How to Write Content that Ranks #1 on Google

Summary

In this video, Matt Diggity walks viewers through a step-by-step guide on creating SEO-optimized content that ranks at the top of Google. He emphasizes the importance of selecting the right keywords, understanding search intent, and using tools like Ahrefs and Surfer for research and optimization. Matt also highlights content structuring, readability, and the use of schema to improve search engine rankings. The goal is to drive quality organic traffic that converts, while maintaining user-friendly, engaging content. He shares practical tips for crafting titles, organizing articles, and ensuring a smooth content publishing process.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Writing content optimized for search engines is essential for ranking high on Google.
• 🌐 Quality traffic from organic search is superior because it consists of users actively searching for your content.
• 🔍 Choosing the right topic and keyword is the first crucial step in creating high-ranking content.
• 📊 Tools like Ahrefs can help identify keywords and topics that are easier to rank for.
• 📝 Creating a content plan and understanding the search intent behind keywords is vital for writing effective content.
• 🔑 Including the right subtopics and answering related questions can make your content more comprehensive and valuable.
• 💡 Structuring your article with clear, concise, and direct information helps improve readability and user engagement.
• 🤖 Using tools like Surfer for content optimization can help ensure your article meets the criteria for high search engine rankings.
• 🔗 Incorporating authority links and schema markup in your content can enhance its credibility and search engine visibility.
• 📝 Proofreading and getting feedback on your content before publishing ensures high quality and reduces errors.

Q & A

What is the primary goal of the video presented by Matt Diggity?

The primary goal of the video is to provide a step-by-step process on how to create content that is optimized for search engines, specifically aiming to rank highly on Google and drive significant organic traffic.

Why is search engine traffic considered superior to paid traffic according to the speaker?

Search engine traffic is considered superior because visitors actively search for the content, making them more likely to convert. This organic traffic is also free and tends to be of higher quality compared to paid traffic.

What tool does Matt Diggity recommend for finding content ideas that are easy to rank for?

Matt Diggity recommends using Ahrefs, specifically its Content Explorer feature, to find content ideas that are easy to rank for by filtering by relevant metrics like domain rating and page traffic.

What are the four types of search queries discussed in the video?

The four types of search queries are informational (e.g., how-to guides), navigational (e.g., login pages), transactional (e.g., buy products), and comparative (e.g., product reviews).

How does determining the correct search intent influence content ranking?

Correctly identifying and addressing the search intent is crucial for ranking. If the content doesn’t match what users are looking for, it won’t rank well, even if the topic is relevant.

What is the process of creating a content outline according to the video?

The process involves analyzing top-ranking articles for the target keyword, noting their subtopics, and creating a comprehensive outline that covers the best points from all of them. Additional subtopics can be found in the related searches and People also ask sections of Google.

Why does Matt Diggity emphasize avoiding 'fluff' in the introduction of an article?

He emphasizes avoiding fluff because users expect a quick, relevant answer to their query. If the introduction is filled with irrelevant information, users may leave the page, which harms engagement and rankings.

What role does word count play in ranking content, and how should you determine the ideal length for an article?

Word count is no longer about writing more content but about matching the content length that Google expects for a particular query. The ideal word count can be determined by averaging the word count of the top-ranking articles for the target keyword.

What is Surfer, and how does it help with content optimization?

Surfer is a content optimization tool that analyzes top-ranking articles for a given keyword, helping writers match the word frequencies and entities that Google expects, thereby improving the article’s relevance and ranking potential.

What is schema, and how can it help improve a website’s SEO performance?

Schema is structured data in code form that helps search engines better understand the content of a webpage. By adding schema to an article, it makes it easier for Google to index and rank the content accurately, improving SEO performance.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 How to Write SEO-Optimized Content for Google

In this video, Matt Diggity introduces a step-by-step guide on writing content optimized for search engines, specifically targeting those interested in ranking high on Google. He shares his personal experience in SEO and outlines the benefits of organic search traffic, such as higher conversion rates compared to paid traffic. Matt emphasizes that understanding what 'quality content' means to search engines is key and promises to demystify the process for viewers.

05:00

🎯 Choosing the Right Topic and Keyword for SEO

The first step to effective SEO is selecting the right topic and keyword. Matt stresses the importance of targeting keywords that align with the content's niche and rank potential. He demonstrates the use of Ahrefs to find easy-to-rank keywords, using an example from the metaverse niche. This section explains the criteria for filtering potential topics and shows how to evaluate them based on search volume and domain rating, setting the foundation for SEO success.

