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How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy Guide

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Find your competitors


You can use a tool like Semrush to see who is ranking for each keyword. This will allow you to identify your competitors and figure out what keywords they are targeting.


Demand Mavericks can help you optimize your website and content for search engines by choosing the right keywords and analyzing your competition.


How To Do An SEO Competitor Analysis


You're doing a great job with your startup or scaleup, but you may be facing more competition than you expected.

You may have been at the forefront of a trend, but similar businesses are now popping up everywhere. It sounds like it’s time for you to do a competitor analysis. Here’s how: by looking at what other businesses are doing and how they’re doing it.


What is a competitor analysis?


A competitor analysis can help you understand your competition's marketing strategies, products, and services. It is a critical process that takes an in-depth look at every aspect of their business.


You should do competitor analysis on a quarterly basis, but this is just one tool in your toolbox. Always monitor the market and industry to see if there are any changes and if so, you should dive into a full competitor analysis. You can also collect customer feedback to see what people think about the competitors' strategies.


Why is a competitor analysis critical?


The benefits of competitor analysis are massive.


  • Differentiate your product. You know you’re unique – but does your messaging and brand identity capture that? If your product looks the same and your marketing sounds the same, why will customers choose you? Competitor analysis allows you to refine your value proposition.
  • Stay relevant. Competitor analysis allows you to evaluate trends in your industry and determine how you can leverage them to grow your business and stay ahead of opportunities. You’ll also uncover your competitors’ strengths so you can learn how to replicate them.
  • To increase website traffic, you need to do your research and use effective SEO techniques. See what is working for both organic and paid search results for your competitors, then improve on it.
  • Gain a competitive edge. Understanding your competitors’ tactics – and weaknesses – allows you to improve on them. You’ll also identify gaps in their marketing strategies and target audiences that will allow you to use new and different methods and get better results.

What tools do I need to perform a competitor analysis?


You could just jump on the computer, type in your competitors’ websites, and use your analytical eye to see what they’re doing. But you’ll get a lot more useful information when using some of these competitor analysis tools:

SEMrush uses comprehensive data to help you explore market and audience trends, do a keyword gap analysis, and uncover competitors’ link-building strategies.


Ahrefs has similar tools to SEMrush to help you do SEO competitive analysis.


SimilarWeb provides accurate and thorough website analytics around traffic, demographics, engagement, and more.


SpyOnWeb lets you see if a website is operated by a competitor.


GoogleAlerts gives you updates on certain search terms and preferences you set, helping you track your competitor and industry.


Buzzsumo is a great tool for competitive content analysis. See what’s working, who’s sharing, and what’s trending for content.

You don’t necessarily need paid tools to do a competitor analysis, but it really helps.


How to do a competitor analysis


Before you can do a competitor analysis, you need to know who your competitors are. Once you have that list, use the tools we talked about above – and your own critical thinking – to look at the following areas and ask yourself, “How can I do this better than them?”


Website Traffic

Looking at the traffic your competitors are getting can help you figure out what’s working and what needs improvement.

Take a deeper dive into:


  • Traffic by channel: Are their visitors coming from display. paid search, organic search, social, or something else?
  • Traffic by device: Do they get the most traffic from desktop, phone, or tablet?
  • Traffic by geography: Does your competitor appeal to an audience from a specific part of the country or world?

Engagement


If your audience gets to the page and then bounces, were they ever really there? Traffic is important, but audience engagement tells you whether a competitor’s marketing strategy is actually working. Look at:


  • Bounce rate: This is the number of visitors that leave the site after only viewing one page. A low bounce rate indicates content marketing that’s doing its job well.
  • Conversion rate: How many visitors complete a desired action, like making a purchase, downloading a piece of content, or submitting a form?
    Conversion is the ultimate goal of growth marketing.
  • Demographics: Who is your competitors’ most engaged audience? What is their age, gender, and income? What are they doing right to engage this audience?

