips, and itineraries from a fun-loving couple
4. The Blonde Abroad– Tips and info on how to travel solo plus inspirational writing
5. The Points Guy– The best blog for travel discounts, airline points, and travel credit cards

Photography Blogs

Blogging has been a huge boon for photographers around the world, allowing them to show off their work to millions (and get paid for it). 

Many people love seeing gorgeous photographs and hearing stories about how, where, and when the photographer took them.

For many photographers, blogging about photography can be a dream job that allows them to turn their hobby into a full-blown career. 

Photography blogging is also an excellent method for a photographer to advertise their skills and get hired by new customers.

For example, it makes perfect sense to have a wedding photography blog if you’re a wedding photographer. 

It gives potential clients a clear picture (if you’ll pardon the pun) of what you can do for them during their own wedding. 

Many photography bloggers write about how they take their pictures and give their followers tips, advice, and information about becoming better photographers. 

Subtopics in the photography blogging space include nature, fashion, portrait, equipment, and photo-editing program reviews. 

There are even blogs dedicated to photographers who photograph food.  

The Top 5 photography blogs include:

1. Behind the Shutter– An huge catalog of photography tutorials.
2. Creative Boom– Career tips and photography Gear reviews.
3. Strobist–  A blog geared towards lighting your photographs perfectly.
4. The Phoblographer– Photography with a psychological twist.
5. We Eat Together– The authoritative blog on food photography. 

Parenting Blogs

The number of parenting blogs has skyrocketed in the last few years, especially with the recent pandemic sending millions of children home from school to study virtually. 

Even before then, however, the parenting blog niche was quite popular. One reason is likely that parenting is one of life’s most stressful (but rewarding) jobs. 

Parents are always looking for parenting tips and hacks that will make it more of a reward and less stress.

Parenting blogs aren’t just for moms, either. 

Thousands of dad bloggers give their input and advice and put their parenting experiences down on virtual paper. 

One of the most popular subtopics in the parenting blog niche is being a single dad (or mom) and raising kids single-handedly. 

There are even blogs about being an older parent and dealing with the trials and tribulations of parenthood while also getting older.

Some parenting blog ideas focus on reviewing baby and child products, including clothing, toys, and sports equipment. 

Baby food and foods specifically for kids are also a big topic, plus how to discipline kids in today’s modern world. 

Some of the top parenting bloggers have masses of devoted fans who reward their advice, tips, and insights with a generous affiliate income stream. 

Below are the top 5 parenting blogs, including:

1. Scary Mommy– Extremely popular blog with provocative and insightful opinion pieces.
2. Support for Stepdads–  A blog to help stepdads cope. 
3. Parenting today from the Child Development Institute– Top parenting blog from the experts. 
4. BabyCenter– Everything a woman needs to know about being pregnant.

Health and Fitness Blogs

In today’s health-obsessed world, it’s no wonder health and fitness bloggers are incredibly popular. 

From how to get in shape to eating well, fasting, exercise equipment reviews, and many more, health and fitness blogs span many topics and subtopics. 

Certified personal trainers, dietitians, fitness experts, and more have gotten involved in health and fitness blogging.

One drawback when blogging about health and fitness that we should mention is that legally speaking, it’s a topic that could land you in hot water. 

If you’re not a medical professional, it’s essential that you let your followers know this and advise them to seek medical help if needed. 

Some health and fitness blogs have been shut down for providing medical information without the proper licensing.

Still, whether a medical professional or not, blogging about health and fitness is an excellent way to build a following, monetize your expertise and create an extra income stream. 

The range of subtopics is vast, and the demand for quality information, tips, and hacks on staying healthy and fit are massive. 

They include physical and mental health, dieting, healthy snacks, and even what to wear when exercising. 

The Top 5 health and fitness blog ideas include:

1. Mark’s Daily Apple–  Amazing content from a lifetime fitness expert.
2. Carrots ‘n’ Cake- Focuses on women who want to become fit and healthy.
3. Breaking Muscle -One of the best blogs for serious bodybuilders. 
4.  Advanced Human Performance -An award-winning fitness in personal training blog.
5. Blogilates– A huge variety of fitness and health content, including recipes, workouts, diet plans, etc.

Woodworking Blogs

There are few DIY blog topics more popular than woodworking. 

Creating something with wood, for many people, is extremely satisfying and woodworking bloggers know this. 

Some of the best are world-class carpenters who share their advice and tips on how to get the best results from a raw piece of wood. 

Most woodworking blogs include how-to articles, resources for procuring different types of wood, tool reviews, and the latest woodworking tips and tricks. 

The beauty of wood is that you can use it to create so many different things. 

Wood is used in almost every facet of human life from your typical table and chairs to magnificent sculptures, beautiful frames for artwork, or the entire frame for a house.

Subtopics in the woodworking blog space are as varied and unique as the different species of wood you can use to create. 

Some blogs concentrate on home construction and remodeling, while others go deep into the details of creating wooden toys. 

Cabinet making is a very popular woodworking blog niche, as are wood sculpting, how to lay a solid wood floor, and blogs for refurbishing and refinishing antique wooden furniture. 

