Writing blog posts for my target audience is not registering on the SEO scales
As a general thought, I buy into "write content for your audience, not for gaming SEO." I also refuse to play the AI generated SEO game.
So for my SaaS content which I have 100% written myself, which is found at https://rathertext.com/blog/ and https://rathertext.com/industries/, that is what I try to do. It has all of the basic SEO stuff (I believe) in regards to meta tags and stuff. However, it's just generating ZERO traffic.
I knew when I started this content journey that I would likely end up where I am, but it still stings now that it is here. I was having hope that "it just takes time" but I am months deep now and it's obviously not working.
I am assuming I am not playing enough of the SEO game to reap the rewards. I have jack squat for backlinks, the articles probably aren't long enough and not keyword-driven enough.
I even struggle with getting Google to index all of the pages. I cannot understand why at all since all of the posts follow the same format, but that's a different topic altogether.
I guess I am posting this to see if anyone has found themselves out of this hole. I can honestly accept if the answer is "get good" but would love if there was something else I haven't considered!
Are you doing your keyword research? don't expect to get free SEO traffic for highly competitive terms with 0 history/initial traffic, but also targeting 0 traffic keywords...
I'm not sure you understand the game of SEO
"Responsiveness is key for small businesses | Rather Text"
Is this a keyword you want to rank for or is part of this a keyword you want to rank for?
How much traffic does this have?
How much competition? (paid and free, how much are ppl paying per click?)
You probably don't want your site name in that titles, unless that was the most important worthwhile keyword for you, even then I'm not sure...
"As a small business, if you lack responsiveness to customers, it almost feels like a breach in the unwritten rules of the relationship."
Would a snippet out of that answer a search you want for the keyword? would that snippet make someone click?
"Customers often choose local small businesses for their quality of product and/or service, even if the monetary cost is higher. As a small business, if you lack responsiveness to customers, it almost feels like a breach in the unwritten rules of the relationship. Ultimately, you run a high chance of missing out on that customer's business. As a small business, you are not afforded the luxury of missing out on customers."
Do you think this is a good text someone want to read and would make them read the rest of the page?
This academic writing is kinda out IMHO, this doesn't raise any interest, it's what an old newspaper might write if paid to promote something
The site design is uninviting to look at or read, too empty, too much high contrast, focus and font sizes are pretty bad for the blog page (it will affect SEO) like "Rather Text Blog" is more important than any of the titles. Maybe you designed this for mobile first but on desktop it's a tiny column and lots of empty, texts are tiny and not drawing, the "Read" button is like a huge CTA distracting.. (usually blogs have a small read more link not a CTA button for a reason)
0 images in your content, only a couple of bullet points at the start, it's not modern
why are these buttons called "go" is that an important keyword for you? is that more important for me to read than the rest of the texts?
SEO lessons:
4.1. Bring other traffic to show #4 works
4.2. meaning design it for people to become returning users
I appreciate the in-depth consideration. At least you didn't sugar coat anything!
The summary of your response is as expected - I am not doing enough of the SEO game to get the benefits. I can't expect to just write content that I think is useful to my audience and expect them to magically find it (especially since I have no other distribution).
At least at a surface level - I understand the game of SEO but it is in direct conflict of just writing something I feel is useful to the intended readers. So no...I did not write that latest blog article with SEO keywords in mind and is largely what prompted this IH post.
"Do you think this is a good text someone want to read and would make them read the rest of the page?" Lol yes, I do. Certainly doesn't mean I am right.
The design considerations are worth looking at. I think those largely come down to personal taste but I hear ya. I didn't super optimize the visual interest on the blog page, for example, because I really didn't think anyone would visit it. Kind of exists only for the purpose of storing links and making sense of the sitemap. I was hoping that the blog articles would get some direct hits once in a while at least.
I set a max width even for desktop because I read over and over that is something you're supposed to do for readability. Maybe I went too skinny, though. I do think adding images would be good, I just don't really know what to add so I need to challenge myself with that. I have read that having images can be good for SEO as well.
For the "Read" and "Go" links, other than their design, I really just wanted to make it apparent to users that there was something to click.
Anyways, I have a lot to consider from your reply and I really do appreciate you taking the time!
Remember it's not about what the owner wants, it's about what the client wants
Everything is testable
You can install a heatmap service or client recording service, send some people over to your best content, and look at the results.