Ad Strategy


The laser-focused targeting abilities and relatively low cost of PPC advertising mean that your competitors are likely using this channel. Ask yourself:

  • Are they running ads? What are they bidding on?
  • What CTAs are they using to push people to purchase?
  • What searches do they show up for?

User Experience


Analyzing user experience requires more critical thinking skills than the other categories. By browsing your competitors’ websites, clicking on crosslinks, menus, CTAs, and more you can get a better understanding of their user experience. Review:

Website layout: Does it move you easily through the discovery and purchasing phases? Was information easy to find? What are their CTAs?


Aesthetics:
What color scheme are they using? Is the text easy to read and organized? What images do they use (lifestyle, product, stock images, etc.)?


Mobile optimization: Use the “Inspect” feature on Chrome to see if the website is mobile optimized. Right-click anywhere on the page and go to “Inspect.” In the top left of the sidebar, click the icon of the phone and computer screen to toggle on the mobile view. How does it look?


How can I make my website better for each of the above categories? After all, competitor analysis is all about knowing what your competition is doing so you can do it better.


If you want to stay ahead of your competition, it's important to understand what they're doing. Demand Mavericks can help by providing a competitor analysis that will give you a better understanding of your industry and how to grow your business. With our support, you'll be on the right track for success.

How to Build a Quarterly Content Marketing Strategy


As a content marketer, you have one primary goal: to create content that converts viewers into life-long customers. It sounds simple, but it is far from easy, especially when you need to create consistent, quality content that regularly drops and is within budget.


As a content marketer, you have one primary goal: to create content that converts viewers into life-long customers.

It sounds simple, but it is far from easy, especially when you need to create consistent, quality content that regularly drops and is within budget.


Like any huge task, it’s best to break it up into chunks that are more easily managed and still adhere to your long-term goals. This is why all successful content marketing starts with a solid content marketing strategy and why many content marketers struggle—because they don’t have one.


If you’re a content growth marketer that falls into the latter category, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute, only 43% of respondents had a documented content marketing strategy, and 21% had none at all. How did so many professional content growth marketers fail to solidify a plan? If their experience is anything like mine, chances are they felt the pressure to meet deadlines, satisfy the client’s request, or thought that tactics that worked before would keep generating similar results.


But let’s all take a deep breath together. The more you put in on the back end, the easier your job will be on the front end, and more importantly, generate the results you and your client need.


At Demand Mavericks we have a lot of experience creating quarterly content marketing plans that increase organic traffic for our clients. And since we practice what we preach, we do it for ourselves. So, let’s use Demand Mavericks quarterly content marketing plan as an example. We'll break down step-by-step how we form a strategy, create a quarterly content plan, and execute it.


What is a quarterly content marketing plan?


It’s just as it sounds. It is a 3-month plan to create topics that level up to your overall strategy. Why three months? Because anything more might be a waste of your time and effort. It didn’t take us long to go from “Oh, this COVID-19 thing should be only two weeks long” to us still dealing with it more than a year later. Plus, planning only three months out means you aren’t married to anything mentally. It is a lot easier to stick a fork in four topics than 12. In short, Demand Mavericks plans three months out because it lends us enough time to create an editorial calendar without scrambling, and it provides plenty of slack for us to quickly adjust our plan so we don’t miss out on timely events and topics.


Step One: Research what people are searching


Like any good plan, it all begins with research. At Demand Mavericks, we use content marketing to generate organic growth for our clients and ourselves, so research starts with keywords. And yes, keywords are still important, even if how they are used has changed. Let’s start with what we did for our website. We used our good friend, SEMrush, and their Keyword Magic Tool to determine what terms surrounded our industry—growth marketing. And, well, we got a lot of results back.


Our keyword list has over 14,000 keywords!


Step 2: Put your keywords into focus


So, we had our 14,000 keywords, and we are good to go, right? Nope. A content strategy that goes after 14,000 keywords isn’t a strategy, and if so, it’s a really bad one. We had some refining to do.


