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Master SEO content creation with this 2025 update. Learn a six-pillar process, covering keyword selection, uniqueness, relevance, and quality. This tutorial shows how to leverage data and AI tools for optimal results.
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00:00I'm going to show you a proven six pillar SEO content creation process that grew this page's
00:05organic search traffic by 1300%. I'm Nathan Gotch, the co-founder and CEO of Rankability,
00:11and since 2013, I've led hundreds of successful SEO campaigns, and my SEO work is featured on
00:18Forbes, HubSpot, and HighLevel. So if you're excited to learn how to create SEO content that
00:24Google loves to rank, then like this video. And let's begin with pillar number one,
00:28which is keyword selection. So I'll start with the most important part, which is search volume is
00:33the last reason why you should select a keyword. Look at the search query side eye meme, and now
00:40look at best personal injury lawyer in Albuquerque. So which of these is more valuable? Well, if you
00:46guess the injury lawyer keyword, then you're right. The point is search volume doesn't equate to value.
00:52Relevance and intent are better for determining value, which brings me to the six pillars
00:58of keyword selection. Number one is relevant. So think about the five stages of customer awareness,
01:05and ask yourself, what's the likelihood that my target audience buys my stuff if they search for
01:11this keyword phrase. Focus on keywords that are closest to a conversion. Number two is intent. You
01:18can use the structure of a keyword phrase to get a ballpark idea of where a searcher is in the
01:24sales
01:24cycle. And you can put 99% of keywords into two buckets, informational and commercial.
01:31So the best way to figure out the proper intent strategy is just to look at Google and see what
01:36you're up against. So obviously we're in a very different world now because we have these AI overviews,
01:40but the good news is that typically the top ranking results in the AI overviews are also
01:45some of the top ranking results in the traditional organic. So you can see we've got Zapier,
01:50we've got ClearScope and we've got gotchaseo.com. Once again, we've got the three exact top three
01:56popping up here as well. So the point is, is like to do well in AI overviews, you need to
02:01do well in
02:01the traditional search results. So what you want to look at here is you see the types of content,
02:06the types of pages that are ranking. And so when you look at this, you look at those top three
02:11results and they're clearly all informational assets and the AI overview is polling informational
02:17assets. So that's pretty much all I need to know about ranking for this keyword. And it means that
02:22I need to also create an informational asset. Okay. That is the key. If I try to come in here
02:26with
02:27something super commercial, it's probably not going to do really well unless you have a lot of backlinks
02:32or you're pulling from other signals. But if you want to be able to get the best results with the
02:37least
02:37amount of resources and effort, then you should try to match the intent perfectly. So just study
02:43Google to find the perfect intent strategy. Number three is value. You can determine the
02:48value of keywords with relevance and intent, but you can also use Google CPC data to see how much
02:54advertisers are willing to pay. In most cases, the higher the CPC, the more valuable the keyword is.
03:01Number four is competition. There are three critical variables of SEO competition. First,
03:07content quality, which is how good are the competitors who are currently ranking. If it's
03:13clear that they've invested significant effort, time, and money into their assets, you should expect to do
03:19the same. So next, you want to go ahead and just analyze one of your top ranking competitors and do
03:24this more as a qualitative analysis, which means just use your own expertise and opinion to determine
03:29if this is going to be even doable, right? Does the top ranking competitor have a moat for this
03:34keyword? And so that's what you're looking for. Because at the end of the day, the goal is to be
03:38number one. So if you don't feel like you can produce something at the same caliber as the number
03:42one result, then you may want to go and pursue a different keyword before coming back to that one.
