Organic Traffic Acquisition and Content Strategy

by Burgess Powell
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My name is Burgess and, among other things, I am an SEO manager and content strategist. In essence, my job is to drive organic traffic from SERPs (search engine results pages) to your website, no matter the topic or industry.

How does this work? I am biased toward making slick sites with mountains of informative content. In more industry-specific terms, I have a breadth of technical SEO knowledge and can create content strategy (and mountains of content) about almost anything.

In many cases, this means writing you (and your website) the right questions. What technical issues are holding your webiste back? Who are your ideal customers and what are they searching for? What are high-yield (but realistic) keyword goals for your website? Are you providing your visitors with content that they actually want to see?

What I do is part-painstaking planning, part industry-specific gut instinct. I have restructured, optimized and created content for websites ranging from High Times Magazine to baby clothes e-commerce stores.

My Process

In the interest of making marketing more transparent (and less jargon-y) here an overview of my SEO process:

  1. SEO Audit: A fancy term meaning that I analyze every webpage for issues affecting speed, rankings, and crawlability. Typically, these include: duplicate content, URL structure, HTML issues, broken links, unoptimized images…)
  2. Market Research: Before attempting to target any sort of keyword, it’s critical to understand your market. What constitutes a “conversion?” Who are your ideal website visitors? WHat do they really want to know? What do they read? Where do they shop? What is your main value proposition? What do your competitors offer?
  3. Keyword Discovery: Let’s get down to brass tacks. What do you customers search in Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo? THe secret is not to just to for the obvious keywords (ex: best fridge for a regrigerator brand). You need to build authority in an industry as whole.
  4. SEO Roadmap: Great, now let’s put everything we’ve learned into a 60-90 day roadmap of urgent fixes, content edits, combinations, and additions, and long-term content goals. What is an article’s title/meta/word count/outline?
  5. Keyword-Oriented Content: Unlike other SEO agencies, I can create 100% of the content on my own for your website. This (to me) is the fun part.
  7. Establish Social Media Presence: SEO does not exist in a vaccum. Let’s get the word out about your brand, your new content, and (perhaps) your new look.
  8. Off-Site Link Building: A fancy term for getting other, qualified websites to link to yours. There are many ways to do this (and not to), which I will go over in detail later.

SEO isn’t mystical; It’s a never-ending list of often-tedious fixes and updates that you can make on your site to improve organic traffic–the highest converting form of web traffic.

Resume

Casco Bay Molding, SEO/SEM Manager

July 2019 — Present

SEO/SEM lead for 6 􏰋websites (Casco Cup, Si􏰐liconeGea􏰎r, H􏰊ydroponique,EverCup, ExerTies, and Casco Bay Molding) in-charge of B2C and B2B organic gro􏰋wth.

B2B salesperson for face shields, menstr􏰉ual c􏰉ps, and c􏰉ustom molding

Growth Nuts (Organic Growth Consultants), Chief Content Officer

July 2018 — July 2019

Content strategist and lead content writer for clients in a variety of industries (fashion, entertainment, CBD…) and editor-in-chief of Blocklr, a Growth Nuts-owned cryptocurrency media site. I was responsible for SEO audits, keyword research, technical SEO and content roadmaps, and writing and editing keyword-oriented content.

High Times & Green Rush Daily, SEO Writer January 2018 — July 2018

Thoroughly researched and wrote keyword-driven content on cannabis and hemp-related topics and participated in editorial team brainstorming and content planning.

Capabilities

SEO/SEM Lead

Content Strategist & Editor

Social Media Marketer

My Process

1. Site Audit

For each property, I begin by conducting a site audit that includes: 1) Reviewing website infrastructure 2) Determine what urgent issues are affecting search performance (ex: duplicate content, page speed, broken links, URL structure, HTML issues…).

2. Keyword Research

Next, I identify the most significant keyword opportunities based on existing keywords, industry research, customer discovery, and competitors. Who is the website’s ideal audience?

3. SEO Roadmap

Combining structural changes and keyword research, I create an SEO roadmap that outlines 90 days of content creation and technical SEO fixes, with special emphasis on clarifying site structure. The final roadmap may have changes, technical and content-related, for every page.

4. Create Keyword-Oriented Content

With the site owner’s approval, I create the first round of keyword-oriented content. This includes existing content edits, significant original content creation, and duplicate content removal.

5. Clarify Site Structure

Address most urgent fixes impacting organic traffic, crawlability and conversions such as site hierarchy, broken links, and missing HTML tags. Establish or maintain AMP.

6. Establish Social Media Presence

Organize social media accounts, choosing one to focus on based on customer research. Create original content (videos, charts, posts) to drive traffic from the most relevant social channel(s).

Identify off-site partnerships for content syndication and promotion to increase domain ranking.

How I Got Started

For much of my life, I’ve had two central interests: writing and business. SEO represents the intersection of the two.

It is, in my opinion, the best way for small businesses to thrive on the internet – as well the future of commerce. Search engine marketing also does not work without producing informative, gripping content. Technical SEO is the best way to make quality content user and robot friendly.

Not that long ago, I was an English major at McGill University reading Tim Ferriss' “4 Hour Workweek.” Not long after that, I became a freelance writer, publishing content that I’d rather not have anyone read on topics such as the best chocolate croissant in Montreal and can dogs take CBD.

Ultimately, I realized, it doesn’t matter what I write unless it’s readers (and robots) can find it. One day, I stumbled upon SEO. What, at first, seemed like magic, crystallized into strategies that I can apply to websites of all types. Chances are, there are major elements slowing down your site and confusing crawlers–as well as major content gaps and missed opportunities–on your site.

Burgess Powell