As part of our SEO analysis, we removed anything that didn’t make sense to go after. “Market growth” with 1,300 searches per month and “stock market growth by the president “with 590 searches had some decent volume, but that isn’t what we are really about. So, we removed those right away. Same for any similar terms like “stock market growth,” “free market economies,” and “TD money market.”


Next, we sorted our list by keyword difficulty. The higher the percentage, the harder it is to get your content to rank for these terms. We started looking for keywords that were below 70%. Mind you, 70% is still challenging, but not impossible, especially with the right content surrounding those keywords.


Then, we went through our sorted list and focused on the search terms that we wanted to rank. That doesn’t mean the ones with the most search volume, but the search terms that we knew we could build expert, authoritative content around to build trust and attract the clients that are a great fit for our agency. This is basically what we do for retailers, eCommerce sites, B2B companies, etc., when we create buyer personas which are a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience. This gave us a list of around 1,400, so making progress. But we weren’t done.


Remember, this is how to create a quarterly content marketing plan, so we need to break this list down even more. We wanted to look at what we were already rankings previously and build upon that success.


If we are already ranking, why do we need to build more content? Because the search engines are constantly reevaluating rankings, and if you have content that is too dated, too brief, and/or not enough of it, the search engine algorithms will drop your rankings. As growth marketers well know, this is a “what have you done for me recently” type of industry, and the search engines have that mentality as well.


Okay, so now we have a very focused list to start building our quarterly content plan. The keywords are industry-specific, have low competition, and (bonus!) we have some momentum to build off. Now to start creating topics in our quarterly content marketing plan to help drive organic growth.


Step 3: Content topic research (yup, more research)


Now that we have our target keywords, our client (or buyer) personas, we can start researching the type of content we need to create to rank and attract the clients we want. We can go back to SEMrush and use their SEO Content template feature to help get an idea of what type of content is ranking for these keywords.


Step 4: Creating a Content Calendar


We’ve done our research, more research, and focused on what we are going after. So, before we write a single word, we have to organize it all. This is where your content calendar comes in.


If you have enough resources, you can tackle multiple topics simultaneously. Still, if your resources are limited, you want to target your most important keywords based on traffic, as these are typically going to yield you the best results. This strategy is sound when you have good domain authority, but if you are new to the game, well, you need to pick your battles. This means looking at your focused keyword list and going after low-hanging fruit. In other words, you want to target keywords where you can make substantial gains without having to deal with a lot of competition.


Why? Because the more keywords you start ranking highly for, the more the search engines will respect your expertise, authority, and trust (E.A.T.). As you build upon your domain authority, it will be a lot easier to rank for more competitive search terms. At Tuff, we decided to take a divide and conquer approach.


Each month we would focus on one keyword and produce 4-6 pieces surrounding these. We also wanted to create a holistic approach because our strategies are never siloed. It’s important to make sure your content calendar is still grounded in your overall strategy.


For Demand Mavericks, our is to rank number 1 for “growth marketing agency,” so no matter what we create, it should ladder up to this. Luckily, content marketing is a big part of how we help our clients grow, so it’s a natural fit for us to tie in “content strategy agency” topics into “growth marketing agency.” But let’s back to the content calendar.


We knew that we wanted to build upon our expertise in content marketing, and “content strategy agency” had decent search value (170 per month) and low keyword difficulty (49%).


All of these topics tie into what a “content strategy agency” can do. We took our advice and created content that provided expertise, authority, and, hopefully, trust. We also perform keyword research, competitor analysis, and content design for each topic so the content can be easily digested. This means adding enough images with optimized file names and alt text and structuring it, so there are no giant blocks of text. For longer posts, we also make sure to create internal jump links. It’s not enough to get your content to rank. You also want to make certain people actually read it because a high bounce rate will most definitely affect your SEO. Plus, we strive to create content that people want to share.