03:47So in this case, we're looking at this one and clearly it's written by Brian Dean, who is a very
03:52good writer, number one. And number two is very skilled at the craft of SEO. So when we look at
03:58this,
03:58not only is it written by him who has subject matter expertise, but you can tell his copywriting is
04:04very, very good. The visuals are beautiful. This is a very good piece of content. Like this is elite
04:10level content. So you're not going to find this caliber of content for many keywords. It's just
04:15not, doesn't really exist. But in general, like in most industries, you probably won't have to bring
04:20this intensity to win, right? But if you see someone like this ranking, then you may want to
04:26go a different direction. The second is topic authority. How well do the competitors cover this one
04:32topic? If it's all they talk about on their website, then you need to have the same level
04:37of subject matter expertise and focus. So one of the quickest ways to see if one of your competitors
04:42has good topic authority, or they've really focused hard on their one core discipline or subject matter
04:48expertise, just go into Google and just do a site colon search and then search something related to the
04:54keyword you're going after. So in this case, we're looking at gotcha SEO.com. If you search content,
04:58you can see, we talk about content quite a bit. Like many, many pages are built around that.
05:04If we go and look at just SEO, you're going to see the same thing. Many, many pages built around
05:09the topic of SEO. So when you're up against competitors who have done this, who have really
05:15focused in on one topic for an extended amount of time, it's going to be naturally more difficult
05:20to beat them. So what you really want to do is see if there's competitors that don't have this level
05:25of depth, right? If you see that, then that's a golden opportunity to pursue that keyword.
05:30And the next is backlinks. How strong are your competitors from a backlink profile perspective?
05:36You need to match their backlink quality and quantity to achieve similar outcomes.
05:41So the final thing you want to look at when trying to decide upon a keyword based on competition is
05:46the
05:46overall domain strength that you're up against. So in rankability, there's a column here that we use
05:52called domain scores. So this is looking at the overall strength and quality of a backlink profile
05:57for the entire domain, not just the one page, but the domain as a whole, which is one of the
06:01biggest
06:02ranking factors. So what you typically don't want to see is this, you see a lot of red, that's an
06:07indication that you're up against a very, very strong competitors. And so you can actually see
06:12the criteria here, but basically, you know, if you're going to go after a keyword, ideally you would
06:16see at least one to three competitors that are more in this moderate to weak range. That means
06:22it's a golden opportunity. Anything that's in this range, just remember, if you do pursue a keyword
06:28like this, A, you should have equivalent domain strength. And number two, you should be willing to
06:34invest in link building to make up any authority gaps that you might have, because you're not going
06:39to be able to come into a keyword like SEO content with a brand new website and rank. You just,
06:43it's virtually impossible unless you, you know, you have some sort of trickery that I'm not aware
06:48of. But if you look at this, like a brand new website with a brand new page has virtually no
06:53chance of ranking number one for this. It's virtually impossible. So you want to make sure you are
06:59matching your competitors that you're up against. And if you're not, then you're going to have to make
07:04up those gaps. And that's typically going to be on the link building front. So now moving on to the
07:07next technique for keyword selection, which is number five, demand. So search volume is one measure of
07:13demand and the most commonly used for SEO. 80% of your keyword targets should have quantifiable
07:19search demand. And the other 20% are for topics that don't have search volume. Here's some quick
07:25ways to find zero volume keywords. So the first technique you can use is going to the people also
07:31ask section right here. And a lot of these keywords are really good for long tail variants that are
07:36subsets of that core topic. So like how to do SEO for beginners, is SEO free or paid? Can I
07:41do SEO on my
07:42own? These are all different ideas based on that core topic that you originally searched. But if
07:47you want to go down even more levels, you can go ahead and just click this. And every time you
07:50click
07:51this, it's going to add more and more ideas. Okay. So theoretically, if you want to build topic
07:55support, you should go after each keyword that has different intent. So like, for example, it's SEO
08:01good career. That's a very specific query that deserves its own dedicated page. Okay. And so think about
08:07it that way. Is this truly a different topic? And if the answer is yes, then create a dedicated page
08:12specifically for it. Second thing you can do is go into Reddit. There's tons of amazing topic ideas in
08:18here that often won't have search volume in the traditional tools, but they do have quantifiable
08:23demand by looking at user signals. So just looking at this, I can already think of a few ideas for
08:29content. So like ask me anything about SEO, but look specifically in what subreddit it's in for
08:34SaaS. So we could create SEO content related to SaaS companies. We could look at this one here.