10:02

📝 Crafting the Perfect Content Outline for SEO

Once the keyword is selected, it's essential to plan content effectively. Matt introduces the importance of understanding search intent and breaks down the four types of searches: informational, navigational, transactional, and comparative. He demonstrates how to analyze top-ranking articles to extract useful subtopics, ensuring your content is comprehensive and better than the competition. This section is all about creating a 'super set' of subtopics for an in-depth SEO article.

✏️ Structuring and Optimizing Content for SEO Success

Matt moves into the writing phase, emphasizing the importance of a strong introduction that hooks the reader and establishes authority. He advises on keeping paragraphs short and avoiding fluff. Matt recommends using tools like Surfer for optimizing content in real time and suggests linking to authoritative sources for credibility. Additionally, he shares how to structure content to appeal to Google’s natural language processing (NLP) algorithms by answering common queries in a clear and concise manner.

📏 Enhancing Readability and User Experience

In this section, Matt focuses on making content reader-friendly, suggesting techniques such as keeping paragraphs short, using lists and tables, and including images or videos to enhance engagement. He also advises proofreading the article and ensuring readability by targeting an eighth-grade reading level. By following these steps, content becomes more digestible, improving user experience and increasing the chances of ranking higher in search results.

🚀 Final SEO Enhancements and Publishing

Before publishing, Matt stresses the importance of applying final SEO enhancements, such as adding schema markup using tools like Merkle's Schema Markup Generator. He also recommends interlinking with relevant articles on your site and crafting a compelling meta title and description. Once these steps are completed, the content is fully optimized and ready to be published, and Matt encourages viewers to subscribe for future updates on how well the article performed.

Keywords

💡SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO refers to the process of optimizing content to rank higher in search engine results. In the video, SEO is the core theme as the speaker explains strategies to make content more visible on Google. The speaker highlights that by understanding and leveraging Google's ranking factors, one can drive organic traffic to their website.

💡Organic Traffic

Organic traffic refers to the visitors who come to a website through unpaid search engine results. The video emphasizes the importance of organic traffic because it consists of users actively searching for specific information or products, making them more likely to convert than paid traffic. The speaker contrasts this with paid traffic, arguing that organic traffic is of higher quality.

💡Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of identifying popular search terms people use when looking for information online. In the video, the speaker walks through how to use tools like Ahrefs to find the right keywords that a website can realistically rank for, ensuring that the content is targeting topics with enough traffic potential but low competition.

💡Search Intent

Search intent refers to the purpose behind a user’s search query. The video explains that understanding the search intent—whether informational, navigational, transactional, or comparative—is crucial to ranking content. For example, the speaker identifies 'digital real estate' as an informational query and explains how to tailor content to match that intent.

💡Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool used for keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink auditing. In the video, the speaker demonstrates how to use Ahrefs to identify content ideas that are easy to rank for by filtering for low Domain Rating (DR) websites that are already ranking for high-traffic keywords.

💡Content Optimization

Content optimization involves adjusting and structuring content to meet search engine criteria, ensuring it ranks highly. The video discusses tools like Surfer to analyze the top-ranking articles for a keyword, ensuring that the content includes the right word frequencies, entities, and subtopics to appeal to Google's algorithm and rank on page one.

💡Schema Markup

Schema markup is code that helps search engines better understand the content on a webpage, allowing for richer search results like featured snippets. The speaker mentions using tools like Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator to easily create and implement schema, thus making it simpler for Google to recognize the content's relevance and structure.

💡Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating is a metric used by Ahrefs to measure the strength of a website’s backlink profile. In the video, the speaker sets a DR filter at 25, suggesting that targeting low-DR websites increases the chances of ranking. DR is crucial for determining how competitive a keyword or topic is for new or less authoritative websites.

💡Featured Snippet

A featured snippet is a highlighted box at the top of Google's search results that provides a quick answer to a query. The video emphasizes structuring content to target featured snippets, suggesting techniques such as defining key terms directly after search queries. This tactic makes it easier for Google’s natural language processing algorithms to recognize and display the content as a snippet.

💡Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP refers to a branch of AI that helps computers understand and interpret human language. The speaker explains that Google’s algorithms use NLP to process and rank content. Structuring content in a way that is easy for Google to read, such as echoing search queries and providing concise answers, can help achieve better rankings.

Highlights

Step-by-step process on how to write content optimized for search engines.

Benefits of ranking high on Google include free, high-quality traffic with better conversion rates.

Search engines like Google can be reverse-engineered to understand what they consider quality content.

Search intent is critical to ranking: Identify whether it's informational, navigational, transactional, or comparative.

