It's a presentation about how to make your content good :)

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30 Tips for Better
Performing Content
in Search
Justin Coons • Senior Product Manager, DigitalOcean

2. About me
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Product manager at DigitalOcean
● Cloud hosting and infrastructure provider
Previously
● Twilio, Dice.com, eFinancialCareers
B.S. News-Editorial Journalism, University of Colorado
● Associated Press, The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated

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Today’s Preso:
Here are some cool ideas for
things I’ve tried in the past that
worked for me.
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Write for people, not robots
Keep it simple
Tools are helpful, but don’t let
them boss you around

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30 Tips for Better
Performing Content
in Search

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Planning Content
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01
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Where does
successful SEO
content start?
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August 2021
Do NOT start content planning by opening
the keyword planner. Don’t do it!
Instead, start with your business’s user
personas (both current and desired).
Speak with internal stakeholders, and if
needed, research independently to
understand their motivations and concerns.

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4. Next, ideate content topics into
these four categories
Adjacent Interest Topics
Problem Aware Topics
Solution Aware Topics
Brand Aware Topics
Higher search volume
Higher converting

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Starting with the top two topic types
These are topics that your target audience is interested in,
but aren’t directly related to your product or service.
Ex: “Top Node JS whiteboard interview questions”
5. Important: Only write about these topics if your strategy
involves community building. These topics are worthless for
more direct, transactional websites.
Adjacent Interest Topics
The user has an issue or a challenge or issue they’re trying
to solve, and they’re looking for information about how to
resolve it.
Ex: “How to create a website for my business”
Lower converting initially, higher traffic
Problem Aware Topics

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The bottom half of our topic types
Your user knows how to resolve their challenge or issue, and
now they are evaluating different solutions.
Ex: “No-code website builders”
Medium conversions, medium traffic
Solution Aware Topics
The user is familiar with different solution providers and is
now evaluating them before making a decision.
Ex: “Heroku alternatives”, “DigitalOcean App Platform vs
AWS Lightsail.”
Many conversions, not much traffic
Brand Aware Topics

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Why plan content
this way?

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August 2021
Using the keyword planner to ID topics first
often leads to finding topics that seem related to
your product or service, but no real users are
actually looking for them.
It avoids the trap of
targeting BS keywords

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It also creates a natural information architecture
Adjacent Interest Topics
Problem Aware Topics
Solution Aware Topics
Brand Aware Topics
Link to
Link to
Engagement / Awareness

14. You’ll now have a
spreadsheet with
content ideas sorted
by topic type
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August 2021
Tip No. 10… now we’re cooking with gas!
Identify focus
keywords for each of
your topic ideas.
Now, use the keyword
planner to reference
MSV for those KWs.
Prioritize your content
from the bottom of
the funnel, upwards.

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Information Architecture
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Build for simplicity
& easy navigation
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August 2021
Use folders deliberately and sparingly to sort
content in your URLs:
● domain.com/blog/descriptive-slug/
● domain.com/blog/category/descriptive-slug/
if you have a lot of content.
For linking, make it possible to find content
in as few clicks as possible.
● “Related articles” widgets
● Anchor linking
● Categories and tags
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13. One quick tip for categories and tags
Limit the number of categories and tags that authors may use.
This will prevent technical SEO issues that can arise from
near-duplicates or tag pages with too few results.

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14. Build your navigation and interlink to create
‘clusters’ of articles related by theme
Community
Home
Big guide: Learn
how to code in
Javascript
Syntax
Data
Types
HTML

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Why structure our
content this way?