08:39This could literally be a topic, not happy with your SEO results. Do this, right? That could literally
08:44be the title. We could target that specific idea and then go ahead and give some sort of actionable
08:50advice to help them. Okay. And so you can take these as seeds to build out, you know, better content
08:55ideas, or you could just use the idea itself because we have quantifiable proof here based on user
09:00signals that this is a good topic to attack. And then finally, you can go into Google search console
09:05and just look at any page on your website that has existing organic traffic. And I like to sort it
09:11and
09:11by position and look at keywords that are ranking very poorly. Okay. So look at the variants that are
09:15ranking very poorly. And that's typically a sign that you can create a dedicated page for that topic
09:21because if your existing page was good enough for it, it would probably already be doing well,
09:25right? So what I want to look at in these really long tail variations. So like this one here,
09:29AI content versus human written content, SEO performance. Okay. That's a very specific
09:34query. We could create a case study showing the differences in performance based on those two
09:39different ways to create content. And if you take this keyword and you throw it into a traditional
09:43SEO keyword tool, it's probably not going to show any search volume whatsoever, but people are
09:50searching it because that's why it's showing up here. So this is a beautiful way to find topics that
09:54your competitors have no idea that they exist. And then you can just go and attack these.
09:59And the final technique you should use for keyword selection is number six, clicks. Did you know
10:05that 60% of searches on Google end without a single click? Well, here's the reality of what Google
10:12SERPs look like right now. And that's why click through rate or CTR potential must be a part of your
10:18keyword selection process. So here's your action step for pillar number one, scan the QR code on screen
10:25and make a copy of this free keyword research template. Add some of your perspective keywords
10:30into the sheet and then look at the scoring criteria tab to score your opportunities. Whichever scores the
10:37highest is a good keyword to pursue. And now it's time for pillar number two, which is uniqueness. So
10:42Google's algorithms are craving uniqueness because they're overwhelmed with regurgitated AI content. If you
10:49get anything from this video, please understand this uniqueness is your strategic advantage in SEO
10:55right now. And this is the hardest part of the content creation process. But here's the good news.
11:01Your competitors are conditioning themselves right now to stop using their brains. Their first instinct
11:07is to open track GBT when they need ideas. But what they don't realize is LLMs can't create anything new.
11:15They can only give you information based on existing training data. And that's why I want to introduce
11:21you to the purple cow SEO content strategy. I stole this concept from Seth Godin, but it'll help you get
11:2710 times better SEO results. Here's how it works. Step one, study your competitors. So look at a competitor
11:34that is a ranking very well and B has covered the topic at a deep level. Save their page as
11:41a PDF,
11:41open chat GPT, attach the PDF and use the prompt. Then it will spit out a beautiful SWOT analysis.
11:49From there, you can step number two, brainstorm angles. Use this simple prompt. And once again,
11:55it'll produce some solid angles and you can use this process to get the idea machine rolling. And you can
12:01also differentiate your existing or new content with proven methods like number one, attract user
12:08generated content. So I use this angle for our is Google biased case study. I knew this would be a
12:14polarizing topic and would attract UGC. And all of this UGC makes this page very unique relative to the
12:22competitors. Number two, use fresh data. So Google's AI overviews love fresh and new data. Become the source
12:30by creating your own data driven studies like our best CMS for SEO study. Instead of opinion, we conducted
12:36our own independent study and you don't need to do massive studies. Even a small study that produces
12:43some anecdotal evidence can still create the uniqueness advantage. Number three, create experience driven
12:50content. So share your subjective opinion on topics because AI can't do that. And that's exactly what I did
12:58with best SEO books. I purchased 26 SEO books and read every single one and shared my subjective opinion.
