In 2021, global content marketing industry revenue was estimated at $66 billion.

According to the prediction of the Statista Research Department, the value of content marketing is planned to reach a tremendous $137 billion by 2026. Last year, 98% of companies implemented a content marketing strategy as part of their overall marketing concept, which is 20% more than in 2019. Hence, no doubt that you will need an effective content strategy for SEO.

Share of organizations with a content marketing strategy in place worldwide from 2019 to 2021

Source: Statista

We will dispel the myth, saying that your 2023 SEO content strategy should not be based on keywords. Surprised?

Nowadays, most businesses understand the concepts of SEO and their importance. Hence, it’s impossible to gain a competitive advantage just by creating content for keywords your customers are searching for. Having an outstanding 18-year experience in SEO, we are more than sure that content strategy needs to target your marketing and business goals, first. But, let’s view everything step-by-step.

What is an SEO Content Strategy

So, first of all, let’s define the meaning of an SEO content strategy.

SEO content strategy is the process of adequately organizing a website’s content to maximize the likelihood of it appearing in the top search results. In such a way, the strategy allows companies to gain organic traffic from search engines.

However, there’s no single recipe for building an effective content strategy. It needs to meet the characteristics of your company, its business goals, and customers’ journey in it. That is why you need to consider these factors in creating your own unique content strategy for SEO.

A guide for content strategy creation for eCommerce

Step 1: Analyze Your Target Buyer Persona

Considering the fact that the success of eCommerce depends on the interactions with the target audience, one of the main recommendations is an investigation of the buyer persona. Do not limit yourself to the demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation characteristics of clients. You should study the customers’ journey map, analyze possible touchpoints with the target audience, and the ways people consume the content. Only based on the profound information about your buyer persona, you’ll be able to create an effective SEO content strategy.

By the way, we have already developed a detailed guideline for using customer journey mapping for PPC campaign implementation. Check it out!

Step 2: Research for Content Creation

In developing an effective SEO content strategy for eCommerce, you need to do some research. For instance, you analyze the semantic core or apply the SEO competitive analysis to determine the gaps in competitors’ SEO strategies in search rankings and keywords to find existing opportunities.

Promodo accompanied Claspo in the SEO content strategy creation. For this matter, we have analyzed competitors’ blogs, their topics, and their traffic to create an effective content plan based on ​​low- and medium-frequency search queries. Take a look at the analysis results below.

Examples of article topics and their traffic of Claspo’s competitor’s blog

Source: Ahrefs

Step 3: Publish Content according to the Customer’s Journey

Customer journey is one of the key aspects to consider in developing the content strategy. 63% of B2B and 62% of B2C companies state that it is of high importance to distribute personalized content through the customer journey.

First of all, let’s recollect what the buyer’s journey is.

The buyer’s journey is the stages that the customer passes in the process of purchasing products or services.

Awareness Stage
The first phase they face is the awareness stage, when a person identifies the problem. For instance, a car owner needs to change the seasonal tires on their vehicle. They do not have a ready solution, they are only searching for information. At this point, the content marketers of tire eCommerce need to place relevant content on the importance of in-time tire replacement, innovations in the industry, current trends, etc. Even though the customer is not ready to make the purchase decision at this point, the main task of SEO content strategy is to establish the eCommerce store authority and gain the trust of potential buyers.

A great example of content to read about the awareness stage for the tire market is Promodo’s research called Tire Market Trends to Succeed in 2023

Consideration Stage
At the consideration stage, you need to create detailed and informative content about the product offerings available. For instance, you should place data about tire types available, brands of tires, country of origin, technical characteristics, warranty, etc. At this point, the major task is positioning your online store as a reliable distributor with a great choice of products.

Decision Stage
At the moment, when the customer is ready to make the purchase decision, it’s critical to create the content that would persuade the buyer persona to choose your eCommerce. We recommend publishing information that outlines your corporate competitive advantages compared to competitors. For instance, good topics at the decision stage may be “Pros and Cons of Buying Tires from Car Part” or “Which Tire Distributor to Choose:  autodoc.co.uk or carparts4less.co.uk?”. Hence, in such a way, the main purpose of SEO content strategy at the decision stage is transforming leads into paying customers.

