How To Create High-performing Content With ALPS 

Being a marketer is not easy! Theoretically, you just need to build a website with basic SEO practices, write content with your target keywords, build links to the website, and then see your rankings go up, right? Wrong!

Things might have been this simple back in the early days of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but that is no longer the case. SEO is difficult today because the landscape is constantly changing, and marketers or business leaders must think out of the box to nail their SEO game.

Modern-day tools like ALPS can help get your SEO ball rolling in the right direction. How? Let’s understand how the ALPS platform can help marketers or enterprises level up and start driving rank and traffic improvements through search engine optimization.

In this post, we will discuss two scenarios: how you can drive rank and traffic improvements when creating new content around a particular topic and how you can beat top-ranking competitors by optimizing your existing content around a target topic.

Let’s begin!

Scenario 1:
How to create new content using ALPS that improves your SEO performance?

Creating new content around a target topic and, more importantly, ranking high for it can be challenging in today’s competitive SEO landscape.

But ALPS enterprise SEO platform can be of great help. How? Here is everything you need to know to plan and execute your new SEO content strategy to drive rank and traffic improvements.

Steps to Create Content That Surely Improves your SEO performance

STEP 1: Analyze Search Demand and Competitive Landscape at once

In this step, with the help of the Share of Voice feature, you can figure out what your target audience is searching for around your target topic and understand which competitors are winning in those topics. 

For each theme, ALPS gives you granular insights into the themes and keywords that are helping your high-ranking competitor to capture the demand within your chosen topic. 

Lets’ look at an example here:

Suppose you’re in a financial services business and trying to rank for a specific topic. Let’s say “Mortgage.” However, “Mortgage” is a big term, and presumably, all your competitors are also trying to rank for the same keyword. Also, there is a high chance that established big businesses already have invested heavily to rank for “Mortgage.” Therefore, it can be tough for someone new to beat such big players and rank above them for “Mortgage.”

How Share of Voice Report helps?

The Share of Voice Report help you:

• Figure out the search demand around your target topic
• Gain an understanding into which competitors are winning in your target keyword category
• Find all the keywords driving traffic for the winning competitors to target the right keywords

The process:

1. Pick your core keyword category. In this case, it’s ” Mortgage.” Find all subcategories that come under ” Mortgage” like “10 year Mortgage Rates,” “15 year mortgage,” “First Home Mortgage,” etc. Then choose the ones that best suit your business offerings.

2. Once you have figured out the keywords you want to target for your content, you can scroll through the page to see the websites that are winning for your target keywords and which keywords are driving traffic for them.

In the image above, you get to see:

• Share of Voice %– The total share of voice percentage the top-ranking domains are capturing for your target Keyword category

(Total Organic Traffic / Search Volume X 100 = Organic Share of Voice)

• Traffic- The total traffic the top-ranking domains are driving for your target keyword category
• Keywords for Rank 1-5- The number of keywords ranking the domain in the top 5 positions
• Keywords for Rank 6-10– The number of keywords ranking the domain between the 6th-10th position
• Keywords for Rank 11-20- The number of keywords ranking the domain between the 11th-20th position
• Keywords for Rank 21-100- The number of keywords ranking the domain between the 21st-100th position

• You can Filter the findings by metrics like Date, Branded/Non-branded Keywords, Stage of Marketing Funnel, SERP Features, Keyword Attributes, and Long-tail vs. Short-tail keywords to find the keywords and competitors most relevant to your needs.

• Right-click on any domain to Drill Through and find out all the keywords that are driving traffic for your high-ranking competitors so that you can target the same and create your content around those keywords to drive rank and traffic to your domain. In this drill through page, you can see:
• All the keywords driving traffic to the website
• Search Volume for each of those keywords
• Traffic for those keywords
• The ranks that each keyword is driving for that domain

STEP 2: Understand top-ranking competitors’ Topical Authority and measure your chances to win against them

In this step, you get Topical Authority Scores from ALPS to easily analyze and understand your domains’ chances to win on a particular topic and why someone is winning in that particular topic. 

For each keyword category or sub-category, you can view all the domains driving high topical authority for those keywords.

For example: If you’re planning to write content on the Keyword Category “Mortgage,” the Topical authority scores will help you understand the benchmark score in authority for you to beat.

How Topical Authority Reports help?

Analyzing Topical Authority help you:

• Gain competitive intelligence on your high-ranking competitor’s topical landscape and understand how they are achieving it
• Figure out topical gaps and gain actionable insights to drive authority around your target topic

The process:

1. Pick your core keyword category. In this case, it’s ” Mortgage.” Find all subcategories that come under ” Mortgage” like “10 year Mortgage Rates,” “15 year mortgage,” “First Home Mortgage,” etc. The you can pick and choose the ones most suited to your offerings.

2. Once you have figured out the keyword category you want to go after for your content, you can scroll through the page to see the granular details of all competitor domains that are winning in authority for your target topic.

