I do a piss-poor job of tracking results, but a former client recently shared this with me.

A content piece I wrote for them is ranking for the keyword of "intranet"

Take a look at that search volume and y'all, it's massive!

A thread about what I got right👇 1. Optimize for search intent on a granular level

I cannot overstate why this is so important. It is the sum that makes up the whole, not the other way around.

For every subheading, I include a list of questions or bullet points to cover based on the intent of that question.

I am really excited to announce one of the new initiatives I'm starting at Moz

It's called The Practical Marketer and the format is simple

More deets in the thread👇

Don't forget to RT please Every week, I'll invite one person who is crushing it to come teach us something new

What they teach us will be practical enough that we can immediately apply it to our current skillset or workflow

I set up @TheFCDC because I know pain firsthand.

The pain of:
➡ Working from 2am to 8pm to write 100,000 words for an exploitative content mill disguised as an agency ➡ Constantly undervaluing my worth because I lived inside... this tiny world where everyone was underpaid

➡ Eating scraps from the master's table because I didn't know there was more out there

Here's a crash course in doing a simple content audit that's actually effective

First, I think of everything in clusters, which carries over to an audit. I do audits as part of building topic clusters, and these are my goals:
🧵 ➡️ Identify strengths and weakness

➡️ Understand what is working and why

➡️ Understand what isn't working and why

➡️ Audit with goals in mind ( What have we defined as success?)

What are the first steps to take when planning a content strategy or building briefs?

On a fundamental level, I believe the first parts of building a successful content strategy and by extension content briefs include:

🧵 ✅ Knowing the definition of success for the buyer. In other words, how does your buyer define success? Getting this answer right ensures you're optimizing for the user's intent and providing useful content.

I've created 63 content briefs in 2022. The biggest dilemmas I face when creating them include:

What to cover as subheadings?

What goes in H2 and H3?

Should I add an FAQ?

When do we need video or infographics?

Where is the gap and how do we make this content stand out?

🧵 1. Deciding what to cover as a subheading

Look through the top 15 content pieces on SERP. What are the recurring questions everyone is answering? That's usually a good idea of what to cover as subheadings.

Hello everyone and welcome to #SEOchat

Today, we'll be talking about advanced keyword research and content strategy

Before I hit you with the questions, can you tell me:
Who you are?
What you do?
The most embarrassing thing that's happened to you in 2022🤭 I'll go first
My name is chima mmeje. I build topic clusters and write content for SaaS and tech companies. I also run
@TheFCDC

#SEOchat

This is probably gonna be one the best threads you'll see about internal and external linking

I'll be answering these questions and sharing my strategy 👇

What is the ideal number of internal and external links to add to each blog post?

Who should you link to externally? What is the thought process that goes into adding internal links to a piece?

How do you determine anchor text for links?

SEOs and content folks...have you read Semrush zero clicks study?

Because you should

I felt validated after reading the study and I have some takeaways to share based on what I just read 1. The Semrush study revealed that 25.6% of desktop searches and 17.3% of mobile searches are zero-click searches.

2. 17.9% of desktop searches and 29.3% of mobile searches resulted in action where one search led to another search (Semrush termed it as Google keyword)

How to fall in love with a brand before creating content assets for them

A thread🧵 There's a lot of groundwork that happens before building content briefs

The first thing to do is to take time to understand the brand and its story

I call this the first step in planning - falling in love with the brand and becoming an advocate.

A few years ago, I reached out to Joel about his course. I wanted it so badly but I couldn't afford the price which was $200 at the time.

I asked Joel if he would break the payment into four.

He was kind enough to give me his course for free and it changed the way I handle... sales calls.

Fast-forward a few years later and I have deja-vu when a BIPOC writer reaches out to me asking for a payment arrangement so they can afford my course.

In March I conceived the idea for the Tech SEO Cohort when I realized that most Black and Brown skin folks in the FCDC community didn't know what tech SEO was.

They signed up for mentorship thinking it meant writing technical content optimized for search.

But we realized that.. Most were specializing in content because they thought it was their only option.

Content had minimal barriers to entry, so they went for it

#40DaysOfContent - Day 9

A universal truth I've seen on blogs that dominate search consistently is that they write with active sentences

Here's what I'm talking about👇 An active voice...

✅Puts your reader in the moment and makes it easy to understand your message

#40DaysOfContentLessons - Day 6

This is the most important lesson I got from manually reviewing over 400 blog posts

Your ultimate goal is not just to rank, but to enter Google's circle of trust

That's because ranking is easier in the circle of trust

Let's dig deeper👇 You can rank for crazy competitive topics by adding one h2 around each keyword

OR

And this is the one that blows my mind

Google gives you a bunch of rankings for keywords you weren't even targeting because they are part of the cluster

#40DaysOfContentLessons - Day 5

How to win at SERP with minimal effort

You can win a ton of SERP real estate by optimizing your headline and h2s for multiple keywords

This is tricky because you don't want to be caught with your pants down doing keyword stuffing But you also don't want to write more content than you need

So, how do you make the decision?

First, look at the SERP

Are there any sites ranking for multiple keywords by optimizing their headline?

#40DaysOfContentLessons - Day 4

Another way to get an edge on SERP is to give more than everyone else

Use offer based headlines to show search engines that you're giving more than competitors Free checklist
Free infographic
Free template
Free calculator
Free strategy plan

Free, Free, Free!

40DaysOfContentLessons - Day 3

Most times, the competitive edge you need with blog content is to write every H3 like a mini-article - Define the concept
- Explain the problem
- Use a stat or quote to back up words
- Throw in an example with screenshots
- Add a bullet list of solution
- End with recommended further reading on the h3

Here's a question I got from a client this week

How do you choose which keywords go into the cluster when working on a competitive topic with a ton of searches?

A big ass thread😎 A bit of a background information
The client is an agency. They hired me to build four clusters for some of the services they offer such as paid ads, SEO, lead generation and content marketing

@areej_abuali was our guest on the My Tech SEO Story yesterday and it was Epic!

Hearing her story about SEO, the obstacles she faced and how she overcame them was inspirational

We also got some interesting questions that I would like some community feedback on
👎 To get more eyes on this thread, please use the Quote Tweet feature to answer questions

Thank you!

How to build a content strategy for a new SaaS company that doesn't know who they are

A thread When creating a content strategy or executing a content brief for an established company, it's easier because there's a trail to follow

I've been hearing good things about Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

Honestly, I thought it was going to be crap because... free tool🤷‍♀️

But I tried it out last night and I'm blown away with the features and results

A thread of everything you can do with Ahrefs without paying a dime😎 First up and most importantly, website audit

This is great for new companies, solo SEOs or anyone who doesn't have the budget to pay for tools or hire an SEO expert to conduct an audit.

It's not a replacement for an SEO expert, but it's a great starting point on a budget