B2B SEO Strategy

Basically, B2B and B2C content strategies have much in common. The main difference is the type of customer that consumes the content, and as a result, the way of thinking they apply in the purchase journey. That is why consider the following aspects during B2B SEO planning.

Less Organic Traffic

Developing the content strategy for B2B, you need to be aware that this will generate considerably less traffic than the B2C sector. For instance, the key phrase “window replacement in London” will have considerably higher traffic compared to “polymer spacer system windows” because the niches’ sizes are different. Hence, do not plan KPIs in the B2B segment as high as in the B2C.

Low Search Volume Keywords

B2B SEO planning also needs to be based on low-volume keywords, as they are more likely to be searched by professionals in the sphere. For instance, “window replacement in London” asked by final consumers is a high-volume search keyword. On the contrary, the “polymer spacer system windows” key phrase, which is likely to be searched by wholesalers, distributors, or contractors, has a low-volume ranking in Google. Hence, consider this issue in your B2B SEO strategy.

More Decision Makers

In the B2B sphere, the sales cycle is much longer. The main reason for this is a larger number of decision-makers. For instance, if an electronic appliances eCommerce considers ordering digital marketing services from an affiliate agency, at least three persons will be engaged in the decision-making. First, the marketer searches for a range of companies available in the market and chooses the best options. Further, a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) picks one from the provided selection. Finally, the CEO confirms the decision. That is why the digital marketing agency needs to have content for all managerial levels.

Here are the samples of different content for different decision-makers:

Strategic Level – C-D Mapping: A New Approach to Marketing Strategy Developing

Tactical Level – What to Expect From Black Friday 2022: Tends and Forecasts

Operational Level – Why Emails End Up in Spam and How to Avoid It: Reasons and Recommendations

Hence, launching a B2B content strategy, consider writing relevant themes for multiple decision-makers.

CONTENT STRATEGY FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

SEO marketing strategy for small local businesses also has some peculiarities. The main one of them is the use of a local SEO strategy.  

Local SEO is a digital marketing tool used primarily by brick-and-mortar businesses for improving their search engine visibility.

Use the Google My Business Tool

Google My Business has become a golden rule of local SEO strategy. Due to the fact that Google verifies and ranks its content well, creating the Google My Business corporate page is a must. By the way, do not forget to share this content in your accounts on social media pages.

Check out the effect of the implemented Google My Business campaign for Mrdoch Troon Kitchens.

NAP is Essential for Local SEO

NAP is a name, address, and phone number with an area code of a local business.

You should consider implementing NAP as a crawlable HTML text on your website. It allows Google to show higher in the location-based search results.

Important! A common mistake of the local SEO strategy is including the NAP only on the image. However, images cannot be crawled from search engines like HTML text. That is why we recommend placing the NAP in the footer or header of the site, as well as on the “Contact Us” page. In such a way, the implemented NAP will bring the best local SEO results.

Create Localized Content

When creating content for local businesses, it is critical to use optimized content for search engines with high-volume keywords in the text, title, header, meta description, and URL. The key phrases also need to include the location, namely district, city, or even the neighborhood where the target audience lives.

If you have more than one brick-and-mortar store, you should create separate local pages for each location. It’s better to include name, address, phone number, working hours, promotions, etc. On one hand, it is valued by customers. On the other hand, such local pages are well-ranged by Google.

Best SEO Tools for Content Making

Despite effective recommendations from professionals, also consider a wide scope of SEO tools, online services, and software for content making.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool which can be used by anyone who has a website. The service allows monitoring the website’s presence in Google SERP. The tool provides information of what gets indexed and how it needs to be optimized for better performance in the Google search results.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is considered to be one of the powerful online SEO tools. It allows determining what parts of your website need changes to get higher ranking. In addition, an opportunity to determine competitor’s backlinks benefits the development of the SEO content strategy.

SEMRush

One of the main benefits of SEMRush is a fast and easy access of the website’s rankings, data changes, as well as new ranking opportunities. In addition, marketers often use the function called the Domain Vs Domain analysis to compare their competitors.

As the market grows, an increasing amount of SEO tools for content creation appear. For instance, you may try Ubersuggest, KWFinder, Moz Pro, SpyFu, and other services to improve your content strategy for SEO. In case you find it complicated to use the tools, plan or implement your SEO content strategy, we may also rely on professionals.

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