Step 5: Rinse and repeat


For months two and three, we focused on “healthcare agency” and “startup marketing agency,” respectively, going through a similar process that we did for month 1. Remember, we are not creating siloed content. Each of these leads up to our primary focus, “growth marketing.” And if we planned this right (which we did), we should crosslink these posts to create a content web easily. Having a good cross linking strategy ensures that your readers can find more great information without searching all over your site (or your competitors), and it increases time on site, which we know is good for our organic growth.


Step 6: Set your cadence


Once you have your calendar organized and content briefs for each topic, you can begin writing. But you need to think about your cadence. Even if you have the resources to jam all of it out in a week, you don’t want to upload it all at the same time. It’s best to create a steady drip so that both Google and your readers don’t get overwhelmed with the amount of content, and it gives them reasons to keep coming back. A steady drip also helps you build true, longer-lasting organic growth. If you upload them all at once, you may get a nice artificial boost, but it will fade as fast. Several studies show you the best time to publish content, but you also want to consider the type of content you are posting, and your competitors probably read these same studies.


Whichever you decide, keep it consistent.


What else do I need to know about creating a quarterly content marketing plan?


Organic growth is a long-term play. There are no quick fixes. Your content marketing efforts could take as long as 90 days to show positive results, but these results are sticky. Once you start ranking for specific terms, you should continue to move up in those rankings, that is, until someone else does it better than you. However, if you’ve produced good quality content, you don’t need to rewrite it every few months. You can update and expand on it using a remediation strategy. But that’s a topic for another post.


We’ve gone over quite a bit, but if you still have questions or you think this is something best left to the experts, then get in touch. We have created quarterly content plans for many of our clients, and one thing about going with a content strategy agency like Demand Mavericks is that we have been there done that. You can lean into our expertise and grow your business the right way.


We’ve gone over quite a bit, but if you still have questions or you think this is something best left to the experts, then get in touch. We have created quarterly content plans for many of our clients, and one thing about going with a content strategy agency like Demand Mavericks, is that we have been there done that. You can lean into our expertise and grow your business the right way.

There are a few key ingredients to creating a successful content plan, one of which is secrecy. Keep your strategy under wraps until you're ready to launch it, and make sure your team is on board with the plan from the get-go.


You're producing a lot of content, but when you Google your key terms, you're still falling on page two or maybe even page three.


Despite your focus on high-volume keywords in your industry, you find that very little traffic is finding your website through those keywords. Or maybe you have some traffic but the conversion rates are low among it.


What gives?


Content marketing is a mysterious beast that can be tricky to tame, but it’s well worth the effort. You may not see immediate results, but over time your content will gain traction and attract more customers. If you put in the work, your content will keep on attracting attention and driving conversions.


Keep in mind that while traffic growth is an important measure of success, honing in on KPIs like conversions, bounce rate, and time on site are far more important metrics. Traffic like this is going to pay dividends by increasing your ranking and thereby attracting even more new leads. So before you write a single word, it’s critical to determine what the goals of the content are and track them back to your bigger-picture business growth.


At Demand Mavericks, we want to help you succeed, so we're going to outline our process for creating content marketing strategies. This way, you'll be able to create high-quality content on your own without any help from us.


After reading all the content marketing posts, you may have questions about which strategy is best for your business. You may decide that your conversion rate from organic is better than paid, and it's time to invest more resources there. Or you might need a fresh set of eyes on your business to determine if that's the case.


If you need help with any aspect of your business growth, feel free to reach out to us. We can provide consultation and support for all aspects of content marketing, online advertising, social media management, and technical SEO. After all, we are a growth marketing agency that specializes in helping companies achieve quick wins and long-term success.

We love directing people to other kick-ass agencies and sites that specialize in content marketing strategy. You'll find a wealth of content marketing strategy topics on these websites. We hope you found this post helpful, and if so, feel free to share it. Don't be a stranger!

A holistic SEO content strategy looks at all aspects of a website's content, from the written word to images and videos.

This approach ensures that all of a site's content is optimized for search engine visibility.


The "ultimate secret" for skyrocketing overnight growth does not actually exist.