13:06And now for step number three, make everything unique. It's not required and you can rank without doing
13:12this, but if you want to dominate, make your copy visuals and page design unique relative to your
13:19competitors. And yes, that is right. You need to invest in every single piece of content. If you want
13:25long-term results, you won't regret it. So now moving on to pillar number three, which is relevance.
13:31So uniqueness is the lead domino, but Google's algorithms crave relevance. There are three moves
13:37you must make for Google to fall in love with your pages. Number one, match search intent perfectly.
13:43Do this wrong and your rankings are dead in the water. But the good news is that you don't have
13:48to guess.
13:49Just look at Google for your target keyword and see what's ranking. So if you see mostly
13:54informational content, then go informational. And if you see mostly commercial, you should go
13:58commercial. It's not a life or death decision and you can always try a new angle. Number two,
14:04use NLP. Google and other tech giants use NLP to understand human content. And you can use this to
14:10your advantage to feed the machines, the relevant topics, sometimes called entities. Here's how.
14:16Step number one, use a content optimization tool. For example, I used Rankability to write the script for
14:22this video you're watching right now. It crawls your competitors content, extracts topics and
14:28prioritizes the topics based on what's covered the most. You can even click on a topic and see
14:34how the competitor is covering it in their content. In general, you should try to cover as many related
14:40keywords in your content as possible. But first go on to step number two, which is create an outline.
14:46So you can do this manually or with AI. So just enter your keyword into the content optimizer
14:52and select your preference. You can generate just the content brief and outline or a full first draft
14:58with the AI content writer. If you're using AI to create the first draft, then use the entire prompt
15:04window to get the best output. And it typically takes four to five minutes to create a draft that
15:10A perfectly matches the intent of the keyword and B is already optimized for relevance. Just follow
15:17these simple guidelines for when you should or shouldn't use AI content. Now for step number three,
15:22cover the topics. Notice that I didn't say inject keywords into your content. It's already proven that
15:29keyword density is not a Google ranking factor. View the keywords as topics. Sometimes you can cover the
15:37topic with a sentence and other times you need to dedicate an entire section. Now you're probably
15:42wondering what about word count? Well, the quantity of words on your page isn't a ranking factor. However,
15:49you can't rank without words and words are required to create copy that effectively covers your keyword.
15:56Rankability gives an optimal word count range that eliminates the outliers, but this recommendation is
16:02not a law and we break it all the time. Just lean more towards the low end of the word
16:07count range to
16:08make sure your content is practicing brevity. And now for step number four, keyword placement. So what
16:13I've just showed you falls under advanced content optimization, but don't neglect basic on-page SEO
16:20best practices. So to rank well, you need to have your primary keyword in your URL, page title, meta description,
16:27H1, first sentence, and ideally a variant in your H2. So here's where you should be at this point. You've
16:34identified a valuable keyword, you've found a unique angle, and you've created highly relevant copy. So
16:41now it's time for pillar number four, which is quality. So everything you've done so far will help you
16:47produce a strong page that stands out. But let's go to the next level with quality. So step number one,
16:53spice up your SEO copywriting. You're not writing a dissertation. Here are some methods to make your copywriting
17:00more engaging and persuasive. Number one, write to one person. Notice how it feels like I'm speaking directly to you.
17:09You probably haven't noticed, but I've used the word you over 83 times in this video. Number two, don't try
17:16to sound smart.
17:17The smartest people are often the least persuasive. It's because they use jargon, big words, and don't
17:23know how to be clear with their ideas. My wife thinks it's really strange, but this one technique
17:29really works, which is speak while you write. For example, I was talking as I was writing this script,
17:35and it's more of a creepy whisper, but it helps me write how I speak. And this creates more of
17:41a connection
17:42with the person that's consuming your content. Number three, break patterns. So rewind the tape
17:48to the previous section and see how I used a silly anecdote about my wife. This is how you can
17:54drive
17:54engagement. Tell your readers to do things. Reread this, click that link, open this, watch this,
18:01etc. Action equals engagement, which is something that Google is tracking with Chrome. Number four,
18:08use open loops. So Breaking Bad is the best modern example of this. It's open loop after open loop.