Keyword research using tools like Ahrefs helps you choose topics you can rank for, ensuring maximum organic traffic.

Use competitor analysis to create a 'super set' of subtopics, covering the best ideas from the top-ranking articles.

Craft a strong title that includes key keywords and conveys the value of the article, like 'How to Invest in Digital Real Estate.'

Target word count should match competitors, but avoid unnecessary fluff. Google prefers concise content.

The introduction paragraph should hook the reader and avoid irrelevant fluff, keeping the focus on the main topic.

Use content optimization tools like Surfer to ensure your article hits the right word frequencies and ranks higher.

Break up content using short paragraphs, images, lists, and tables to improve readability and user engagement.

Link out to authority websites to show Google that your content is well-researched and trustworthy.

Use schema markup to help Google understand your content better and make it more likely to rank.

Create a meta title and description that are keyword-optimized to improve click-through rates on search engines.

Proofread your article and get someone else to review it for errors before publishing to ensure high quality.

Transcripts

- In this video, I'm gonna show you

a step by step process on how to write content

that is perfectly optimized for search engines.

If you wanna create content

that gets to the top of Google,

then this video is for you.

My name is Matt Diggity, and I'm the owner

of multiple search engine optimization businesses.

I make a full-time living from getting content

to the top of Google.

And I'm about to give out the farm on how I get that done.

I'm sure you're already completely clear

on the benefits of getting your content to rank high

on search engines.

The obvious one is free traffic.

Once you're at the top of Google for a given keyword,

the traffic starts to rain like it's no one's business.

But the best thing about search engine traffic

is the quality of that traffic.

Because your visitors are actively searching

for what you're offering,

they're much more likely to convert.

And because of this,

organic search traffic crushes paid traffic

any day of the week.

So it's clear why we'd want our content to rank number one,

but have you ever really got a clear answer on how to do it?

If you search for lists of Google ranking factors,

you'll often see, quote-unquote,

quality content to be on these lists,

like this article from Search Engine Journal.

But what the hell does quality even mean?

That word is subjective as hell.

Well, in this video, I'm gonna show you

exactly what goes into creating content

that ranks consistently in Google.

And let me tell you,

it's not what you think.

Search engines are robots,

and what they think is quality can be reverse engineered

and used for your benefit.

In this video, you'll learn how to write optimized content

that search engines love,

which will in turn drive you some crazy traffic.

But the same time,

you'll be creating content that will be readable

and enjoyable for your visitors,

which will ultimately get them to convert

so you can make money.

And make sure to stick around to the end

because I'm gonna be dropping some SEO tricks in here

that'll give you content the extra push that it needs.

But before we do that,

can I quickly ask you to push the like button.

Unlike website content,

YouTube content relies on folks like you

and your generous smashing of the like button

in order to generate traffic.

Otherwise, videos like this one will just sit

in the graveyard of digital ones and zeros,

and my hours creating this video will go to waste.

I appreciate the help.

The first step in getting your content

to the top of Google is to choose the right topic

and keyword to target in your content from the beginning.

What's the point in writing a 300 word article

on crypto investing if there's no way

that your new website will ever rank for it.

It's a huge waste of time and resources.

What you wanna do instead is pick topic ideas

that are in your lane.

They're topics that you can indeed rank for,

and they're also search for a lot

and get nice tasty organic traffic.

Let me show you how to do that,

first, with a tool like Ahrefs,

which is a free seven-day trial,

which is more than long enough for you to do

what I'm about to show you.

Since we're on the topic of crypto,

let's say I wanted to write an article in the metaverse.

What you do is open Ahrefs Content Explorer.

We want the tool to give us content ideas

that are easy to rank for on our topic.

Up here at the top,

you wanna type in metaverse.

Then next to it, select In Title.

That's gonna only return content ideas

that have the worst metaverse in the title.

Then for the filters,

select page traffic over 500,

and DR up to 25.

DR or domain rating sets a limit

to the power the websites needed to rank for the articles

that it's gonna spit out.

25 is pretty damn easy.

Now down here, I see an interesting article

on how to become a digital real estate investor

in the metaverse.

The domain rating is only 13,

which means it's a baby site.

We can see that it's generating 1,500 visitors per month,

and the value of that traffic is $7,000 per month, perfect.

Clicking on Details,

we can see all the keywords this page ranks for.

These are the same keywords

that you're gonna target as well.

I'll use this keyword, digital real estate,

for the rest of this video as our example.

Now that was super easy.

And that's just one of the keyword research techniques

that I teach in my SEO course, the Affiliate Lab.

Next, we get into the preparation phase.

