SEO Content Development - Where do unicorns live?
-
A great web page (for organic search) needs more than great copy. Tons of articles tell us how important it is construct a web page. Others beat the drum of content, content, content. Who are these unicorns who understand on-page SEO and are great writers to boot?
I'm imagining a "content developer", or I might call it a "technical SEO writer. Neither really captures the need. I don't need a copywriter to deliver some text, nor an SEO who can't write their way out of the paper sack. I need an "SEO content specialist" who can craft an on-page experience; someone who thinks about things like SERP features and understands the concepts of semantic content.
The problem is that I have no idea how to find this person. "Content Marketing" is the buzz right now, but that's not it either. I'm not talking about a blogs and social media. I'm talking about building great, core web pages.
Does anyone else have this challenge? How have you been successful? Where do unicorns live?
-
Very stressful as the full-size decline in ratings coincides direct with this, and it does look like a computer virus. Let's give Rand and the Moz comm the heads up on this Subscribe button with icon youtube PNG. If he factors it out you can wager that it is going to be noticed by means of the powers up pinnacle!
-
The content, both text and images, must be absolutely unique and not exist anywhere else in printed or digital form. Content that has bee rewritten, paraphrased or complied from existing sources will not be accepted. All rights to the content will be assigned to us and it may not be resold or used to produce derivative works.
-
Great conversion. I appreciate hearing other peoples' experiences. For this project I came up with the following (after spending several hours reading about the numerous and varied disciplines that fall under the "content marketing" umbrella).
We are seeking a content development professional to produce core website content for our agency clients. The job is to flesh out existing assets and create new copy and content with the goals of attracting and engaging customers, driving leads, and meeting client business objectives. This person should understand how copy, content, and high-quality user experiences contribute to search engine performance.
We need 10 core web pages averaging between 800 and 1,500 words each, to be completed before June 1.
There are two essential characteristics that will make this project successful:
1) Develop compelling copy. This will require you to independently research the client, products/services, audience/customers, and market. We will provide briefs and support, but quality content comes from topical familiarity.
2) Develop and outline content tactics with an up-to-date understanding of SEO and the interplay of text, styling, layout, supporting assets and their impact on Google search and user experience.
-
If you have the ability to do this you can make a small profit by "selling the service", but a very much larger profit by "running the website".
-
Jason,
I sure do have this problem. I am a web designer who retains clients by selling content marketing packages after their sites are completed. I have a team of content writers of vary degrees of expertise. I found the best way to make it work is to cultivate the writer within a niche and constant training and development meetings. Run your ship like a newspaper. Your writers need to pitch the concept to you. Then guide them how you want the content formulated.
Understand a first draft is not necessarily a completed piece of content. You should be editor in chief and know how to mine for great content and develop those concepts into your own ideas.
The process is long but with practice the gears start turning and you can make a great living. The hardest thing is finding good writers who are willing to put the work in, meet deadlines, and accept your payment offer.
-
The problem is when the writer thinks that he knows about hydraulic jacks, but he doesn't know that he doesn't know enough to impress the people who might link to his work.
-
I think you need a content area expert and a qualified editor who knows just a little about SEO.
-
Show me someone who can define "semantic content", explain how to optimize for SERP features, and name two SEO posts they've read in the last month, then write 1,000 coherent words on, well, anything, and I'll hire them tomorrow.
You don't need to be an expert in the topic. Far too many experts can't express their expertise in writing. You just have to be smart and curious. Oh, also you have to be able to write. So, this unicorn is someone who operates between fluffy "copywriters", bs marketers, and incoherent / overly cerebral experts. Bonus point: If a candidate can explain Rank Brain I'll boost their starting wage 10%.
You're exactly right, "clients need you to even create the content". Ergo, being an expert is not even a possibility. If they could do it they would have already done it! The client wants OUR expertise. That's why they hire us! A good journalist can do their research and write a reasonable article. What's wrong with asking a copywriter to do the same?