Content marketing is a fast-paced world. It seems like every day there’s an update, a new best practice or a new tool to learn. As soon as you get down the basics of technical content marketing, you learn there’s a whole different side to it: SEO.


A holistic SEO strategy that includes both technical and on-page growth content is essential to increasing organic traffic – and helping to improve lead generation, acquisition, and revenue. It’s also highly personalized to your business and involves a lot of moving pieces. Here’s how you can ensure your SEO content strategy is effective and efficient.
What is growth content?


A growth content strategy is designed to get your website ranked high in search engine results pages (SERPs). When people are searching for the topics you are targeting, they will discover your brand and click through to your website. If you have done a good job with your growth content strategy, some of these visitors may stay on your site and make a purchase.


To create a successful growth content strategy, you'll need to use site traffic analysis, competitive review, and keyword gap analysis. This will help you create content that is always helpful, engaging, informative and gives you a timeline and projections that put the future in focus.
A growth content strategy can help you to ensure that your content is engaging and useful to your audience.


If you want to see long-term growth in your business, you'll need a content strategy that drives (and keeps!) stronger, more engaged traffic.


SEO content strategy is a series of actions and content pieces that helps your site to rank higher in search engines, attracting more customers.


Step 1: Do your research


Before you dive into your content marketing plan, make sure to do your research. A holistic content marketing strategy includes elements of content analysis, audience research, and SEO analysis.
Who are my competitors?


To outrank your competitors, you first need to identify them. There are two types of competitors: those that you compete against directly and those that rank high on the terms we'd like to rank for.
What are my competitors doing?


In order to improve our SEO, we analyze our competitors’ content and look for best practices that we can emulate. We want to be sure that our content is both interesting and well-written, while also following established guidelines.
Who is my target audience?


Your target audience helps you choose your content topics and build a strategy that answers their questions. That's why we work so hard to understand a target audience for your growth content strategy.
What tools do I use?


We use SEMRush to perform a keyword gap analysis to glean important information.

Step 2: Define your strategy


There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to content strategy, so you’ll need to do some research in order to find what will work best for your business. However, there are certain strategies that can be helpful for all businesses, so it’s important to know where to look. By consulting with an expert who can help spot opportunities and create a content strategy that is efficient, effective, and meets goals, you’ll be on the right track.


We have a variety of growth marketing strategies we can share with you. Here’s one we compiled for a client with a new business and an empty website:


Create content that is relevant to the top keywords people are searching for. This will help you capture more impressions and clicks early in the customer journey.


Create content that is keyword rich and provides valuable information for small businesses.


To capture traffic and convert leads, you'll want to focus on targeting high-traffic keywords that your target market is searching for. By creating content that is specific to the needs of your target audience, you'll increase the chances of success.

Our landing page testing will help ensure your website is effective in attracting and converting visitors.


Creating content that is helpful and informative for your blog is a key part of helping us create pillars that can be backed-link to.


Step 3: Determine your focus keywords


As part of on-page SEO, keywords are vital to ensuring that whatever is produced is targeted and strategic. Google has a clear set of guidelines on how to get your content ranked in search engines: Answer your audience's questions concisely and authoritatively. However, what should your keywords be?


After performing a keyword gap analysis among your competitors, look for opportunities in the 10,000+ keywords where the competition is lower (<75). Then whittle those down to a more manageable number.


Start by estimating how many people would see your content if it appeared on page one of a Google search. This is called the "1st Page Impact." To get an estimate, multiply the total number of keywords for that piece of content by 15%.

SEO is a complex process that is just another day on the job for our experts.


Step 4: Set traffic targets


SEO content strategy is important for growth and growth marketing because it can help increase traffic. When traffic goes up, leads and revenue will also go up.


Within 60 to 90 days of publishing, you'll want to see key indicators of growth such as higher search rankings and new traffic. Within four to five months, you'll want to see significant traction toward your client acquisition goals.

To increase your organic traffic, set a goal and benchmark your current traffic to see where you need to grow. Then use the CVR of your current traffic to make a projection about how many new customers/clients will be brought in by your new strategy.