Just like you wouldn't go on a hike in the woods

without having a map of where you're going,

you want to create a map of your content plan.

Benjamin Franklin wrote,

"By failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail."

This certainly applies when you're in the process

of writing the best content on the internet.

The first thing you wanna do

in the preparation phase is to determine the search intent

for the keyword you're targeting.

I'll put it like this.

If you don't get the search intent correct,

you will not rank.

There's basically four different types of searches.

Informational search queries represent

when people are just looking for information,

such as how to guides on how to do this or that.

Our example keyword,

digital real estate, is informational.

Then we have navigational type queries

like Twitter login or Matt Diggity contacts,

then transactional like buy crypto online

or car insurance quotes,

and lastly, comparative,

such as what is the best crypto exchange

or Coinbase review.

Let's take a look at the search result

for our informational keyword digital real estate.

We have a refer up here at the top

with the article on how to become

the digital real estate investor in the metaverse.

If we open it up,

we can see it's a basic blog article format.

It's not a series of images

or videos, it's text.

And the important part is that down here towards the middle,

we get into a how to section with three steps.

Google thinks that the best answer

to the query, digital real estate,

is a how to guide on how to invest in it with actual steps.

We should do the same.

Going back out here to the search result,

we can see just by looking at the title

that the number two business.com article does

the same thing.

It's a how to guide.

But down here in third,

we have The New York Times going off topic

with a report on digital real estate investment.

It's no surprise it's not rank in higher,

they're not giving Google what the searchers wanna see.

And now that we know

that we need to write a how to article, what's next?

It's time to do some keyword research

to make sure we write an article

that's better than the existing articles on page one.

And to do that,

we start to take the best parts from the people

that are already ranking in the top positions.

Let's take a look at the subtopics

of the CitySignal article in first place.

They have a heading what is the metaverse, great.

Another one on why invest on virtual land, great.

They talk about ROI

and then get into how to buy land in the metaverse,

starting with getting a digital wallet and so forth.

Write all these subtopics down.

You're gonna cover them all too,

but here's how you do it better.

Continue this process

for the number two business.com article.

They have different subtopics,

such as what is digital real estate?

Add all these unique headings to your list of subtopics.

Continue doing this for three to five similar articles,

and you'll end up with a super set

of all the subtopics required to answer the query.

But let's not stop there.

The related searches section

at the bottom of the search result will give you

even more subtopics to add to the list,

like how beginners can get started with digital real estate

and digital real estate and the blockchain.

And the People also ask section is great

for getting even more questions

that can be answered in your content,

such as can you make money from digital real estate?

So now you have a basic outline,

and it's better than anything that exists

because it takes the best of all of them.

But you need a title here, don't you?

Here's the main keywords that we found earlier.

Let's take note of them as we craft your title.

Let's describe the benefit of reading the article

straight away with how to invest in digital real estate.

But the words buy and land

and metaverse are important to us,

so let's toss them in here.

The last step in the planning phase is to determine

the target word count for your article.

It used to be the case

that you could just write more content than your competition

and you would just brute force smash your way

to the top of Google,

but that's just not how it is anymore.

Some searches can be answered with just a few words,

and Google knows that.

They don't want their users to have to read

a 10,000 word article just to find out

how damn old Harry Potter is now.

Always remember, Google is expecting to see patterns

for the results it puts on page one.

So to determine how many words you wanna make your article,

what you need to do is look at who is already ranking

for your keyword

and taking average of the top three.

Make sure to only include the articles

that match your search intent.

This Ahrefs plugin shows

that the first article has about 1,600 words,

and this number should factor into your average.

Still not convinced that hitting

the target average word count is important?

I left a link to a video in the description

where I actually remove 2,000 words from an article

and get it to number one on Google.

All right, enough with the planning,

it's time to get writing.

Naturally, the first paragraph

is your introduction paragraph,

which is important to get right for a variety of reasons.

First, your intro needs to hook your reader.

You know that you

and everyone else has internet ADD these days.

To get people to read,

your intro needs to really hook the reader.

At the same time,

introduction content should convey that you know

what you're talking about

and demonstrate your expertise on the topic.

And here's a big one, avoid fluff.

If someone searches for how to invest

in digital real estate,

don't start boring them with the historical account

of how the internet evolved.

They wanna know about investing in digital land,

so get straight to the point.

Also, in the description below,

I've left a link to a video that gives you a full playbook

on how to write introduction paragraphs.

So make sure to watch it after you finish this video.

Now that your introduction paragraph is done,

it's time to start working on the body content.

If you wanna write SEO-optimized content,

I highly suggest you employ

a content optimization tool like Surfer.