In the image above, you get to see:

• Topical Authority Scores- ALPS algorithm analyzes the number of pages all the competing domains have around a particular topic and the distribution of authority across the domains to come up with the Topical Authority Scores. This score helps you understand why a competitor is winning in a particular topic and what you need to do in order to beat these competitors with high topical authority around a particular topical area
• URL Count- This metric shows the sum total of all the URLs driving authority to the domain around a particular topic
• URL Rating <20- This metric shows the number of URLs in a domain with an authority rating below 20
• URL Rating 20-40– This metric shows the number of URLs in a domain with an authority rating between 20 to 40
• URL Rating >40- This metric shows the number of URLs in a domain with an authority rating more than 40. This is one of the most important metrics which enables you to get an indication of the number of URLs driving maximum authority to the domain

For example: If you would want to gain the top rank and drive more traffic for your target topic, you must ensure that the number of URLs/pages driving maximum authority or URL rating >40 should be more for your domain than your competitor you are trying to beat

• Right-click on any domain to Drill Through and find out all the URLS that are driving authority for your high-ranking competitors so that you can get a complete picture of the topics and keywords they have targeted around your core topic to drive authority to your domain. With this information, you can target the right topics and sub-topics for your content and drive authority for your domain. In this drill through page, you can see:
• All the URLs driving maximum authority
• URL Rating for all individual URL
• Keywords present in the URLS that are ranking on the 1^st,2^nd, and 3^rd page of the search engines

At the end of this step, you will have a clear understanding of where you stand in your target topical area and what is needed to win in your target topic, like writing more authority content, gaining backlinks, etc.

You can also get a clear idea of how much content to write, and you can analyze the competitors’ pages to get an idea of the content you can create, the topics, and sub-topic like the pillar content, blogs, etc.

STEP 3: Generate SEO-optimized Briefs to Close Content Gaps

Once you’re ready with your content strategy by measuring the Share of Voice report and Topical Authority scores, you can create SEO-optimized Content Briefs for your target core topic to create an outline for your content writers.

The AI-generated content briefs in ALPS provide you with key competitor insights about the content on a particular topic.

The content writers can use them to easily create high-quality content that ranks higher, drives more traffic, and helps beat the high-ranking competitors.

How Content Briefs help?

Generating Content Briefs help you:

• Eliminate guesswork and speed up your content planning process
• Save hours of research time
• Ensure high performing content output every time

The process:

1. Pick your core keyword category or topic. In this case, it’s ” Mortgage.” Click on the “Go” button to find all the relevant information about the content your high-ranking competitors are creating.

2. Keyword Suggestions: You get a list of all the keywords relevant to your core topic/keyword along with their search volume and relevancy scores.

3. You can use the Filter option to Include & Exclude Keywords and sort the keywords using search volume and relevancy score to find the keywords that have the potential to drive the maximum rank and traffic improvements.

4. Now you can select all the keywords you would like to target and click on “Generate Content Brief.”

5. Next you can download in the word format or view the brief in the platform within just a few minutes.

6. Once the Brief is generated, you can see all the high-ranking competitors’ content information for your selected keywords.

So, what do you get in the ALPS AI-driven Content Brief?

• Competitor Pages: Pages that rank high on SERP for multiple targeted keywords have higher content scores. The content’s length and readability grade give a perspective on the writing style required for the topic. Use it as your writing guide for your content.

• Questions: Good SEO-optimized content must include answers to some related queries so that you don’t have to navigate to other articles. Including answers to the questions in your content will ensure comprehensive coverage of the topic for targeted keywords

• Recommended Phrases: There are relevant phrases for every topic that boost content relevance and contribute to building authority. Use these phrases optimally in metadata, headlines, and body content. Certain n-grams also occur frequently on competitor pages that rank high for selected keywords.

• <H1>: The <H1> tag is used to introduce the core topic that is covered on the page. You’ll find a list of H1 tags that rank high on SERP for the targeted set of keywords.

• <H2>: The <H2> tags are typically used to introduce important subtopics. These tags help search engines identify the hierarchy and structure of the page. You’ll find a list of H2 tags that rank high on SERP for the targeted set of keywords.

• Title: Title tags inform the search engines what the webpage is about. You’ll find a list of titles that rank high on SERPs for the targeted set of keywords.

• Meta Descriptions: Meta Descriptions briefly summarize what readers can expect to see on the webpage. You’ll find a list of meta descriptions from pages ranking high on SERP for the targeted set of keywords.

At the end of this step, you will have a clear understanding of the target keywords, and the content outline that would help the content writers in crafting their content that ranks high on the SERPs, drive more traffic, and beat the competitors.

STEP 4: Optimize your Content to Drive Rank and Traffic Improvements

This is the final step in the New Content Creation process. At the end of this step, you can create compelling content that is loved by both search engines and readers alike.

In Content Simulation feature, you can simply simulate/test your new content written in various scenarios to validate the impact of your optimization efforts even before you publish your content. You can easily find the best version of your newly created content to drive SEO performance improvements.

How Content Simulations help?

Optimizing your content before publishing help you:

• Eliminate guesswork and accurately validate rank and traffic impact before the content is published
• Pinpoint content improvement areas for better SEO results

The process:

1. In this feature, you can either provide your URL link with your target content or if you don’t have a live URL, you can just click on “I don’t have a live page/URL” to optimize your content.

2. In the next page, you must choose the core keyword that you want to target, and the tool will give suggestions regarding all the other relevant keywords along with their search volume and relevance scores that you can also target in you content.

3. You can also filter the keywords based on the search volume and relevance scores.

4. Once the relevant keywords are selected based on the search volume and relevance scores, you can proceed to the simulation scenario.

5. Now, you can simply paste your new content and start optimizing your content in the simulation scenario to find the best version of your content even before you make it live. Just click on “Run Simulation” button to start the simulation process.

6. Once you run the simulation for your new content, the simulator gives the impact on Rank and Traffic when changes are made in different sections within the content like URL, Title, Meta Description, etc.

7. With this information, you can target the right content scores that you have derived from the Topical Authority step to beat your competitors. You can try to include relevant keywords in various sections of your content and try simulating the impact of these changes to create that “perfect” content that drive rank and traffic improvements.