-
Thanks James - If I were starting out today I would very seriously consider the role I've described as a career path. You don't have to know everything. You just need to know enough. As an old dog myself I see my role (of many) as mentoring and getting across the finish line. I would be thrilled to have someone who can deliver B+ web content. We have specialists to handle the tech side, the dev, the UX. An apt wordsmith who reads SEO blogs could be looking at a six figure salary in short order.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does hover over content index well
i notice increasing cases of portfolio style boxes on site designs (especially wordpress templates) where you have an image and text appears after hover over (sorry for my basic terminology). does this text which appears after hover over have much search engine value or as it doesnt immediately appear on pageload does it carry slightly less weight like tabbed content? any advice appreciated thanks neil
On-Page Optimization | | neilhenderson0 -
Help With Duplicated Content
Hi Moz Community, I am having some issue's with duplicated content, i recently removed the .html from all of our links and moz has reported it as being duplicated. I have been reading up about Canonicalization and would to verify some details, when using the canonical tag would it be placed in the /mywebpage.html or /mywebpage file? I am having a hard time to sort this out so any help from you SEO experts would be great 🙂 I have also updated my htaccess file with the following Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | finelinewebsolutions0 -
Is Anybody Familiar With This SEO Reporting Tool?
Just for kicks, I decided to pay 5 bucks for an SEO Report on a website I was working on for a client. Yea FIVERR. The report was actually not too bad and I was able to clean up a bunch of stuff. Here is a link to other sites on the internet who use this tool. I would like to use it for myself so I'm trying to figure out the source of the report. Here are a few urls to the reports. Remove the two stars in the URL. I don't want to give them a backlink. http://rapid**purple.com/services/free-seo-analysis/
On-Page Optimization | | Czubmeister
http://www.doc**stoc.com/docs/93426462/SEO-Plan Has anybody used these or know the source? -Bob1 -
SEO Optimizing in UMBRACO
Hi there, I am planning to use UMBRACO to manage my existing website, so my question to Seomozzers out there is what should I be aware of, how safe is it to have UMBRACO in terms of SEO. By using this software, would it be possible to get a positive or negative impact on my keyword rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | matti_wilson0 -
2013: Top 10 content SEO tips survey
Hi folks, I was asked to write a short top 10 SEO list for editors. My search returned outdated results and SEO is changing fast these days… So, here is my little survey: What are the best settings for these most important things: Title tag: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks? Meta description: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks? Meta keywords: Use them? How many? H1 tag: How many characters / words? Best keyword positions? Best tricks? H2-H6 tags: How many characters? Best keyword positions? Best tricks? Image alternative text: How many characters / words? Best tricks? Text length: Minimum, maximum? What’s better: 1 long article or split an article in several pages? How much links within an article? Min? Max? Usage of keywords within links? Your favorite SEO tip? I would love to hear your thoughts 🙂 Best wishes,
On-Page Optimization | | GeorgFranz
Georg.0 -
On Page SEO Tool
Hello - I'm looking for one tool that does the following and was wondering if anyone knew of such a tool? In a perfect world I would like to enter in one domain name and have a report generated that shows All Internal links, link titles, and anchor text All internal broken links / redirects All images, image size and image alt, if the image alt is missing. I'd love to be about to export these reports to excel and quickly run my on page optimization. The goal is to produce a checklist for a developer to execute quickly. Thanks for your help Gabe
On-Page Optimization | | Gabe0 -
Drupal SEO Question
Still trying to get a handle on all this...a lot to figure out! My site is Drupal and a few weeks ago I had my developer install an SEO Module so I could add a meta description and keywords for my pages. I have done that for the majority of the landing pages and the product pages as well. Earlier I posted a question about the use of adding the meta description and keywords to each product. The answers were mixed and pointed out the problem of the duplicate content which I am trying to figure out how to fix. BUT...when I went through my On Page Analysis grading for my campaigns one of the reasons my grades were low were because of the use of meta keywords tag. That the search engines ignore them and competitors can use them against you. So now I am thoroughly confused. I should optimize each product page with the meta description and keywords or i shouldn't? Keywords should show up in the title tag and the content....anywhere else? Help! Thanks much, Shara
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
German SEO
Just a quickie, Does anybody know of any strong German SEO agencies? Many Thanks Sean
On-Page Optimization | | Yozzer0