Five of the top woodworking blogs are below, including one from celebrity Nick Offerman:

1. Offerman Woodshop– What more can you say about a top woodworking blog by the star of “Parks and Recreation”?!
2. The House of Wood– A female Centric DIY wood blogger that includes furniture building, home renovation, and more.
3. The Rogue Engineer– Step-by-step plans for all the furniture your home could need.
4. The Handmade Home–  a wide variety of inspirational ideas and projects for your home.
5. Jays Custom Creations– Plans for some cool creations and projects.

Crafting and DIY Blogs

One look at Etsy, the DIY craft marketplace, proves that crafting is incredibly popular. 

Almost anything highly popular also makes an excellent blog topic, and thus there are thousands of crafting and DIY blogs.

One caveat about starting a crafting and DIY blog is that creating videos to go with your blog articles is essential.  

That’s because many crafts require many different steps to complete. 

Many people are visual learners and will have a better experience if they see something being explained on video rather than reading it in a blog. 

Indeed, many of the best craft and DIY bloggers are also popular YouTubers. 

Crafting may be one of the biggest blogging topics available simply because there are so many different DIY crafts. 

From selling your clothes to making toys, crocheting, knitting, and creating decorations and cards, the list goes on and on. 

One DIY blog niche involves activity blogs for kids that are extremely popular and blogs many parents flock to. The Top 5 crafting and DIY blogs include:

1. A Beautiful Mess– All sorts of wonderful DIY and crafting content brought to you by two talented sisters.
2. Paper and Stitch-. Started by an art teacher ten years ago and is now her main business!
3. Lovely Indeed– This blog has grown to include crafts and home decor. It started as a showcase for wedding projects.
4. Almost Makes Perfect– Crafting elevated to a higher art form.
5.  Aunt Peaches– Simple, inexpensive projects and kids’ crafts.

Personal Finance Blogs

When you consider that personal finance is something most people are never taught, it’s no surprise personal finance blogs are so popular. 

Millions of folks don’t even know the basics of finance, including how to create a budget, take out a loan, or start a retirement fund for themselves. 

Personal finance bloggers fill this massive gap, giving their followers sound financial advice and tips on making better financial decisions. 

There are finance blogs to create wealth, manage money, create multiple income streams, and start a business. 

Some of the top personal finance blogs are followed by hundreds of thousands of people who willingly exchange their time for advice that saves them money.

One of the bigger personal finance subtopics is retirement planning, which grows larger daily as the population ages.  

Blogs ideas on how to invest in the stock market are also popular, as well as blogs on investing in different foreign markets. 

One of the most popular finance blogs of all is Get Rich Slowly. 

It’s also one of the original finance blogs that started in 2006. 

Five of the top personal finance blogs include:

1. Smart Passive Income– Articles on entrepreneurship, passive income streams, and side hustles, among others.
2. I Will Teach You to Be Rich– The name says exactly what the blog aims to do.
3. Wise Bread- Advice on saving, investing, Financial Planning, and reducing debt with straightforward explanations and real-life situations.
4. Mr. Money Mustache– A wide variety of money-saving tips, tricks, and hacks
5. Money Crashers– A well-written blog from financial industry teachers and advisors.

Automobile Blogs

Automobile bloggers tap into this love for anything and everything on four wheels, bringing their followers a wide range of car and truck topics. 

Classic and collectible car blogs are hugely popular, especially the famed “muscle cars” that came out of Detroit in the 1960s and 70s. 

Customizing a car is a huge hobby, and many automobile blogs focus on customization tips, hacks, and techniques. 

There are numerous blog topics in the automobile blogging niche, from those focusing on one specific automobile brand to others that dig into the history of cars and the many revolutionary advancements made in the auto industry. 

How to repair and refurbish cars and trucks is a huge subtopic, especially among the DIY car repair crowd. 

Some blogs focus on investing in cars and flipping cars for extra cash.

Car bloggers travel the world searching for, driving, and reviewing cars, and some of the perks include invites to exclusive car shows and auctions. 

Automotive products are always given to car bloggers for reviews and mentions, and some of the top auto bloggers are world-famous. 

One of the best automotive car blogs today is Jalopnik which features a wide range of automobile topics, news, and reviews. 

One of the most trusted auto blogs today is produced by Motor Trend, whose original print magazine dates back to 1949. 

The Top 5 auto blogs include:

1. YourMechanic– The ultimate go-to blog for repairing and diagnosing auto problems.
2. Motor Verso-  Luxury, high-performance cars are the focus of this excellent blog.
3. Motor Trend– One of the best automotive blogs written by a premier American automotive magazine.
4. Car Talk– This blog is for you if you want your car to go faster.
5. Girls Auto Clinic Blog– An excellent automotive blog geared toward women who love cars. 

Wedding and Bridal Blogs

The wedding industry is one of the biggest globally, especially in the United States and many other countries, popular for honeymooners. 

Millions of people get married yearly, and thousands of wedding and bridal bloggers help them prepare for the big day! 

The sheer volume of different wedding blogs is astounding, as well as the number of subtopics in the wedding blog niche.

Many bridal blogs focus, of course, on the bride, including her all-important gown. 

Other wedding blogs focus on planning the event, what food to eat, and how to have your wedding outdoors. 

There are thousands of wedding photography blogs and even super-niche blogs about wedding cakes. 

