Do you ever wonder why certain blogs are more successful than others? Or why some show up in the search more times than you think they should? What about being in Google News? Have you ever wondered why some content will get more exposure than other pieces?
If you have decided to start a new blog or get serious about your present one, a key item which should be on your to-do list is creating a schedule for your content. This not only helps you as a blogger to map out your editorial calendar but it trains the search engines to know when your site posts new content and about which topic. Establishing a publishing schedule also helps your readers to know what to expect on Tuesday morning at 10:30 as you want to become an authority voice in whatever genre your blog is about.
An example of how scheduling content can help your SEO is let’s say your site gives information about coupons. You provide your readers exclusive details about sales and a head’s up about unadvertised specials. Your competitor gives the same information, has been online for less time and is always outranking you in the search. What do you think the first steps are to figuring out what the competition has over you?
First we suggest reviewing the competitor’s site from the technical items to the design, usability, link ratio, social media and content. The only real way to figure out and create a strategy for your site is to see what the competitor is doing. Once you have researched and reviewed your competitor, now it’s time to review your own site and compare your present game plan with your competitor findings.
In this particular case, the competitor’s content publishing is a daily cadence and some days they publish two times a day. Also, on each of their days, they have a theme so Monday’s are Moo Moo Monday’s and Tuesday’s are Toddler Tween Tuesday’s and all their content for that day are centered around that theme, as well as the keywords they decided on from their research. By scheduling their content and deciding ahead of time what they will be publishing, it not only keeps their editorial efforts in line with the entire team BUT it tells the readers as well as the search engines that every Tuesday, the content will be focused on toddler products in the morning and tween products in the afternoon. The established schedule also allows their social media and promotion efforts to always be working simultaneously.
Both sites post daily but just posting the coupons or deals on your site with a once a week blog post is showing you from the search results, that this technique isn’t cutting it like it once did when the competition was low. It is now time to establish your editorial calendar, and content strategy and decide on the topics and cadence you want to publish content around to get back up in the SERP’s and play with the competition.
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