18:15Do this with your content. Preview what's coming next, but don't reveal everything. So drop a comment
18:20below and say copywriting if you want me to dedicate an entire video to this one topic in the future.
18:26Now moving on to number five, become a rewriter. So great writing is simply the byproduct of incredible
18:32editing. For example, this video script went through three versions before it was ready.
18:37Number six, build for skimmers. You might be the best copywriter on the planet, but you still must
18:43structure your content for maximum readability. So here are my favorite techniques for breaking
18:48things up. Short paragraphs, headings, bullet points numbered lists, custom visuals, but not
18:54decorative images. Only add visual content if it adds value to the content itself. Embedded videos and
19:02tables. And so now it's time for pillar number five, which is topic authority. So creating one
19:07beautiful SEO asset is only the first step. Now you need to support your mother asset.
19:13Okay. So you've probably heard of the idea of topic authority or topical authority, but topic
19:18domination to me isn't just about your website, but it's all of the assets that you have online.
19:23You're going to try to attack that topic and create content around that topic across many different
19:28platforms. So, but for this case, I'm just going to show you a real quick example. So I'm going to
19:32focus here on content optimization. So that's the focus. That's the topic that we want to build a lot
19:38of authority on a lot of support around. So you want to do this on your owned assets. You want
19:42to do
19:42it on your rented assets. You want to do it on any asset, but let's just focus on the owned
19:47assets
19:47first. So in general, when you create content on these rented assets, the idea is that you're going to get
19:54people to know, like, and trust you. And if you do that well, a percentage of those people are going
19:59to go to Google and search your brand. Okay. And that's really the idea. We get people to come to
20:03Google. They come to our website and if they come to our website, that's where we can actually drive
20:08real conversions and we can actually have an owned audience. All of these audiences on these platforms
20:14are not truly owned audiences. It can be taken away from us at any point. So we want to get
20:18people
20:18back to our home base. So with that in mind, when we're building topic authority for SEO,
20:24we want to start at the bottom of the funnel. So we begin with most aware. Okay. Most aware is
20:29at the
20:29bottom of the funnel. These are keywords that are directly related to our brand. You should have no
20:35problem ranking number one for these keywords. It should be very easy and it should be the focus.
20:40And it's amazing how many brands don't do this and they're not even ranking number one for their
20:44branded queries. So you absolutely want to focus on these first. Okay. And because these queries
20:50are so, uh, have such good commercial intent, you can go directly for whatever your core offer is.
20:55So in this case, if someone's searching, uh, rankability pricing directly to a rankability
21:00free trial makes a lot of sense, right? If they're looking at our testimonials and our results or case
21:04studies, all that bottom of the funnel content, we can drive them directly to a free trial because
21:09that is the core offer that directly aligns with where they are in the sales cycle. Okay.
21:14But then we go further up the funnel. Now we're looking at product aware. Okay. And this is
21:19applicable to any business. It isn't just SaaS. It's local businesses, e-com. It's the same idea.
21:23We want to start at the bottom of the funnel and work our way up. So then you're going to
21:27target
21:27keywords like this, which is going to be rankability review, rankability alternatives, rankability
21:32verse insert, whatever competitor. These keywords are also heavily commercial driven. So you can
21:38go directly to a free trial, or you can use internal linking to drive them deeper into the
21:43funnel. And then we move further up the funnel again. Now we're starting getting into that broad
21:48topic. The solution in this case, the solution is a content optimization tool or an on-page SEO tool.
21:54Also, we're looking at all other competitor alternatives, right? So now our brand is not in
22:00the equation yet, right? Someone isn't aware of our product quite yet, but the goal here at this stage
22:06is to make them aware. We want them, we want to build that brand awareness for rankability.
