[MUSIC]Hello again. In the last lesson, we discussed content strategy and why it's important to create that strategy at the domain or site level rather than the page level. In this lesson, we'll dive into the nuts and bolts, of developing a strong content strategy. We'll also discuss the importance of having a core theme and the need to develop a strong brand. These are important concepts, so lets get started. While on-page optimization is very important, Google's algorithm has evolved where it can look at websites from a whole picture perspective, rather than a primary focus of page level signals. While individual pages on your website about rank, the content of your site contributes to your website's overall theme and authority around a particular subject. This improves the SEO of your entire site by including different types of useful and engaging content centered around a core theme or purpose. You are increasing opportunities that content has to get discovered. In addition to having your content organized around a central theme, it's also a good idea to devote time into developing your brand. Having a strong brand presence is important to a successful content strategy. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has been quoted as saying, ''brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.'' Strong branding adds legitimacy to your website and is a strong signal to search engines that your site is trustworthy. Let's review some examples of how a strong brand and well-developed content strategy can help your site in organic search. Google has created an algorithm that understands the answer you're trying to obtain. Even if a webpage is not optimized around those exact keywords related to your question. For example, in this search, I typed what is Doctor Who's phone booth called, and the results show me that they just called a TARDIS. But there really are a couple of things going on here. Notice that Wikipedia takes up the first two results of a page. They have very strong brand signals and have developed quality content dedicated to answering people's questions. The first result is actually the best answer for my search query. But if you visit this page, you'll notice that it does not actually contain the word phone booth anywhere in the content. Google was able to determine that the answer to my question was a TARDIS based on the content on the page and the continent it linked to, which you can see as the blue links underneath the meta description. In the second result, Google has determined that what I really meant is police box and not a phone booth. Google can understand the similarities between these two words and supply correct information. The third result is a link to a site dedicated to Dr. Who. This has very strong brand signals because all of the site's content is focused around the theme of Dr. Who. If I were to simply type in Dr. Who TARDIS, the site dedicated to Dr. Who is ranking higher than previous searches. I noticed in my searches that this site will tend to move between position one and two. This site has more authority on Dr. Who as whole, rather than other sites for that specific query. This is because the entire site has content dedicated to Dr. Who. Knowing this, it's important to ensure our site has pages dedicated to a central theme and that each of these pages are unique and useful to users. In addition, these pages should be linked together so users can easily find the answers they are looking for. This will also increase site engagement metrics and lower bounce rate. For example, say you are browsing a page about TARDIS and so it mentioned Dr. Who. Well, a good idea would be to have that anchor text link to a page about the doctor. That page may mention other characters. It's a good idea to link to them where they're mentioned, and then those pages might reference a particular season they were in, which might reference particular episodes within that season. This creates a cohesive content strategy for the domain. Provides users with the information they are looking for and it gets them interacting with other pages on your site. Keep in mind, you will still need to have site navigation with a clear hierarchy. This is just a specific example of how articles can link out to one another. A good domain-wide content strategy will take into account blog content, as well as static pages on your site. For many people, once your initial SEO strategy and keywords are in place, you will mostly be focusing on your blog for developing new content ideas. Where possible, blog topics and static pages should link to one another. For example, if you developed a FAQ page, you might provide a short answer to a question and then link to a post that has a longer, more detailed answer. If you are writing a blog post, it's a good idea to link back to related areas of your site where applicable, especially deeper level pages that aren't as easily discovered by search engines or users. For example, if you were writing a post about the subject of history, then it would be a great idea to link to your page about history textbooks. Since I worked with a lot of clients in real estate, one of my common suggestions is to write posts around areas they service. For example, a realtor focusing on locations around the Sacramento area, might want to write about the best neighborhoods in Sacramento. In to a real estate pages for those neighborhoods. In conclusion, when developing a content strategy for your website, it helps to have a strong brand which will lend credibility to your site. Make sure your content is devoted to a central theme and link related pieces of content to one another. By doing this, you are increasing your authority around that topic while contributing to increased user engagement on your site.