Surfer is an incredible tool that will analyze the words,

entities, and phrases that exist

on the top ranking articles for your keyword

so you can give Google what it already likes to see.

Their super handy content editor plugin works directly

with Google Docs.

As you write your article,

you can see that the critical word frequencies

that Google expects to see start to match

what's expected on page one.

Thus your content score increases as you approach

a perfectly optimized article.

Keep plugging a way

at writing your content section by section

until you end up with a decent content score

and you've hit the word count of the article.

Now it's time to polish things up.

In your article, you should link out to authority sites

and articles that you reference for facts.

This shows Google that you're in it for the reader,

and you're not just trying to keep everyone stuck

on your site.

I've inserted a few authoritative reference links here

where I mentioned where to find more information

on some data points that I added in my article,

as well as a couple links to news articles down here.

Next, you wanna spice things up and make Google's NLP,

or natural language processing algorithms, happy.

According to IBM,

and I'm paraphrasing here,

NLP refers to the branch of computer science and AI

that gives computers the ability to understand texts

in the same way humans can.

So basically, it's Google's way of translating your content

into something that it can understand.

The thing is, for a computer,

reading human content is a really (beep) difficult problem.

So what you wanna do is format your text

in such a way you pitch Google a softball

that they can hit an NLP home run with.

You wanna make it easy for Google.

Here's how you do it.

Echo back the main search query,

then the word is,

and then give your answer.

If there are any units associated with the answer,

then use them here too.

This structure makes it also much easier

to grab the featured snippet for a query.

You can see that I've done this in my article right here

where I define what is digital real estate.

To be Frank,

Google doesn't actually know what digital real estate is,

but they definitely know

that I tried to answer the question.

There's no doubt about that,

which is more than could be said

about the other articles on page one.

At this point, we wanna make sure

your article is super readable for your visitors.

We want their experience with your content

to be as awesome as possible.

Spell and grammar check the hell out of your article.

Google Docs has this built in natively.

If you want a premium tool for grammar and spelling checks,

Grammarly is the industry standard.

Next, you want your content

to be pretty much at an eighth grade reading level.

You can use this free Flesch-Kincaid readability tool

to plug in your content

and see what kind of readability score it gets.

The key is using simple words and short sentences.

As you can see, I have some work to do.

Next, you wanna avoid this monstrosity.

What is it?

It's a huge wall of text, and it sucks.

No one is gonna read this.

Keep your paragraphs one to two sentences each,

and they'll be bite-sized and easy to read.

They'll be much easier on the eyes

and less intimidating to your visitors.

You can also use formatting like lists and tables

to break up the content and make it look more interesting.

And of course, your gonna wanna decorate your content

with images and videos.

And don't worry, I'm gonna show you

what that looks like in a bit.

Just make sure that you're presizing your images

to make sure they load fast on your website.

Check up my video on website speed and Core Web Vitals

after you watch this video.

You're almost ready to get this piece of content

up on your site,

but don't forget to do this first.

Please, please get someone other than yourself

to proofread your article.

As you know, you can proofread your own content

a hundred times and not find an issue,

but as soon as someone new reads it,

they'll find 200 problems.

Ask a friend to give you a hand.

Remember, we're creating content

that's intended for page one of Google.

It at least deserves a solid proofread.

Now with a little bit of magic,

let's get this article up on your website.

Bam, here's what the article looks like when it's loaded.

The images, videos, list,

and short paragraphs really makes a difference,

but the content journey doesn't stop here.

First things first,

you wanna put schema on your article, schema, what?

Schema is code that you put on your webpage

that makes it super easy for Google to figure out

exactly what your content is about.

Remember, we always wanna make things easy for Google.

That's how we roll.

To get started with schema,

use Merkle's Schema Markup Generator.

Open it up, and then just start filling this stuff out,

the title of your article,

the author, all of it.

You'll see your schema code getting generated

here on the right.

When you're done, copy it to your clipboard.

Then you simply paste it into the HTML editor

of your WordPress page.

You also want to interlink to your article.

Find relevant articles on your site, and interlink

to your new article using descriptive anchor text.

This is useful for telling Google,

"Hey, this one article on crypto links to this new article,

then it must be about crypto too."

Last but not least,

you wanna add a meta title and meta description.

These define what your listing will look like

in the Google Search results.

For the title, just copy the same title

that you wrote earlier.

The description should be descriptive, of course,

and include keywords so they get bolded

in the search results.

So now this perfectly optimized article is ready

to be published.

Congratulations, you just went through the full journey.

In a future video,

we'll take a look at how this article did,

so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.