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August 2021
Search engines understand topics as entities, so
it really isn’t possible anymore to rank for a
single keyword in a vacuum.
Through smart interlinking and comprehensive
coverage, we must own the topic.
‘Semantic search’
measures our
authority on the topic

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This arrangement gives users a natural ‘next step’
and helps us build conversion funnels
Community
Home
Big guide: Learn
how to code in
Javascript
Syntax
Data
Types
HTML
Try out
your new
skill on a
DO VPS

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Writing Content
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Writing good content takes a long time

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15. Calculate and monitor content output (in a
non-creepy way) to set reasonable expectations
6 hours per
1,200 word
guide
4 guides
per week
(YMMV)
1,000 new
monthly users
per guide
(YMMV)
3% CVR,
30 leads per
week
1,560 new
leads per year,
if all goes well
One Full-Time Employee

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Tips I’ve found to help
write content more quickly

26. Use Thruuu for
awesome outline
recommendations
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August 2021
Thruuu (https://app.thruuu.com/) is free for your first 10 queries
each month. Plug in a keyword, and it will give you:
● Complete outlines of the Top 10 ranking results based on
their H2s & H3s
● “People Also Asked” recommendations
● “Related Searches” recommendations
● Word count
● Image and structured data usage
● Expected update cadence
Tip No. 16

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Thruuu in action for the query ‘stream processing’

28. Spicy option: Use
GPT-3 for the
boring stuff
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August 2021
With your content outline written with help from Thruuu, GPT-3
content tools like OpenAI, Copyscape and Jasper.ai are pretty
clever at giving you some starting copy.
The catch - It needs lots of editing and fact checking.
Tip No. 17

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I’ve used Thruuu to make an outline in Jasper.ai

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90 seconds later…

31. Not optional: Include something
novel or unique in your content
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August 2021
You can:
● Use Thruuu to sketch out a basic outline
● Use GPT-3 to fill in basic bits in your content that anyone can write
However, anytime your produce content to support the credibility or authority of your
brand, you should include novel or unique information that no one else has written
about. You are an expert in your field. Demonstrate it!
Tip No. 18

32. Write in a way your
readers will trust
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August 2021
SEO content has a pretty consistent and (often)
aggravating tone. You don’t have to write that way
to do well in organic search!
Remember, write for humans – not for machines.
Tip No. 19

33. Use Clearscope
for keyword hints,
but remember: It
isn’t gospel
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August 2021
Clearscope.io can give great recommendations around keyword
usage and article length. Use it for one final pass before
publishing.
But remember: Clearscope is an automated tool. Don’t blindly
follow its recommendations if something seems amiss.
Tip No. 20

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Measuring Your Results
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35. Customize your
analytics
dimensions
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August 2021
Tag your content with custom attributes for anything
that can be useful for reporting your success and
analyzing opportunities for optimization.
Tip No. 21
Custom dimension idea
Awareness stage
Topic
Related product / service
Publish date
Word count
Tone

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22. Measure the lifespan of your content, and
segment these measurements by your dimensions

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Why do this?

38. Your reporting will
be a lot crisper
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August 2021
“All unique users from organic” doesn’t tell the story
why business improved or got worse.
Segmentation showing traffic by awareness phase,
topic or product interest gives you more data to tell
a better story.

39. You can plan your
maintenance
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August 2021
Content lifespans vary by subject matter. This gives
you specific data around when you should plan to
review and update your existing content.

40. You can fine-tune
your strategy
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August 2021
Our tools give us approximations and guesses, but
this data allows us to see what actually resonates
with users and where we can be most productive
with our time.

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Maintenance
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Stay organized and consistent;
stay off the ‘content treadmill’
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August 2021
Use your lifespan data to determine a content
maintenance schedule.
Document this schedule in a shared space,
including a changelog for each article that
is maintained.
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Update for new information or content that
has changed since you wrote it.
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Pare anything that is no longer relevant or
doesn’t produce any business value.
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Rapid Fire Tips
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Miscellaneous tips that
didn’t fit anywhere else
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August 2021
Don’t internationalize your content, unless you
have a very compelling business case.
Use “Table of Contents” widgets with jump
links on articles with 4+ subsections.
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Authors pages - Make it easy for readers to
find out who your writers are and how to
contact them.
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Got a budget and need to grow quickly?
Explore content acquisitions.
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45. Thank you