I'm not saying I know what your target audience wants, I don't even know who they are, it's all generic advice and the best answer is results.
Looking at existing stuff that works give you hints that at least they aren't doing terribly, even if you think you can do better, it might be way easier to start with something that works for others and "improve" on it later. Don't reinvent all the systems on the car just because you think differently, pick one thing at a time, start from a working model.
"I really didn't think anyone would visit it" - then probably don't make it, there is worse than 0, there is negative impact.
"I understand the game of SEO but it is in direct conflict of just writing something I feel is useful to the intended readers" - to me it seems like you don't, interactions trump keywords/linking and other SEO tactics. If you get usage first, you'd get SEO results later. (due you won't care if you have more usage than SEO). You can have all the tactics in the world, get on top, but have 100% bounce rate, you won't keep your SEO results for long. If you're the number one used site with 0 words in it, you'd still get SEO working for you.
Thanks again. I have much to learn!
Hey Paul,
I suggest performing a content audit and competitor research first. Analyze the top-ranking pages for the keywords you’re trying to target and find out what they have (and have in common!) that your pages might be missing. Additionally, content quality is an important ranking factor, but there are other factors that can influence (and tank) your SERP performance, such as your domain authority, backlinks, website health, UI/UX, and other technical SEO issues.
I highly suggest you do a quick technical audit as well to see if any tech issues are causing you problems. If you don’t know how to do this and/or can’t afford to pay a full audit right now, I’ve created a free tool that can give you a clear look into your core performance issues. You can find it here: https://go.zlurad.me/kwwZqT. Just drop the webpage URL and you’ll get a detailed free report about your site speed, SEO status, accessibility, and best practices. The report is easy to understand even if you’re not a tech guy and includes suggestions on how to solve the discovered issues.
Are there some excellent suggestions, along with this, please consider creating SILOS for your content, interlinking between the content pages and use actual human images for the hero section and other pages on the blog.
Would be happy to chat more.
What's the reason for real photos vs illustrations? I tend to prefer the aesthetics of illustrations in a lot of cases and maybe I am not considering some SEO impact?
Real people images, makes you more human and more relatable. You can use the img alt tags for adding your keywords.
Images from your best will start popping up on Google image search. Images can also help reduce your bounce rate.
You’ve got 8 blog posts and maybe a dozen or so other pages. There’s just not much content there. ContactMonkey, one of your SERP competitors, has 20+ pages alone, related to mass texting employees. And that’s just for one topic!
Reading between the lines, I assume you have no content budget. So it means you need to be even more strategic in your approach to content.
So, I’d suggest focusing on those use case pages, what you call industries. Put a link to the main use case page in the header menu. It really needs to be there.
Work to improve each of those industry pages. They’re good but they need to be better. For example, on your auto repair shop page, talk about key strategies such as:
Also, test and improve your CTA. And link to your demo page. Not the home page.
After you’ve improved those pages, start building out clusters of supporting content (blog posts) for each industry. This will be a lot of work, so prioritize based on your ideal customer profile.
Those blog posts should tie directly into something to do with that specific industry you’re targeting. The four points I mentioned to include in your auto repair shop page, for example, could be made into individual posts.
TLDR;
Very appreciated! The advice makes sense to me. It's just me writing the content, you're right, and I don't enjoy it at all so it's a struggle to get more content out there.
That said, that's just an excuse and not a good one! Thanks again for the detailed response and actions to take.
There's some great advice here, but a few things I'll add:
When they say "write for users, not search engines" they mean write content that is useful and usable as opposed to content that is written purely for SEO and uses a keyword a certain amount of times.
When I review your blog, the first thing that jumps out to me is your titles. Your titles are written like newspaper headlines (which is very common, so don't feel bad) and these typically tend to perform worse for SEO.
Your target customer/reader is actively searching on Google right now for questions that span the funnel. These questions usually take the form of:
Your best bet at SEO success is understanding these questions and creating content that speaks directly to them. So rather than use a title like "Responsiveness is key for small businesses" write "Why responsiveness matters for small businesses" or "How responsiveness can increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn"
The big difference here is these titles are action-oriented and focused on the question the customer is asking as opposed to the message you want to give.
This will set your content up for success. SEO is a long game and it will take time, so chip away at the questions your customers are asking and keep analyzing your performance (Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free and fantastic tools) and you'll start to see results.
A few other misc tips:
This makes a lot of sense actually, thank you!
No problem!