One very popular wedding blog niche is how to throw a wedding party on a budget or have the wedding reception at home. 

The Top 5 wedding and bridal blogs include:

1. Ruffled– Advice on throwing a luxurious wedding along with DIY guides and honeymoon planning tips.
2. Love, Inc–  One of the more engaging wedding blogs specializing in inclusivity.
3. The Knot– Your One-Stop source for everything you need to know to get married.
4. Green Wedding Shoes– A fashion-focused wedding blog for everyone from the bride to the flower girls and ring bearers.
5. A Practical Wedding–  Tips, budgets, and timelines to help you get through your wedding day unscathed.

Business and Entrepreneurship Blogs

When you ask many of the most successful entrepreneurs and business people what they owe their success, many will answer with one word; reading. 

Not surprisingly, if you press further, many successful business people will admit that a lot of the information they read comes from business blogs.

Blogs that focus on starting a business from scratch are very popular,  especially today, as entrepreneurship continues to be popular. 

Many business blogs focus on changes in a specific industry, while others delve into the ins and outs of marketing, advertising, and brand building. 

As with many of the most popular blogging topics, there are hundreds of different subtopics in the business and entrepreneurship blogging space.

If you’re going to be a business and entrepreneurship blogger, one caveat is that your knowledge must be on point. 

It’s one thing, for example, to give someone advice on how to bake a cake or make their own table from scrap wood. 

It’s another altogether to advise someone on investing a quarter of a million dollars in a new business. 

Business Insider is an excellent example of a well-run, insightful, impactful business blog. 

From the latest economic news to interviews with top entrepreneurs, trend analyses, and market predictions, thousands of business people start their day with this excellent blog. 

The Top 5 Business Blogs include

1. Business Insider – The best business journalism in blog form.
2. Entrepreneur –  Interviews, book reviews, and business news.
3. Fast Company– The latest advice and Leadership ideas on growing a business.
4. Harvard Business Review – Well-written, influential articles make this a must-read business blog.
5. Small Business Trends – The top small business trends include marketing, management, and technology.

News Blogs

News today travels around the world at lightning speed. 

Depending on what news is important to you, you can read one of the thousands of news blogs that will fill you in on the latest stories and the people at their center. 

News bloggers come in a wide variety of flavors, from business news to entertainment, sports, religion, and international news, to name just a few.

Today, people are looking for news sources they can rely on to provide fair, unbiased accounts of what’s happening and every news story’s who, what, where, and why.  

The Top 4 news blogs include:

1. The Daily Beast– With over a million visitors daily, The Daily Beast is just that, a news beast.
2. Mashable– The best blog if you want the latest on culture, technology, and video entertainment.
3. HuffPost– Thousands of bloggers write for this major news blog covering every major category of news and most of the subcategories.
4. TechCrunch– All the news you need to know about the latest technological breakthroughs.

Marketing Blogs

If there’s one thing about the marketing industry, it is constantly changing. 

Trying to keep up with marketing is an almost impossible task for small and medium-sized business owners. 

To do it, many entrepreneurs and business owners look to various marketing blogs online.

Marketing bloggers engage their readers with the latest marketing trends, how to improve marketing campaigns, and the newest marketing technologies. 

There are quite a few subtopics in the marketing blogosphere, from content and digital marketing to social media, SEO, email, you name it.

Some of the most popular marketing blogs are known for taking confusing subjects and simplifying them for the layperson.

Others give solid advice on running digital marketing campaigns as well as real-world, brick-and-mortar marketing. 

There are, of course, plenty of blogs that focus on marketing trends and best practices. 

The top 4 marketing blogs include:

1. Digiday–  Covers a wide array of digital marketing topics, including online marketing, video marketing, and blog posts.
2. Content Marketing Institute–  One of the best blogs for content marketing being digitally published today.
3. Copyblogger– All you need to know about the most important part of selling online; the copy.
4. Social Media Today– An excellent blog for best business practices when marketing via social media.

The Most Popular and Most Profitable Topics to Blog About: Honorable Mentions

Today’s list of the most popular blogging topics features the best of the best, but there are so many others we felt it necessary to give several more at least a shout-out! 

Below are the best of the rest of the blog topics:

• Affiliate Marketing Blogs
• Pet Blogs
• Product Reviews Blogs
• Gaming Blogs
• Interior Design Blogs
• Personal Blogs
• Sports Blogs
• Life Hacks Blogs
• Mental Health Blogs
• Lifestyle Blogs

Now You Understand The Most Popular Blogging Topics 

Today’s list of the most popular blogging topics is relatively short compared to the absolutely massive variety of blogs you’ll find online at any given moment. 

Of course, the biggest challenge is finding the time to write and edit a blog, especially as an entrepreneur or small business owner. 

Still need a little help? 

Contact us today! 

Also, don’t forget to sign up for free and check out our free SEO resources. 

The post The Most Popular (and Most Profitable) Topics to Blog About appeared first on The HOTH.

SEO experts agree that blogging frequency should be anywhere from two to four times per week, depending on your company size and industry.  

At a maximum, a post every day is more than enough to maintain a good content marketing strategy. In fact, bloggers who publish more often are more likely to report “strong results”

The remaining article will explain and explore how often you should blog, what blogging accomplishes, the life cycles of a blog post, and everything else you need to know about blogging.  