Step 5: Execute and report


It's time to get writing. Content is most effective when it's published consistently over time, so put together your content calendar and start writing. If you're overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content, enlist help. You can find quality freelance writers on LinkedIn.


Write an introduction to your brand that is informative and on point. Make sure your tone of voice is consistent and on point so that people feel like they are getting an introduction to your brand, not just a performance piece.


A holistic SEO content strategy requires a lot of organization and tracking.


We use Trello to keep everything organized, and we also keep a simple spreadsheet that tracks our website's performance and helps us understand what content is generating the most traction. SEO content strategy is an ongoing process that needs to be constantly updated in order to get the best results.


How To Do an on-Page SEO Analysis


You’ve probably heard the phrase “Content is king.” Bill Gates said it in a 1996 essay, and it’s been true ever since. So it’s likely that you’ve got content. Lots of content! But is anyone seeing it? Is it helping to drive growth for your business?


An effective growth marketing strategy means more than throwing together a blog where you write about topics that you’re familiar with or that you find interesting. To create content that truly connects with your audience – and that drives conversions – you need to think about on-page SEO analysis.


What is on-page SEO?


SEO is commonly split up into three types: on-page, technical, and off-page.


On-page SEO is anything that your visitors see when they come to your website: product pages, location pages, resources, blog articles, and so on.


Technical SEO is what happens behind the scenes of your website: HTML markup, site architecture, site speed, and so on. Off-page SEO includes things like link building, guest blogs, and social media.



Here we’ll only be talking about on-page SEO: your website’s content. Thorough and knowledgeable on-page content is an essential piece of the SEO puzzle because it signals to search engines that your content answers searchers’ questions – a key to ranking highly.


Ranking factors for on-page content include:

  • Keyword optimization
  • Content quality, length, and organization
  • Internal and external hyperlinking
  • Meta information (URL, title tag, and meta description)
  • Images and image alt text

These are all the elements you’ll need to analyze and optimize in order to improve your position in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Seem like a lot? There are tools that can help.


On-page SEO analysis tools


There is a lot more to on-page SEO than simply guessing what Google wants. A well-executed analysis will show you where your content falls short and help you optimize it for better organic traffic and revenue. However, this task requires the right tools which are often difficult to find. Here are three of our favorite tools for performing an on-page SEO analysis.


Google Analytics


Google offers real-time reporting on visitors, traffic sources, conversion rate, and more across devices. You can also use Google Search Console to drill down into organic search traffic.

Semrush


Semrush is an excellent tool for building a keyword strategy. Use the Keyword Overview and Keyword Magic tools to get a quick summary of metrics, dive deeper with the Keyword Difficulty metric to find keywords that will give you an edge, and use it to perform competitive analysis and do topic research.

Yoast


Yoast is an SEO analysis plug-in for WordPress that makes it a convenient option for businesses whose websites or blogs are built on that platform. Yoast will rate your pages’ SEO optimization and the Page Analysis feature will give specific feedback on where you can improve. It indicates areas for improvement with red dots – once optimized, the dots turn green. Yoast's user-friendliness makes it incredibly popular.


If you want to stand out from the competition, you'll need the right tools and expertise. An expert agency like Demand Mavericks can help you find what your competitors are up to and give you a leg up on them.
How to do an on-page SEO analysis


You’ll need to gather your data and tools before you can begin your on-page analysis. Here are the steps we take at Demand Mavericks:


Perform keyword research


On-page content that will crush it in the SERPs always starts with finding the right keywords. Use your SEO tool of choice to perform keyword research around the topic you want to write about. Ask yourself:

  • What are the most important keywords for this topic?
  • How can I make my content relevant to those keywords?
  • What other on-page factors can help me rank higher for these top keywords?
  • Are the keywords relevant to your topic?
  • Are these terms regularly searched by your target audience?
  • Can you realistically rank for these keywords?

