Editorial SEO - Top 5 Tips To Get You Started
If you've delved into the realm of SEO, you've likely encountered a barrage of terms: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, backend SEO, frontend SEO, and so on. Amidst this sea of jargon, what truly holds significance? The answer, frankly, varies based on your objectives and organizational goals. Yet, amidst the complexity, three SEO categories stand out as paramount: Technical, Editorial, and Programmatic. In this podcast episode, I touch upon each briefly, reserving deeper dives for subsequent blogs. Today, our focus is on editorial SEO – what it entails and practical tips to enhance your own editorial SEO efforts. Let's delve into it.
What Is Editorial SEO?
Simply put Editorial SEO refers to the optimization of written content such as blog posts, opinion pieces, and news reports. This SEO type really focuses down on writing high-quality, informative, and engaging content that can answer user questions (or commonly called search queries) quickly and with ease. This is often done through the use of heavy keyword research and trend investigation to see what aligns with the writer’s target market or userbase as well as their desired keywords. For example IGN blogs are optimized to rank the highest in the gaming space so depending on the topic of the post the keywords selected could be: ‘gaming’, ‘gaming news’, ‘gaming updates’ and so on. Also because how big IGN is, they can rank high very easily since they have more ‘topical authority’ which simply means how trustworthy you are in that space. If a real estate company tired to compete for these same keywords or similar, it would be a very high uphill climb.
Google, when ranking websites on SERPs (search engine results page) looks for pages that can best deliver a solution to questions and how long a user stays on the page. This is why for bloggers and other writers editorial SEO is key. You want to help users find the answers to their questions but also for them to stay on your page and explore, not go right back to the SERPs page to find a better source for their inquiries.
It can sound quite hard, but don’t fret! Here are some tips to help you along the way.
Tips Of The Trade
Keyword Research and Optimization
As I hinted at already, keyword research is the act of finding and analyzing terms that are commonly searched when looking for products, services, or just information. To use a different example, when you are Googling for say fitness, you may use terms like ‘fitness plan for beginners’ or ‘advanced workouts’ and so on. The sites that come up will have accounted for this in some capacity and will have optimized their content for it. It’s likely you have clicked on the first result in the past and have found a really solid experience with the number one spot, maybe it answered your question perfectly or just held your attention. These are will optimized pages!
Finding keywords for your niche that you are able to successfully rank in is important. One may think that staying general is the key to growth, but quite the opposite at times. General keywords will be hard to rank for, "‘exercise” for example would be a hot term, but “exercise for a beginner with small budget” is a longtail keyword phrase that would be a lot easier to break into.
With out going into it to much, longtail keywords are simply keywords that… well… are longer, normally three to five words. Hence the name longtail.
Every editorial SEO strategy starts with some form of keyword research.
Make High Quality Content
Once you've completed your keyword research, the next crucial step awaits: crafting compelling content. For some, this is a breeze, while for others, it's a daunting task. Writing isn't just about stringing together words; it's about creating high-quality, engaging material that not only answers the query at hand but also captivates readers, holding their attention long after they've finished reading.
Incorporate elements beyond mere text. Think about incorporating witty insights, vibrant images, or even a custom GIF to enhance the reader's experience. If you have supplementary media channels, consider linking to relevant videos that provide visual explanations of the topic.
Listicles, in particular, are a tried-and-tested format for keeping readers engaged while also boosting your rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, there's no one-size-fits-all approach; it ultimately boils down to what resonates best with your audience and keeps them hooked. Experiment with different strategies to discover what works best for your content and your users.
Optimize Metadata And Headlines
When going through search results its likely you’ve read the little preview descriptions before clicking onto the page. These are meta descriptions, and believe it or not, these to are combed over for a long time before posting to make sure they are as optimized as they can be. One would say to work in SEO you have to have OCD, I think that’s partly true.
But other than the description things like headers should be considered. While this is a whole other blog for another day your h1, h2, and h3, titles actually matter and can effect your ranking. For example H1 normally should be reserved for your title. This is because the crawler bots use these headings to help read/crawl your content. It will register H1 as a title, H2 as say a sub title, H3 as a subheading on a different section, and so on. It helps them decide if your content is well organized which can help them determine if your content is high quality. Spam websites won’t really take into consideration the small details unless they are a big operation.
Finally, meta tags are important to keep in mind. While they are mostly a invisible element and lie in the HTML, or in some cases like for me, blog tags act as meta tags. For example, this blog is labeled as ‘SEO . Tips . Business’ which shows up in the page html and is tracked when thrown into things like Google Search Console. So, ensure your tags accurately reflect the essence of your content to enhance its visibility and accessibility to your target audience.
Internal and External Linking
Since we already went over quickly what internal and external linking are we will just retread some ground very briefly. All those links that you find on my blog that point to other reputable sites are called external links. I normally do this when there is a concept that is a lot larger than what I feel comfortable explaining. Or if it saves you and me a lot of time. I did this when talking about neuroplasticity awhile ago and I did it a few times in this blog already. Doing this not only helps the site you are linking to, but yours as well. It gives good signals to the crawlers that your trying to make good content.
There is one downside however, it is possible, and I experienced it when running the SEO efforts at my job, for spam websites to target you which will really hurt your rankings. There are some malicious websites out there that are pure SEO farms. They have thousands of links point to other sites for hostile purposes. If you have bad websites with no authority they are likely scams and phishing attempts, this will really hurt your own site’s health. These are called ‘toxic backlinks’ and should be removed if possible.
Other than backlinking/external linking there is internal linking as well. Internal linking helps search engines in a much different, but still very important way. When going through your site these internal links act as bridges to other places on your website and the crawlers will register this as a user experence improvement since people can bounce all around your site or page without having to go back. It also allows the crawlers to get a full picture of what you have.
For example (man I say that a lot), once my SEO blog collection is done, they will all be internally linked to one another so you as the reader do not have to scroll the growing list of blogs in order to find what you need.
Make sure to start here if you are brand new to SEO!
See what I did there?
Find Tools Fit For The Job And Your Budget
As extensively discussed in my SEO tools blog post, there exists a plethora of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms designed to streamline and visualize your SEO endeavors and data. Need assistance with keyword research to gauge the competitiveness of specific phrases? Look no further than Ubersuggest—it excels in that area. And when it comes to assessing your backend efforts, Screaming Frog is your go-to tool.
The tip here is straightforward: identify tools that align with your objectives and budget. While some tools may come with a hefty price tag, others are more budget-friendly, and some are even free. I delve into these options in detail in the aforementioned blog post. So, if you're seeking guidance on available tools and their functionalities, be sure to check it out for a comprehensive overview and kickstart your tool selection process!
Conclusion
While there are many different types of SEO ‘hot words’ competing for your attention at all times, editorial SEO is a very important and engaging way to break into the fight for the number one spot. If you can create well written and engaging content for the masses to enjoy than you will be able to get above those that simply work with the other two SEO types, programmatic and technical. Though this fight for growth is not easy and SEO is a battlefield that changes every day, but hopefully these tips can help you get started.
Up next: Technical SEO