Ready to learn? 

Let’s start with what blogging can do for your business: 

What Does Blogging Accomplish?

You may be wondering what your business can accomplish by putting hard work and time into blogging and maintaining a posting schedule with an editorial calendar. 

Many businesses agree that blogging holds value to their digital marketing strategy. In fact, 77% of bloggers report that blogging drives big results. 

Here are a few other benefits of creating blog content: 

• Posting frequency helps you rank in SERPs
• Helps you become a thought leader in your niche and boosts brand awareness
• Helps bring in website traffic
• Helps you engage with your audience

Businesses use blogs to help their website rank in search engines and to accomplish providing information that addresses pain points and questions. 

The more helpful, informative, and otherwise great content you have on your website, the more Google will view your website as an authoritative source. 

Blogging Tips 

Here are a few SEO basics you can implement into your blog right now:

Use long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are longer and usually more specific keyword phrases that visitors are more likely to use when they’re ready to purchase. Most long-tail keywords have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate. 

The best way to use long-tail keywords is to group them into clusters that all have the same type of search intent and write a blog post that targets all of them individually. 

A few examples of long-tail keywords would be, “dentists offices near me” or “buy running shoes near me.” 

Keyword research is a huge part of SEO and something you can focus on now. Try out The HOTH’s Google Keyword Planner to help get you started!

Keep a blogging schedule 

Maintaining a blogging schedule can help your audience grow and get better results from every post. 

Here are some helpful steps to begin your blogging schedule: 

Step 1: Start by defining your goals

Step 2: Map out your schedule using apps like ClickUp or Asana

Step 3: Keep up with your schedule

Step 4: Measure your results 

Optimize your blog for mobile devices

Google states that more than 50% of search queries come from mobile devices. 

With that said, here’s how to optimize your website for mobile devices:

• Test your website using Google’s Mobile-Friendly tool
• Use a responsive WordPress theme (responsive WordPress themes mean that regardless of screen size, the website will fit the screen and present it clearly)
• Keep your website secure 
• Declutter your pages
• Improve your website’s page speeds
• Make sure your pop-ups work for mobile as well as desktop

Optimize your on-page SEO, include images, and internal links

Search engines such as Google tend to value visuals for keywords. Images and videos are among the most common visual displays that will appear on SERPs. 

To be able to achieve a spot in an image pack or a video snippet, you will want to design graphics, use original pictures and videos, and add good descriptive alt text to every visual in your blog post. 

Here are a few ways you can do this:

• Crawl your website
• Conduct an SEO audit
• Update your URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions
• Make sure your keyword is in your URLs
• Include your keyword throughout your page but don’t keyword stuff
• Track and measure your keywords and topics

Furthermore, meta descriptions, alt-text, and other elements of technical SEO are required to be able to rank highly in SERPs. If that is your goal, learning the ins and outs of search engine optimization may be required.

Here are a few other valuable content tips for blogging: 

Blog post frequency: how often should you blog?

A daily post or creating a publishing schedule on a daily blog with fresh content is a good practice for large businesses or companies trying to rank in SERPs. 

However, a new blogger or small business that is just starting out should focus on quality posts rather than the number of posts in a week. Creating high-quality content is just as important if not more as blog post frequency. 

Experts suggest publishing relevant content on a new blog post at least once a week for new bloggers or small businesses. 

Larger companies may have the time and resources to post quality blogs on a daily basis. 

Blog post length

To be realistic, there is no official “Google Approved” length for blog posts. 

Although industry leaders such as Yoast believe that your blog shouldn’t be less than 300 words. Furthermore, a HubSpot study states that writing longer posts should be the rule to blog posts rather than an exception. 

In fact, Neil Patel recommends the sweet spot of an average blog post to be anywhere from 1,400 to 1,900 words. 

Additionally, another Hubspot study found that 73% of people admit to skimming blog posts while only 27% read the entire post thoroughly. 

Blog posts should be easily read but long enough to answer any questions a reader might have. 

Post high-quality content

High-quality content is any content that is informative, authoritative, and engaging for your audience. This kind of content can help you earn more backlinks while also boosting your trustworthiness in the eyes of your audience (and Google). 

How do you know you have a piece of high-quality content?

• It answers your target audience’s questions
• It’s engaging and easy to read
• It’s optimized for search engines

Repurposing old blogs

If you have any old blog posts that are not getting any traffic hits, you can reuse them. 

Here are a few tips for repurposing old blogs:

• Turn it into a podcast episode
• Use it as a script for a video
• Turn your blog content into ebooks
• Break it down and use it for posting on social media
• Repurpose your old blog posts into guest posts
• Optimize and repost with fresh information

How to Get Content Ideas

You can use these methods to come up with your next new video. 

Here are some great tips to help you find content ideas:

• Create topic lists
• Find content gaps
• Search through blog comments and questions
• Conduct interviews
• Look at your competitors’ websites
• Answethepublic and other Google search suggestions
• Recent reviews
• Questions on your product reviews

The average lifespan of a blog post

There are many factors that come into play, however, a recent study done by ContentHacker found that the average lifespan of a blog post can be up to 2 years. 

