Simplify SEO content planning with our Content Planner
There's a reason highly relevant, quality content rises to the top of search engine result pages and it's called SEO content planning. Fortunately for you, the type of content that clicks with users isn't created by chance and can be honed (and repeated) with SEO planning software.
It’s free to sitemap with Slickplan — Register now
What is SEO content?
SEO content is content that's planned and created with the intention of ranking highly on search engines and to drive that search volume to pages that genuinely answer the search query. It can be optimized for highly competitive keywords or for lower volume keyword phrases aka long tail keywords.
What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
Let's take a step back and define SEO though. Search engine optimization is the practice of crafting and organizing website content so that it's easily indexable and identifiable by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. The ultimate goal of SEO is to drive as many clicks on your search engine listings as possible by climbing the search engine page rankings, or SERPs, and making it to the coveted first page.
Of course, you need to be careful when creating SEO content; when done incorrectly, and without high-quality content on the underlying page, the cost is more than just wasted time or money. Tactics like keyword stuffing can actually negatively affect your search rankings so be sure to create pages with the intention of driving traffic from specific keywords, while also maintaining relevance and readability for your target audiences.
Content SEO strategy examples:
| Website Example | Content Intent | Implementation |
|---|---|---|
| University Website Resource Guide | Competitive information, lead generation | A university website wants to attract visitors to their medical program. They decide to create several pages that discuss popular topics that future medical students may search for. |
| SAAS Website Product Pages | E-commerce, product awareness | A software as a subscription tech company released a new tool. They create several individual pages that each discuss a common problem that their tool solves. |
| Entertainment Blog | Gain followers, raise awareness, e-commerce | An entertainment company wants to generate visitors for their live shows, so they decide to create a blog that covers news, gossip and information sought after by fans of the show’s regular performers. |
What is a SEO plan?
An SEO plan is the roadmap by which you work towards making gains in the search engine rankings. It involves more than just adding a few of the right keywords to your site though; it's sharpening the information architecture, building backlinks, optimizing on-page SEO and more.
Why SEO content planning is important
Planning SEO and content strategy is more than just a bit of keyword research. Developing an effective SEO strategy for your content inventory is what ensures that everything you create is working towards the same goal, it helps keep you organized and can be the difference between a searcher going to your competitor over you.
SEO driven content marketing produces content that's built to perform. From the technical SEO that allows for improved indexability to advanced keyword research tools that give you next level insights, if the goal is to rank, planning is the only option.
Publishing content with optimizations planned in advance and already in place has a better chance of ranking higher. Backtracking to optimize pages later comes with some potential pitfalls like decreased readability, a rushed look, unintentionally removing relevant content and introducing inconsistencies.
It's not just content planning that's important, it's making sure SEO project management is done correctly every step of the way.
Leads to consistent quality
Whether it's blog posts, landing pages, service pages or beyond, prioritizing content creation for SEO means you'll have a consistent quality of content throughout your site because it'll all have a through line of underlying relevancy for your visitors.
Speaks directly to your audience
The best SEO plan is one that allows you to speak squarely to your target market, your users or, simply put, your audience. Putting in the effort to set up an SEO marketing plan helps you learn more about the people you aim to attract.
Higher rank in search results
Last but not least, high caliber content, created consistently and speaking right to your niche, means improvements in your rankings. The byproduct of ranking higher on search engines? More clicks and visitors to your site, establishing you as an authority.
That’s where Slickplan's SEO Content Planner comes in
To get the most out of your content creation efforts, they need to be guided by strategy, a website content plan, and effective strategy is always designed with intent. When it comes to putting together a potent content marketing SEO strategy then, you'll want an intuitive and robust tool like Slickplan's Content Planner on the frontlines of SEO planning. From page templates to the more nitty gritty details like defining meta descriptions, titles, keyword optimization and beyond, our Content Planner is a one stop shop for building quality content.
Importantly, our tool is an end-to-end solution which lets you migrate that SEO data straight into your CMS.
What our SEO site planner can help you with
URL keywords
Plan URL folder and page names with keywords in advance so you can launch with optimized URLs. Changing them later creates more work and requires implementation of 301 redirects.
Page titles and meta descriptions
Incorporate your keywords into easy to read, consistent and purposeful page titles, headlines and meta descriptions for each page.
