I’m back again with another experimental SEO strategy. I call this one “Meta Analysis.” The main idea that drives this strategy is providing a knowledge base about your brand and your content for your users.
Essentially, you are looking to tell both your users and Google what you are doing and why, in a way that is both engaging and well-structured. This bolsters any particular mass of content, hopefully giving it more authority and power in the long run.
Tell ‘Em What It Is
Again, I’m going to use my main blog, Extra Chill, as an example of how this works, and how I’m implementing it.
On Extra Chill, there is a popular category called Song Meanings. As the title suggests, this category is all about in-depth lyrical analysis. It is one of the number one drivers of traffic and engagement for the blog.
Bolstering Powerful Content
Naturally, I want to bolster this content. So, just like most people in my situation would do, I created a category description that briefly explains what the category represents.
In the modern era, that alone is not enough. You also don’t want to overdo it by creating one of those annoying, excessively long landing pages that explains everything about a topic.
What you want to do is create another page on the site that is all about that particular category, how you create content for it, and the philosophy that drives it. Then, you link to that page in the category description, so users who want to know more can click through to find out, but those who just want to see the content, can just see the content.
On Extra Chill, this page is titled How We Analyze Songs, and it explains how we choose songs to analyze, how we structure our posts, maintain accuracy, and various references we commonly use.
Prioritizing User Engagement
Taking it a step further, as we cannot do things simply for SEO in the modern era, I have added a custom feature to both the Song Meanings and Music History categories that allows users to easily filter the content based on artist or tag.
The idea here is to improve the overall user experience, which it did rather dramatically, thus leading to greater engagement and more time on page, thus bolstering the site and its overall presence.
Going Deeper
You can also take this strategy up another level, by creating Meta-Analytical content about your brand in general. These are pages that document your history, philosophies, and long term plans and goals.
Having this type of content on your site will serve to humanize you for your audience. It is not written to attract clicks from keywords, but rather to send them down the rabbit hole learning more about your business, and hopefully connecting with you on an authentic level and becoming fans of what you do.
Rather than link to all of the examples of this on Extra Chill, I will direct you to the About page where you can see these pages in action under the “More Information” header.
Other Things to Note
Ads are turned off on each of these informational pages. The purpose is not to drive revenue, but engage users with your brand and convert them into fans. That point cannot be stressed enough. Additionally, ads are disabled on the homepage, all archive pages, and the contact page.
Going deeper, the presence of a personal portfolio site for myself, the owner of Extra Chill, further deepens the roots of the brand, contributing to a big-picture, holistic view of who we are and what we do.
Your mileage may vary, but this is how I am building my business today.