In this post, I’m going to show you my step-by-step process of how to make your content rank higher on Google for competitive keywords.
I’ve used this exact same strategy to rank #1 for keywords that have over thousands of searches per month.
Ready to apply the same lessons to your b2b content marketing business and rank higher on Google?
Let’s dive in.
The “SEO Battlefield” Game to Rank Higher on Google
It may sound silly, but I view the whole SEO game kinda like you’re on a battlefield against your competitor’s.
Essentially, you’re at a battlefield and the name of the game is who’s got the best, most advanced weapon.
Before you jump into the SEO battlefield, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
- Which battlefield am I competing in?
- Who are your competitors at this playground and what are their weapon’s strengths and weaknesses?
- What weapon do I need to create in order to win the battle?
- Do I need friends to help me win the battle?
In SEO terms, that process looks like this:
- Keyword research
- Competitor Analysis
- Content Creation
- Backlinks.
Let’s get started with the first step.
Step 1: Keyword Research
Before you start competing, you need to know exactly which battlefield you’ll be competing on.
Are you competing in the “weight loss” battlefield, the “b2b marketing” one, etc.
To get a scope of the land, the first thing you want to do is identify your main keywords you want to rank higher for in Google.
This step is essentially creating your “plan of attack” for your content.
Start putting in some main keywords into a keyword research tool.
For example, when I was creating my guide on how to do Local SEO in New Zealand, the first thing I did was put “local SEO” into Google Keyword Planner to get some ideas.
Some interesting points about this photo:
- Other related keywords like “local search engine optimization,” “local seo optimization,” “localised seo” etc.
- The keywords have commercial intent. People are spending money to advertise on them.
To get even more data, I chucked my main keyword into Semrush too.
This data confirms three things I’m looking for:
- It’s a topic directly related to my business.
- There’s a decent chunk of search volume (over 4,000 monthly searches in total), and
- It’s a money keyword.
It also gives you a feel for other related-keywords that you can include in your content.
For example, in both of these examples, there’s a lot of mentions of the following topics:
- Local SEO Services
- Google Business Profile Optimization
- People looking for local seo agency’s
- Tools like Moz or SEMrush Local
And much more.
These topics are more things you can cover when it comes to actually making your article.
For now, you’ve got one part of your battle-plan ready.
Oh, and one more thing:
Don’t be afraid to tackle competitive keywords.
About competitive keywords
I used to run a website called HealthVI, which focused on reviewing health products.
We reviewed the most popular health and fitness products on Clickbank and other affiliate vendors.
People would read my reviews before buying so they had an “inside scoop” on the products and whether or not they were worth buying.
That website was getting around 50 visitors per day and the commissions were super low because of the traffic.
But everything changed when I targeted competitive keywords.
What happened was I wanted to create an article that tackled the keyword “fat loss.”
As competitive as it was, I knew that if my guide was amazing and had enough back-links, I could take the cake.
And that’s exactly what happened.
I ranked #2 for fat loss in the United States, and my traffic from all my other reviews skyrocketed.
It took us from 50 daily visitors to 1,500 daily visitors in over a year.
All because I tackled a competitive keyword that built my authority and helped out all my other content.
What’s the point?
Sure, go after the low-hanging fruit.
Create content for long-tail keywords that’s easier to rank higher for.
But even just ranking for a couple keywords with thousands of searches per month will help Google understand that you’re a key player on the SEO battlefield.
You’ll be rewarded accordingly.
Step 2: Competitor Analysis.
Once you’ve identified which SEO battlefield you’re competing in, the next step is to identify your competitor’s weapons.
You need to know exactly:
- Analyze the quality of your competitors' content to understand their strengths.
- Identify any content gaps that reveal weaknesses in their strategy.
- Develop a robust content strategy that leverages your strengths to outperform them.
Here’s how I did this process for my own Local SEO guide:
First, I put my keyword into Google and scoured the results:
(These were my main competitors from New Zealand; the other top results were guides from Backlinko and Semrush.
Because I’m based in New Zealand, I won’t be competing with too much with them because my target market is from NZ and looking to hire a local SEO agency)
I clicked on the first result’s article and here’s what came up:
From my experience, seeing an article like this is a gold-mine for me.
Here’s why:
- It’s just a whole lotta’ text that isn’t even formatted properly. The sentences are too long which makes it look too clunky and jumbled up too close with each other.
- It doesn’t contain any images to break up the text jumble. So it’s not too visually appealing.
- The content is written in quite a “robotic voice” with no flavour.
I’ll be using their content weaknesses and turning them into strengths for my own content in the next step.
You can chuck all these notes into a spreadsheet which is what I did for my Local SEO guide:
Another quick note:
You don’t have to do this process for every piece of content on the first page.
Just the top 3 results is fine.
But ultimately, you want to have a plan ready to identify their weaknesses and turn them into your strengths.
This brings us to our next step…
Step 3: Content Creation
Now that you’ve created a strategy of what “content weapon” you need to win the battle, the next step is to begin creating.