Search engine results page (SERP) preview
See what your page's search engine listing looks like before they go live and fine tune any issues like character count and readability.
Assign headers
As you gather content and edit, assigning headers to your outlines helps you stay organized and establish a better flow to the content.
Include links
Links make a big difference in the SEO game, define relevant internal and external ones within your content plan and information architecture early.
Image alt text
An oft missed opportunity, image alt text is SEO optimized content that helps search engines understand your images.
Using our SEO planner effectively
Optimize header tags
Include your SEO keyword phrases in your header tags (h1, h2s, h3s, etc.).
Keyword placement
Your SEO keywords should be in the page title, URL and meta description as well as found throughout the body copy and image alt tags.
Use synonyms
Avoid sounding like a broken record and use alternate keywords to say the same thing. Modern search engines are smart and understand synonyms just fine.
Check keyword density
While there's no specific rule or number on keyword density, it's best to not go overboard and pack your text with them. Use a keyword density tool to see where you stand.
Engage users
Make your content scannable, provide imagery and break up text into lists, tables and infographics. The goal is to keep your users as engaged as possible which will lower bounce rates and entice them to explore your site for longer.
How to create an SEO content plan with Slickplan
Content should always be created with the user in mind. Word stew, particularly overly keyworded word stew, isn't pleasant to read and search engines quickly catch on and penalize sites for it.
Learning, purchase intent and overall engagement are informed and influenced by providing relevant content to your audience. People are savvy and will bounce quickly from sites that don't provide the goods. Moreover, search engines are actively changing their algorithms to reward pages that truly answer a query. Effective SEO content strategies that drive traffic are therefore built on ensuring you deliver genuinely rich content.
The essentials of building an SEO-driven content plan
Define your goals
What exactly are you aiming to achieve with your content? Conversions? More traffic? An increase in subscribers? Figure out what your goals are, making sure you can measure them, so you can develop a plan.
Know your audience
Developing user and buyer personas is essential in creating compelling content. If you don't know who you're talking to, you can't speak their language and address their needs sufficiently.
Create a topic list
Once you have your goals and your audience, build a list of topics and terms that address them which tie into your product or service. This will help with content gathering as well as creating new content.
Do your keyword research - including long-tail keywords
Dig deeper with specialized tools like Ahrefs, Keyword Planner from Google or any of the others out there that allow you to tap into more granular keyword data.
Analyze Google SERPs
Learn what's already ranking well on Google and hitting that first page via Google Analytics and other tools. See where and how you can position your content to compete.
Create optimized content from content briefs
Page optimization and improved ranking comes from the detailed and exhaustive work that precedes. Content briefs are built from that and they lead to content that properly answers the search query and is easier to consume overall.
Develop an editorial calendar
Consistency in releasing content is key, particularly if you're running a blog, news site or anything else that will get regular updates. Dependability helps build an audience.
Make link-building a priority
Backlinks are huge for SEO. The more your pages are linked to, the more authority that page, and the content on it, are perceived to have. With more authority comes a higher ranking so look for opportunities to build links to your site.
Publish with our WordPress SEO planning software
Once you have completed your SEO content planning and included all of your SEO elements, Slickplan makes it easy as a Sunday morning to publish your website. Just install our plugin into WordPress and seamlessly migrate your content to your CMS, saving you and your developers time while significantly reducing the potential for missed or erroneous SEO tags, text and elements.
Compatible with popular SEO management plugins
Once you've imported everything, search engine optimization management is a must and our content planner's Focus Keyword field is compatible with Yoast, among the most popular WordPress SEO plugins. Yoast helps your content reach its fullest rank potential and even provides additional recommendations and identifies missed opportunities where you can use your focus keyword.
If Yoast isn't in your plugin tool bag, Slickplan is also compatible with Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress and more.
Developing an SEO content strategy is easy with Slickplan
SEO without a broader plan and content marketing without search engine optimization are weaker on their own; SEO and content marketing elevate each other. Developing an SEO content marketing strategy is therefore hugely important to not just the level of content you create but how well that content benefits your readers en route to a higher ranking.
Create content that leads to clicks with Slickplan.
Previous
Optimizing content planning workflow
Learn about creating and optimizing efficient content workflows, saving you time and money. Check out our 9-step methodology.
Next
Plan content better
Get some helpful information on planning content with Slickplan including features, strategies, tips, tools and more.