Compared to other platform lifespans:

• Twitter: 15 – 20 minutes
• Instagram: a few days
• Pinterest: a few months to a year
• TikTok: a few minutes
• Youtube: a month

With that said, depending on your content type and platform, the lifespan of a post can differ greatly. That’s why it’s so important to keep your content optimized for the right platform. For example, if you use the same Twitter strategy for your blog, it may not turn out as successful as you would hope. 

How to Track Your Blog Posts

By keeping track of blog metrics, you will gain the insights you need to add context to your traffic data which will help you make more informed data-driven decisions. 

How do you measure the success of a blog post? 

• With pageviews
• average time spent on a page
• average pages per session
• returning visitors
• conversion rates

Google Analytics can help you keep track of your blog posts’ metrics. This method can help you keep track of which blog posts are performing well and which ones need some work. 

In Google Analytics, traffic is counted as “page views.” This is the number of times your individual blog post has been viewed. 

Here’s how to find pageview data on Analytics: 

1. Click on Behavior > Site Content > All Pages

There you will be able to see your pageview data for every webpage on your site. 

In the same area you looked at “page views” you will find the average time spent on a page or (dwell time). There you can see how long someone lingered on a piece of content. 

Additionally, Analytics will show you the average pages someone visited per session. This will tell you how many pages of your site in total someone viewed on their visit. 

Finding where your returning visitors are for your blog posts in Google Analytics is a tad more complicated. However, you should keep an eye on this metric because it affects your conversion rates.

1. Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
2. Click the “Secondary dimension” and select “User Type”

By doing this, you will add another column to your report that shows you the type of user either returning or new for each page of your website. 

Outsourcing

Let me be honest here, blogging can be really hard. In fact, 88% of businesses that do outsourcing pay people to write for them.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed just reading this article, one of the questions you should ask yourself is, “is it time to start outsourcing my blog?” 

A 2020 report found that 84% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers are outsourcing their content creation. So, you aren’t alone!

There are some things to consider when deciding whether outsourcing is right for you: 

The main points you should consider would be the relationship with your readers, the content writer you need, your budget, and if working with a ghostwriter would be right for you. 

Outsourcing can be a freelancer or an agency such as The HOTH Blogger. Agencies like these offer highly-vetted and trained expert blog writers to write your blog content for you. 

To Summarize

Now that you can answer the question “how often you should blog?”, you can grow your content production exponentially.

Want some help? Book a call with an expert now! 

HOTH Blogger uses keyword research and SEO best practices to craft blogs that drive traffic. Outsourcing can be intimidating, that’s why The HOTH does it for you with results you can trust. 

We designed this product with all the above principles in mind based on our experience working with thousands of publishers over the last few years.

Sign up for free and start using our free SEO tools and resources! 

The post How Often Should You Blog appeared first on The HOTH.

In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, 80% of marketing content goes unused by sales teams because it’s irrelevant or hard to find. 

Below, we’ll cover how you can conduct a blog audit, how to make your content audits more effective, and the best practices for SEO audits. 

Ready to send your content straight into your readers’ search results? 

Keep scrolling!

What Are the Differences Between a Blog Audit, Content Audit, and an SEO Audit?

Audits are an important part of checking in on the success of your page SEO, blogs, and overall content marketing strategy.

You can run an audit on your entire website, on specific landing pages, on your own blogs, and much more. 

Blog audits focus on the quality and relevancy of your content. 

Additionally, a blog audit is a complete review of your blog. 

It is a comprehensive check of:

• SEO
• Social sharing
• Email marketing
• Blog layout and design
• Monetization strategy

Whereas a search engine optimization (SEO) audit focuses on technical features of your website, such as your use of:

• Keywords
• Links (internal and external)
• Heading structures

Finally, a content audit catalogs and analyzes the content on your blog or website including its performance metrics. 

The Importance of SEO Blog Audits

Content audits look at how valuable your blogs are to your audience, but SEO audits are the best technique for informing you about organic traffic on your website. 

Content marketing relies heavily on SEO techniques to ensure new content is not only informative and relevant but searchable by your target audience. 

With a basic understanding of SEO, you can improve your blog’s chances of being seen by your target audience.

Blog SEO strategy includes a close look at metrics using analytics tools, such as Google Analytics. 

Many of which are built into the most popular blogging platforms, like WordPress. 

As you decide to dive deeper into SEO, you might consider investing in tools like SEMrush, which offers highly detailed analyses of the most effective SEO methods for your content. 

Or, you can use our free SEO audit tools that are just as helpful.

Understanding Google Analytics and how it plays an important role in search engine results will help you build a successful strategy, but more on that later. 

For now, one of the best ways to get started is to perform your first audit. 

How to Audit Your Blog Content

Auditing your blog content is a process that allows you to optimize every aspect of your content strategy by pinpointing its weaknesses. 

Here are a few things to consider when conducting your blog audit: 

• Know your goals
• Collect and analyze data
• Draw up an action plan
• Adjust your content marketing strategy if necessary

Your piece of content needs to rank high in relevancy, quality, and searchability. 

Content audit tools can make this process simple and fast.

WordPress is one of the most popular engines used by bloggers to publish their content on the web, and it has great auditing tools built in. 

You can use the Yoast feature, for example, to quickly search through the SEO and content quality of your blogs.