Decide on your primary keyword


Keyword research will likely give you a list of hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords. Your SEO tool may prioritize them for you, but it will still be up to you to choose your primary keyword. So which keyword will be able to rule them all? Your primary keyword should:


Be highly relevant and laser-focused on your topic


Have low competition or relate to an area where your business is very strong
Not already be used as a keyword in another piece of content (this is called cannibalization, and it confuses the search engines)


Choose related keywords


To create content that will catch the attention of your target audience and the search engines, you need to include related keywords and topics. Related keywords will help you capture more search intent and can be used to target your PPC campaigns as well.


Choose three to five related keywords that are:


  • Based on your target keyword and semantically related searches
  • Related to the intent of your searchers and their stage in the buyer journey
  • Long-tail (three or more words) or other variations on standard keywords
  • Look for audience questions

The goal of content marketing is to provide valuable, relevant information to your audience that will help them solve their problems.


Audience questions, or PAAs (for “people also ask”), help you do that. PAAs are related questions that appear on Google SERPs. Being featured in the answer box is a big deal in SEO, but using these questions can also help you:

  • Rank for the question or long-tail keyword
  • Create FAQ sections within your content
  • Guide your content to ensure it’s useful to your audience

Create a content plan


Now that you have your primary keyword, related keywords, and FAQs or PAAs, you can create a content plan that will help you dominate the SERPs and drive conversions. But the content you’ll create depends on several factors:

  • What stage of the buyer journey is your searcher in when they search for that keyword?
  • Will they be looking for an informational blog, a conversion-focused landing page, a branded product page, or something else?
  • Can you use it to create content that fills in gaps in your content strategy?
  • Can you create content around this keyword that outranks your competitors?

Best practices for on-page content


You’re almost there. But before you hit “publish,” make sure your content follows best practices. (Yes, Google will know if it does!)


  • Always create high-quality, original content to avoid plagiarism and duplicate content penalties.
  • Structure your content in a way that is informative but easy to read (bulleted list, no large blocks of text). Put the most useful information front and center, then expand upon it.
  • Use your primary keyword in the title, title tag, meta description, at least one of the subheadings, first and last paragraph, and about two to three times per 500 words – but not more. “Keyword stuffing” will be penalized.
  • Use related keywords at least one within the copy and be sure they sound natural.
  • Answer audience questions either directly with an FAQ section or H2, or naturally within your content.
  • Use at least one image and ensure it is SEO optimized with an image alt tag, title, and file name that uses the primary keyword.
  • Include your primary keyword in the URL structure. Track your keyword performance and re-analyze and optimize as needed.

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to on-page SEO analysis. At Demand Mavericks, we have the tools and expertise you need to create and execute a holistic content strategy that drives traffic and grows your business.


A Two-Step Guide to Identifying Your Competitors


In order for one company to be number one, it is necessary for there to be other companies that are also successful. In order to ensure that this happens, it is important to have a strategy in place.


We wholeheartedly agree that a growth-focused content strategy is definitely something you should consider moving up your priority list.


A holistic SEO content strategy can be a great compliment to a paid search campaign, and although it doesn't drive immediate wins like ads on Facebook or Google can, the power it has to help a company grow over time makes it an important strategy for almost any business.


Before you jump in both feet, though, it’s important to lay the groundwork. And a super important part of that is identifying the right competitors.


Here at Demand Mavericks when we’re creating a content strategy for one of our clients, we’ll think of competitors in two different ways.


An organization that directly competes with you; your customer or clients might consistently pitch you against them.
The competitor that ranks high on the search terms we’d like to rank for.


Step One: Define Your Market Competitors


A market competitor is an organization that directly competes with your customers or clients in your market.

If you’re in business, you should be familiar with your competitors. You likely researched them before starting your business and incorporated them into your plan.