Here’s what you want to do:
- Cover the content topic as extensively as possible. Include sub-topics and fleshed out answers, make it simple and clear, include images and videos where possible, etc.
- Tell your reader why they should trust you. Do you have any past proof of results in relation to the topic? Add it in.
- Add your own flavour to the content. People crave connection with people. Add some personality to the content and write like you talk. For example, in this article, I’ve shared with you my own perspective on SEO and how I view it like a battlefield. This gives “colour” to the article but also authenticity because it’s genuinely how I view the SEO game.
- Include each one of your strategy points in your article. Go through each one of the lists you created previously and make sure it’s covered in your content.
- Ask yourself the question - “if I was in the readers' shoes, what do I need to know?” and write about that.
Example
For example, in the fat loss guide I wrote for HealthVI, it was a 15,000 word article (and this was all written by me - no AI at the time) that covered everything under the sun in relation to fat loss.
Diet. Exercise. Motivation. Top 10 fat loss mistakes. Quotes from famous influencers in the industry.
The whole 9 yards.
If it was related to fat loss, 99% chance it was in my article.
It’s a good thing to have so much pride in your work that you’re confident you can create the best piece of content on the topic.
Having this mentality builds confidence for yourself but also genuinely serves your market.
You become the go-to expert on the topic, and rightfully so - because you put the hard yards in.
You should be able to look at your piece of content, compare it with your competitor’s, and have no doubt in your mind that yours is better by a long shot.
Once you’ve done this, all that’s left is one final step.
Step 4: Link Building
This is the final step where you need to know if you need “friends” to help you on the battlefield.
Many times, high quality content will be enough to rank higher on Google (especially if it’s for low difficulty keywords).
But sometimes, especially for competitive keywords, it’s not.
You’re gonna need to build links to your content from other websites.
These links do a few things:
- They help get more eyeballs from your target market. If someone clicks the link from one article to another, that’s more attention to your website.
- Google loves ranking sites and pages with lots of quality links. It’s one of their main ranking factors. The amount you need will depend on your competitors, but even 2 or 3 will help a ton.
For example, that’s exactly what I’m doing with this guide here!
I’m wanting to grow the brand of my New Zealand SEO agency, and so I’m linking from this article that you’re reading here to my guide!
This serves two purposes:
- StoryChief gets a high-quality, no-fluff article written by a human (not AI) with experience on the topic, and
- I get a link back to my website!
The main way I like to get links is through guest posting on other related websites like this one.
I enjoy guest posting for a few reasons:
- I love connecting with people. I’ve enjoyed communicating and connecting with Esther (the content marketing manager at StoryChief).
- I love writing. If you’re reading this, I thoroughly enjoy writing content for you that both a) I’ve got experience in, and b) genuinely serves you.
- I get a backlink to my site!
It’s a win-win all around.
I win, you win, and StoryChief wins.
Here’s how you can find great guest posting opportunities for your website:
Type search terms like “write for us” + your industry into Google.
For me, that looks something like this:
When you do that, you’ll find a ton of blogs that are accepting guest posts.
You can reach out to each one of the blogs individually and submit a guest post pitch.
Just a few key points about this process:
- You need to be a great writer. Write like you talk, and be confident about a subject.
- Educate and entertain. Help people with what they’re wanting to learn, but do it in a way that has some zazz to it. Use stories, analogies, metaphors, and everything of the sorts.
- Make your content readable. Separate the text with images. Use descriptive headers and write in short sentences.
One of the most important things you need is to have experience in a subject.
Experience gives you the ability to teach it to someone else.
For example, the first guest post I wrote for StoryChief was about how I grew my Youtube Channel to 3,000,000 views:
If I didn’t have the experience and results, then it would’ve made it way harder to get accepted.
So you definitely need to be able to back up what you’re saying with rock-solid, real proof.
Step 5: Scale
If you do this process enough times, Google will get the notice that you’re pretty darn good at this whole content game, and you’ll start to rank.
You can’t do this just once, you need to do it repeatedly.
The more you do it, just like anything else, the easier it becomes.
What’s even better is this:
You will rank higher on Google even if you don’t have any backlinks to your sites.
Because you’ve built so many articles with backlinks previously, Google bumps up not just the authority of those pages but the authority of your domain as a whole.
This means you’ll start to post articles and start ranking without needing any “backlink friends” to help you out.
Just start from Step 1 again for a whole new keyword, and get to competing on the SEO battlefield.
Wrapping It All Up
That’s how I rank higher on Google for keywords with thousands of searches per month.
There’s no secret sauce. No magic hack.
Just simple, high-ROI work done over and over again.
Research. Write. Promote. Repeat.
It’s not sexy. But it works.
“Chop wood, carry water.”
The ones who win?
They’re the ones who keep showing up.
Grab your free SEO analysis today. No more hassle of switching tools and getting overwhelmed with keyword data, just actionable SEO insights at a glance.