Regardless of the platform you choose, you’ll need to follow a few steps to gather information to begin auditing:

1. Use a template to organize and plan your audit

To begin your audit, you’ll need to compile a detailed list of all your posts. 

The easiest way to create this list is to export your blog’s information into a spreadsheet. 

WordPress’s Yoast plugin offers this feature, but you can also use your Google Webmaster Tools console or software like Screaming Frog or SEO Spider Tool. 

If you don’t have a suitable tool, you can find many templates online that help you organize your content. 

These templates typically recommend you list your blog titles, URLs, and analytics.

Once you have a list of all your blogs and URLs, you’ll want to create a labeling system that will help you see how effective each blog is.

Try creating a color code for this purpose that includes labels for keeping a post as-is, improving it, or deleting it.

Now, you can focus on pinpointing which blogs need attention.

2. Check the analytics

Content auditing tools like Yoast on WordPress will help you quickly identify which posts need attention. 

You’ll be able to see whether a blog needs work by glancing at whether it is marked by a red, yellow, or green dot respectively.

If you have the luxury of a content auditing tool like Yoast, click on each post to see how it ranks the blog according to different categories. 

Whether your analysis is automatic or manual, you’ll now be able to create a to-do list using the color coding you’ve created for your spreadsheet.

3. Learn from your mistakes

If you’re a beginner, your first blog audit is an extremely powerful way to learn about SEO, creating quality content, and improving your strategy.

Many bloggers realize that their preferred types of content and topics have changed over time with their goals and interests. 

Blogs you published years ago may no longer be relevant. 

Seeing what’s driving in new customers will also help you redirect your efforts to focus on those topics. 

Handy Blog Audit Checklist

Audits range from simple to in-depth, and it’s up to you to decide based on time commitment and experience.

Follow these tasks step-by-step to see how effective your blog is within your content marketing strategy:

Intentional content creation

Intentional content creation means staying in touch with what’s working in your target market.  

You want to make sure you’re always delivering the content that your audience really wants. 

Further, it means creating thoughtful, high-quality posts that go beyond keyword-stuffing (the dreaded act of unnaturally using as many keywords as possible to over-inflate your post’s importance in search results). 

The best blog audit process will not only look for SEO markers and user behavior analytics, but deeply tap into which topics and content types are working the most effectively and refining your strategy.

Setting target keywords

Picking the right keywords for your content is a huge part of reaching your ideal audience. 

In many content management platforms–especially in WordPress–you’ll be able to set a target keyword as the guide for your blog audit.

For an auditing tool, the target keyword helps in determining if you’ve written relevant and quality content. 

For search engines, keywords help the algorithms deliver relevant posts to searchers.

Make sure every one of your blogs has a target keyword. 

Then, ensure it appears in your title, introduction, several headings, and conclusion, as well as interspersed throughout the body of your content. 

You can also choose several secondary keywords to interspersed throughout your content.

Heading structures

Choosing the right heading categories for the sections of your content is important to how search engines read your content and how readers find what they need. 

Correctly identifying which headers are Heading 1, 2, 3, and so on will help properly order the importance of the information and create a neat outline for skimmers.

Meta description, titles, and tags

Most content management platforms will allow you to set up SEO assets, such as search result titles, meta descriptions, tags, and more. 

Instead of allowing search engines to create them, you’ll want to take charge and write your own. 

In fact, Google rewrites meta descriptions over 70% of the time, according to a recent study examining search results for 30,000 keywords.

You can write your SEO title differently than the title of your blog, and often, it’s best that you do. 

Keep your audience in mind by asking yourself how you can be both concise and answer the question that a searcher has typed in the search bar.

Meta descriptions are the short blurb that shows up under the title of your search result, so make sure the text captures the topic discussed. 

Experienced bloggers can play with meta tags and other advanced features that help search engines best categorize their content.

Building up backlinks

Backlinks are links published on other sites that direct readers to your content. 

Building up backlinks tells search engines that your site is a reliable, trustworthy source for valuable content.

While gaining backlinks isn’t always in your control, you can try including links to your blogs in social media posts and asking others to share your content. 

This may also boost your conversion rate in ranking in SERPs.  

Check your backlinks with backlink checker tools and see if you’ll need to be more active in building your list.

Incorporating internal links

Internal links are links you’ve incorporated into your content that direct readers to your content in other places.

For example, include links to other relevant blog posts or landing pages on your site so that readers can become engaged and stay on your website longer. 

They might even find a product they like enough to buy.

Sticking to word count

Word count is hugely important to SEO and to your audience. 

Studies have shown that specific word count ranges are more effective than others for both ranking high in search results and keeping readers engaged. 

Most importantly, make sure every word you include is valuable. Don’t write more just because of a metric, but don’t cut down too much if what you’re writing is important to your readers.

Many times, long-form content is more effective, but make sure to do your research on your topic and niche.

Opt-ins and social shares

Most content marketers go beyond writing blog posts as their strategy. 

You probably also have email marketing, social media accounts, and other channels of engagement. 

Make sure any social share buttons and opt-ins are easily available for old and new visitors to choose for engagement. 

Also, make sure you’ve optimized the way your blogs show up on social posts.