Why is it so essential to research your market competitors? There are tons of reasons, including:

  • To understand what they're doing well and where they might be vulnerable;
  • To determine how best to position your business for success; and
  • To identify any potential threats or opportunities that may exist in the market.
  • Differentiating yourself from the competition
  • Replicating their strengths
  • Leveraging their weaknesses to your advantage
  • Honing in the market your product or service
  • Staying ahead of trends in your industry

It’s also important for us at Demand Mavericks to know.


As part of our onboarding process, we'll lean on you for information about organizations that may pose a threat to our company. If you haven't identified these organizations yet, here's how to get started.


Interview customers and clients

Starting your competitive research by reaching out to your clients and customers can be a great way to get started. You can interview both new and long-time customers to find out what brought them to your company, as well as what keeps them coming back.


Phone calls and email are reliable ways to gather information about customer sentiment. You can also incorporate social media by asking your followers to fill out a survey. Both qualitative (descriptive) and quantitative (numerical) information will be useful in informing your business and marketing strategies.


Talk to your sales and customer service teams


You need to include your internal teams in your competitive analysis. They have a wealth of information about your competitors that you won't be able to get anywhere else. You especially need to talk to your sales and customer service teams.


Your sales team will have a lot of information about what's great and not-so-great about your competitors when they hear pitches and discovery calls. And your customer service team probably has heard a lot of information about what your competitors do better than you. Make sure you create an environment where they feel comfortable being honest so that they can give you valuable insights.


Find the right tools

There’s never a shortage of tools in the marketing industry, and that’s true of competitive research, too. Which one (or more) is right for you?


Klue: Research and track your competitors through a combination of news tracking and internal data, then track them so you know when they change their website, update their products or get new customer reviews.
Crayon: Capture data from hundreds of millions of sources and use AI to filter it down into key insights. Identify and follow market trends to stay ahead of the competition.
FirstRain: Get high-quality and relevant information that’s categorized, prioritized, and ready to be put into action. Stay up-to-date on current information like management changes, M&A, and industry trends.
Kompyte: Differentiate your product or service with information about your competition’s features, pricing, and messaging, learn what works for them and discover how it all fits into a high-level view of your market.


Enlist help from the pros


Don't have the time or resources to do your own research? There are companies out there that specialize in doing competitive research for businesses of all sizes. Hiring one can be a great way to gain an edge over your competition.

If you can afford to hire a professional, getting help from someone who is well-versed in your industry can be more efficient than doing it yourself. Just make sure the company you choose has experience working with similar companies and has references that can be verified.


Step Two: Hone in On Your SEO Competitors


An SEO competitor is an organization that ranks high on the search terms we’d like to rank for, similar to how we rank.

Your competitors in the SEO space are businesses that you’ll be competing with for higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). While some of your competitors may overlap with market competitors, this list is likely shorter than the first. It could also include businesses that aren’t a direct competition, such as one within your industry but offering a different product or service.


Identifying your competitors can help you understand what content is generating their strong results, and how you can do better.


The benefits of competitive research go beyond simply unseating your competitor from the number one spot. Focused competitive research can lead to a host of other benefits, such as improved product quality, increased market share, and even more satisfied customers.


What are the benefits of SEO competitive research? There are tons of reasons, including:

  • Increasing organic website traffic
  • Driving high-quality traffic to your site
  • Improving conversions by providing value to potential customers
  • Earning more revenue and growing your business

We will use SEO research to create content strategies that outrank your competitors and win on critical keywords. Here's how we identify your SEO competitors.


Identify your keywords


To identify your competition through keywords, you must first know what keywords you want. This can be done by analyzing your best customer's search patterns and looking for related keywords and longtail keywords.

Now narrow down your list using the following criteria:


  • Relevance. Will this keyword bring you the type of traffic you want? Is it highly relevant to your business goals?
  • Business strength. Is your business strong in this area or topic? Will a search engine believe that you’re an expert?
  • Current rankings. Are you currently ranking on page two or three for a keyword? That will make it easier for you to reach page one.
  • Volume. Monthly volume isn’t the end-all, be-all (in fact, sometimes you may want to choose lower volume keywords). But it does give you an idea of what people are searching for.