22:10So we drive them deeper into our funnel. Now, this one's a little bit hard to decide what the
22:15core offer should be. So in my experience, I'm probably just going to drive them deeper into
22:19the funnel via internal linking, but there's no problem with trying to go for your core offer here
22:24as well. Okay. Now here's where things start to shift. Now we're moving into problem aware. So going
22:29back to the original idea, that content optimization, that's like the center, which we're building
22:34support, topic support, you can see that it's very broad, right? It's more problem aware. It's not
22:41someone searching content optimization. They may not even know that they need a tool yet, right?
22:45They may just think, oh, this is just a process I can follow manually and do it. They don't know
22:49yet
22:49that a tool actually makes it a thousand times easier. So what we're doing here is we're educating
22:54them on this concept of content optimization. So we're talking about the topic in general, we're giving
23:00them checklists, we're showing them how to do on-page SEO, how to use AI to make things easier.
23:05And then we offer the solution to this thing that makes it way easier, which is, hey, by the way,
23:10you can actually use a tool that makes content optimization way easier. You don't have to guess
23:15your way through this. So at this stage, you're driving them once again, via internal linking to each
23:20progressive stage of the funnel. That's the idea. But at this stage, most people aren't ready to buy
23:26anything. So you can't really go for the throat here and just immediately go for your core offer.
23:30You're much better off promoting some sort of lead magnet that bleeds into that core offer. So what we
23:37do is we just offer some sort of free checklist or some sort of lead magnet. And in the lead
23:41magnet,
23:42we talk about the product, right? So we talk about the tool because the tool is a vehicle to get
23:49them
23:49the result that they want, right? So we're going to drive them into here. And then a large,
23:54large percentage of people, 97% to 98% of people who go to your website aren't going to convert
24:00on
24:00anything. They're not going to do anything. But what you want is to get a percent, a large percentage
24:05of those people on your email list, because then that gives you the ability to remarket to these
24:10people to get them to know, like, and trust you, right? And in the email marketing process,
24:14the cool part is, is once you've built out all of these assets in your email marketing,
24:20you can then promote all of these assets in your emails, right? So you can kind of guide them
24:25through this journey through email marketing until eventually they end up at your core offer.
24:30Okay. And finally we're at unaware. Okay. So now we're talking about very broad topics where someone
24:37says, you know, I need to figure out how to, you know, write SEO content for my website. I don't
24:42even
24:42know the first place to begin. So you're going to give them the process for creating SEO content.
24:47So funny enough, if you want to see this happening in real time, I'm doing this for
24:52rankability right now. Every single one of these assets I'm building and you'll see them,
24:56they're being built. Now, slight nuance here. I'm doing this specifically on gotchasco.com
25:01because it makes a lot more sense because that domain is way more powerful. So I'm attacking these
25:06topics on that website and then driving it back into rankability. Eventually, once I've tapped out
25:12all those topics on gotchasco.com, then I'm going to go to rankability.com and I'm going to attack
25:17the same exact topics again. So that way we can get multiple rankings on the first page of Google.
25:22But in general, these two phases here that the, you know, of this sales journey,
25:27drive them to something free, a lead magnet. That's, you know, very simple that they can get
25:31some value for you can give them results in advance. And if you do a good job, some of them
25:36are going to, you know, take your core offer and some of them, you know, you'll have to continue to
25:40market to forever. Essentially, you're going to have to nurture them until they're ready to,
25:46you know, use something at a higher level, to use a solution that's going to help them get results
25:50faster. So that's how you build topic support around your core concept that will actually help
25:56you drive real revenue. And now for pillar number six, domain authority. So in a perfect world,
26:01creating the best content would win in Google. Unfortunately, it's not that simple because Google
26:05can't objectively determine what is good content. It can only use signals to make the determination.
26:12And one of the most powerful signals that it uses are backlinks. So watch the next video
26:18to learn how to build backlinks that actually work.