Look into your bounce rate and user behavior

Finally, look at how your visitors typically behave when viewing your content. 

How long they spend on your site and how many times they click on links are great indicators of whether your blogs are effective.

Bounce rate is an important number to check: it will tell you if your visitors immediately leave after they arrive rather than interacting with your site.

Perform an Expert Blog Audit

With our handy blog audit checklist and a better grasp of best practices for SEO and content creation, you’ll drive more traffic and engagement on your site than ever before. 

Make sure to take your time with each task, keeping in mind that a great blog audit is time-consuming and educational. 

For more help in improving your site’s performance, whether that’s with content creation, SEO, or other marketing tactics, the HOTH is here to help.

Schedule a call today with our digital marketing consultants to learn more.

The post Conducting a Blog Audit: Content Audits, SEO Audits, and Why They Matter appeared first on The HOTH.

But nothing helps more than data collected with tracking tools when it comes to effectively planning, producing, and delivering content at scale.

Content analytics is like a navigator helping you find or correct your course. It enables you to make more data-driven decisions, create the content that your audience craves, and deliver it across their favorite channels.

The good news is that content analytics isn’t that intimidating or confusing, even though it involves metrics, algorithms, and custom reports. You can measure and learn from the success of your content without being a trained data scientist, that is if you know what to look for.

Let’s break it down.

What Is Content Analytics?

Creating stellar content is just half the battle. You also need to understand how much of it you should produce, how to package it, and how to make sure it gets noticed. That’s where content analytics comes in.

Content analytics, also known as content intelligence, allows marketers and content creators to gain insights into how users interact with their content. It’s not just about measuring likes and shares — it’s about understanding user behavior and sentiment.

Content analytics isn’t synonymous with web analytics — they are two slightly different processes that complement each other. Let’s compare them to see the differences more clearly:

In other words, content analytics helps you generate insights and find out whether you produce diverse and impactful content. Unique data sets and analytics help uncover how your audience discovers and engages with your blog articles, videos, social media posts, podcasts, and other assets.

Content analytics goes hand in hand with SEO analytics because optimizing for search means creating highly relevant content. If your audience finds your blog valuable and unique, chances are, search engines will love it, too (as long as your content is based on robust keyword research, and meets the bar for on-page optimization).

Why Do You Need Content Analytics?

Global ad spending is growing rapidly, and so are content budgets. Yet almost half of the interviewed marketers say that they don’t fully know how their content is performing. And around 70% make content strategy decisions relying on requests from other teams rather than content intelligence tools.

How come so many companies keep investing in content creation but don’t measure its performance and simply hope for the best? The main reason is that common web analytics tools aren’t very approachable and aren’t exactly content-centric.

But “publish and pray” isn’t a viable strategy — you could be throwing your money out the window without knowing it. What you need is user-friendly content tracking software that will allow you to have a look behind the curtains and see whether your efforts pay off.

Here are the key benefits of content analytics:

1. Build a long-term content strategy: Develop a clear understanding of where you’re going and how you can reach new milestones.
2. Understand your target audience better: Find out whether you need to update your buyer personas or reshape your approach to content creation.
3. Personalize your content: Understand what resonates with different segments of your audience.
4. Cater to your audience’s needs: Share insights, observations, tips, or manuals that will help them achieve their goals.
5. Outpace your competition: Be more flexible and attentive when it comes to what your target audience wants.
6. Save time and resources: Find out what your audience expects from you instead of going in blind and wasting money.
7. Fill the gaps in your content plan: Try out new content types, formats, and ideas that your current plan is missing.
8. Experiment with confidence: Focus on creating content pieces that you know are going to grab attention.
9. Set clear goals and realistic expectations: Track key content-related metrics to see your actual progress as well as your weak spots.

As you can see, content intelligence can be incredibly useful not only for marketers and content creators but also for SEO experts, strategists, and editors. It allows you to reclaim control, map your content more effectively, and finally reap the fruits of your labor.

Key Content Metrics and Reports That Will Help You Break Down Content Performance

Traditional metrics such as page views or social shares don’t give you enough data on how real users consume and interact with your content pieces. You need to take a look under the hood by tracking more subtle metrics.

These content metrics will give you more clarity on how well your content pieces are performing and what can be improved:

• Engaged time — how much time users spend actively interacting with your piece. This includes scrolling, clicking, watching, etc.
• Session duration — how much time they spend on your website in general and whether they make it to your blog at all.
• Bounce rates — what percentage of your visitors on specific pages leave without engaging with further content.
• Unique visitors — how many new readers your content attracts.
• Returning visitors — how many loyal readers you have.
• Off-site interactions — how users react to your content across your social media channels.
• Social referrals — how many visitors discover your website through social media platforms.
• Top-performing authors — who creates the most effective content for your brand.
• Device breakdown — where people read your content.
• Conversion rates — which content pieces directly drive sales.
• Evergreen content — which posts attract attention long after they’ve been published.
• Micro-conversions — sign-ups, registrations, filled-out forms, internal link clicks, or any other expressions of purchasing intent.
• Post-click engagement — how far your visitors scroll and how interested they are in discovering more of your content.

Some content performance platforms allow you to set custom metrics and get more granular data. You can compare week-over-week, month-over-month, or quarter-over-quarter stats to see your progress and make predictions.

How To Use Content Analytics To Improve Engagement and Conversions

Almost 40% of marketers acknowledge that their biggest challenge with content is low user engagement. Partly because of that, more than 50% of companies don’t tie their revenue goals to content at all. Clearly, something has to change.

Content analysis isn’t just about finding better topics or headlines. It helps you understand user behavior patterns and preferences. Armed with that knowledge, you’ll be able to tap into their emotions and encourage them to engage with your blog posts, articles, and even sales emails.

Content analytics allows you to find out:

• How often you should be creating and publishing content
• When your audience is the most active and likely to interact with content
• How your audience feels about your content
• What kind of content they are more likely to read, share, or download
• Which CTAs they are more likely to react to
• Which content types and formats they prefer
• What kind of content they tend to skip

In short, content intelligence tools show you what your audience wants to read and how often. They process tons of user data to help you understand how to push the right buttons and get the desired response.

The best thing about content analytics is that you can generate clear, insightful reports that contain all the key content-related metrics and share them with other teams, decision-makers, or stakeholders. Intuitive reporting allows you to articulate your content decisions, demonstrate your success, and get everyone in your organization on the same page.

4 Content Analytics Software Examples

As we have established, measuring content in Google Analytics isn’t always enough — it doesn’t give you a full range of content performance metrics. That’s why we’ve collected a few content analytics tools that can help you dive deeper into the subject.

State-of-the-art content analytics tools can be pricey because a lot of research, tracking, and processing is happening behind the scenes. But in return, you get unprecedented insights, so it’s an investment well worth making (if you’re serious about content marketing).

That’s why you don’t have to limit yourself to one tool, either. For example, you can use one solution for tracking your content and a more budget-friendly tool for SEO optimization.

#1. Parse.ly

This software promises “instant content insights without the hassle” and does exactly that. It’s built for content managers, marketers, creators, analysts, and developers to help them understand content performance and make data-driven decisions.

Parse.ly lets you see a list of resources and apps sending traffic your way. It also visualizes the performance of your content across all your channels. You can track various content types, from articles and landing pages to image galleries and podcasts. Parse.ly can also give you personalized recommendations on how to increase readership.

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The software has plug-and-play integrations for the most popular CMSs, but it’s also possible to integrate it with any website or CMS using a tracking pixel. Parse.ly doesn’t offer a free trial, but you can get a personalized demo to make sure it’s a good fit.

#2. Clearscope

Clearscope is an AI-powered SEO optimization platform. It helps you target the right keywords and make your content more relevant, and that’s a sure way to get more organic traffic and engagement.

Clearscope is another kind of content analysis software — it’s used for analyzing pieces before they go live. The tool gives you detailed recommendations and suggests relevant words and phrases so that you can make your content more search-engine friendly.

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The software makes it easy for teams to collaborate and carry out multi-stage review processes. You can also share Clearscope reports by just sending a link.

The platform is extremely user-friendly and caters to a wide audience — there are pricing plans for small businesses and individual creators, big teams, and enterprises. Upon sign-up, you get free live training and onboarding. You can seamlessly switch between plans once you hit the limits of the basic plan.

#3. LiveSession

You can use this analytics software to understand your visitors’ behavior and increase conversion rates. It’s a good match if you want to analyze not just blog posts but whole landing pages or websites. LiveSession will show you where your visitors get stuck or bored and what steals their focus.

While Google Analytics shows usage patterns and data averages, this tool also allows you to record sessions and create click maps to register more subtle things like rage clicks or focal points.

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Even though it’s a web analytics and UX testing tool, it can help you make informed content marketing decisions and improve your site’s user experience. You can gently look over your visitor’s shoulder and observe how they interact with your content in real-time.

LiveSession offers tailored plans for businesses of all sizes. In addition, the platform has a free basic plan and a free 14-day trial.

#4. Chartbeat

Chartbeat is intended for large and mid-sized companies, but small businesses can also benefit from using it, especially if they heavily rely on content to acquire new customers and don’t want to leave it to chance.

For starters, Chartbeat allows you to test images and headlines to find a winning formula:

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You can track how your readers are consuming your content across platforms, channels, and devices and establish what engages them the most. And it’s not just historical data — you can also see how your audience is connecting with your new content in real-time. There are dozens of other advanced metrics that you can track, such as engaged time or loyal visitors.

In addition, Chartbeat provides you with customizable and flexible reporting. Each report contains auto-generated insights to help you identify noteworthy patterns and trends in your audience data.

You can get a demo to see Chartbeat in action. The platform offers core and premium bundles.

Use Content Analytics To Strategize; We’ll Do the Rest

Do you want to improve your SEO game without diving into complex topics and formulas? Check out HOTH X, our combined SEO and content marketing service. It’s crafted specifically for busy marketers, executives, agencies, and business owners wishing to increase their traffic and rankings.

Book a call to learn more about HOTH X. We’ll connect you with an SEO expert who will design a customized campaign for you. They will help you pick the right keywords, optimize your website, get strong backlinks, and will even create high-performing content for you.

On top of that, we’ll be sending you transparent reports showing how your SEO campaign is progressing.

The post Content Analytics: Publish, Measure, Repeat appeared first on The HOTH.