Here is a playbook with example templates you can use to build a marketing content creation engine that scales.

![content-creation](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/6gPoUDXlBwSm1I6Z8H8iCe/ec23ea4c65e6f1d5cb6b273999e99bfb/content-creation.png)

5 steps to create a marketing content creation engine:
1. [Objective](#objective): Set a Marketing Objective
2. [Keywords](#keywords): Plan Topics by SEO Keywords
3. [Productivity](#productivity): Track Team Productivity
4. [Measure](#measure): Measure Page Performance
5. [Train](#train): Train your Team

### <a name="objective"></a> 1. Set a Marketing Objective
Your job as a marketing manager is to motivate your content team to do their job well. It starts with a focused mission and goal.

Write out a 1-pager setting out your team’s marketing objective, why you are doing this, how you are doing this and your guiding principles. 

At the beginning of each quarter, set out a goal and focus area for your content creation - this will shape your planning and set your discipline.

##### Marketing Objective - Example Template
__Mission__
The mission of the content team at [*company*] is to reach the 99.99% of people worldwide who experience the struggle of [*struggle your company solves*] and who have never heard of our solution.

__Objective__
To achieve our mission we will focus on creating high quality content that people who experience this struggle would search for.

The two primary metrics our team can directly impact are organic visits and new signups. 

__How__
The audience of people searching for a solution to or better understanding of their struggle far exceeds those searching for the services our company performs.

We aim to be the leading authority people find when they are searching for a solution to their struggle of [*struggle your company solves*].  

__Our Principles__
- __We are white-hat__: we respect the rules that search engines, forums and video platforms promote. If it feels like a hack, it’s probably a hack. We emphasise quality work over black-hat techniques
- __We are here to solve struggles__: our mission is to reach potential people who experience a struggle our solution can solve. Therefore, we will only produce and distribute content that is relevant and helpful to them
- __We are data driven__: keyword research and data helps us prioritise our efforts. Measuring key metrics (rankings, visits, conversion rates, time spent on pages) help inform us where to double down our efforts

__Q1-202X Goal__
- Focus content topics this quarter: [*list topics*]
- New high quality content pages: [*100*]  
- Organic visits: [*10,000*]
- Goal: [*1,000 new signups*]

### <a name="keywords"></a> 2. Plan Topics by SEO Keywords

Before you start writing any content, plan your topics based on keyword research.

Keyword research is used to find out within the Google search engine what questions people are asking and how many people are asking it on a given monthly basis. 

Follow the [SEO keyword research playbook](https://mannhowie.com/seo-keywords) to prepare a spreadsheet with four columns tracking the following: keyword term, monthly search volume, topics and competition.

##### Keyword & Topic Tracker -  Example Template

| Keyword     | Avg. Monthly Searches     | Topics     | Competition     |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| Food Safety       | 60,500       | Food Safety       | High       |
| Food Safety Manufacturing       | 70       | Food Safety       | Low       |
| HACCP       | 246,000       | Food Safety, Regulation       | Medium       |
| HACCP Plan      | 8,100       | Food Safety, Regulation       | Low       |

### <a name="productivity"></a>3. Track Team Productivity
Assign your content team topics to research and publish new pages based on your SEO keyword research. Track productivity based on quantity and quality of content published by each teammate.

Your job as a marketing manager is to set a target as to how many new pages each team member should publish each week. A good rule of thumb is to budget for 75% of a teammates working time spent on content research, writing and publication and 25% on individual learning, self-study and improvement.

Adopt a points-based system when deciding how much time a piece of content should take to write if written by an experienced teammate. Topics with higher volume keywords and higher competition should take longer to write (e.g. 4 points) vs topics with lower volume keywords and lower competition (1 point).

Set new starters lower content targets to hit per week to ensure quality is maintained. Use a spreadsheet to track content completion vs assigned scores against each teammate. Disciplined tracking will help you as a marketing manager identify top performers and where an individual requires more training.

##### Team Productivity Tracker - Example Template

|   Week   | Kelly (Snr) Assigned     | John (Jnr) Assigned     | Kelly (Snr) Completed     | John (Jnr) Completed     |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| Week 1       | 4       | 2       | 4       | 1       |
| Week 2       | 4       | 2       | 3       | 1       |
| Week 3       | 4       | 2       | 5       | 3       |
| Week 4       | 4       | 3       | 3       | 2       |
| __Total__       | __16__       | __9__       | __15__       | __7__       |

### <a name="measure"></a>4. Measure Page Performance
Track your published pages and their key performance metrics. Update this monthly.

Use a combination of Google Search Console, Google Analytics or any tool you may be using for tracking (e.g. Amplitude). These tools are all free to use and easy to learn.

Key metrics you should track include page views, SEO clicks, SEO impressions and conversion goals (e.g. signups, e-commerce purchases, demo requests).

##### Content Performance Tracker - Example Template 

| Page     | Date Published     | Teammate     | Keyword Vol     | Views     | Clicks     | Impressions     | Goal     |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| web_url       | 04-04-22       | Kelly       | 10,000       | 500       | 400       | 1,000       | 20       |
| web_url       | 05-04-22       | John       | 2,000       | 100       | 20       | 500       | 2       |
| web_url       | 05-04-22       | Kelly       | 12,000       | 1,000       | 900       | 10,000       | 100       |
| web_url       | 06-04-22       | John       | 1,000       | 20       | 20       | 100       | 0       |

### <a name="train"></a>5. Train Your Team
Andy Grove in his seminal book “[High Output Management](https://www.amazon.com.au/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884)” makes the case that “when a person is not doing their job, there can be only two reasons for it. The person either can’t do it or won’t do it; they are either not capable or not motivated”.

> “If you accept that training, along with motivation, is the way to improve the performance of your subordinates, and that what you teach must be closely tied to what you practice, and that training needs to be a continuing process rather than a one-time event, it is clear that the who of training is you, the manager.”

Andy Grove (Final Chapter in [High Output Management](https://www.amazon.com.au/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884) “Why Training is the Boss’s Job”)

Hence it stands to reason that your most important job as the marketing manager is to motivate and train your team. 

Here are some helpful guides you may use to improve your own understanding of content marketing which you may apply and also train your team on:
- SEO Keyword Research - [How to conduct SEO keyword research](https://mannhowie.com/seo-keywords)
- SEO Content Writing - [How to write content that ranks without backlinks](https://mannhowie.com/how-to-rank-without-backlinks)
- Management & Training - [High Output Management by Andry Grove](https://www.amazon.com.au/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884)
- Tooling - [Google Search Console](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://developers.google.com/search/docs/beginner/search-console&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1660985691059369&usg=AOvVaw0F2O51s7V-tdC5Ur2LF3IN)
- Writing Guides - [Writing in Plain English](http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/files/howto.pdf)


5 step playbook to build a marketing content creation engine: 1) Set a marketing objective; 2) Plan topics by SEO keywords; 3) Track team productivity; 4) Measure page results; 5) Train your team.

content-creation

How to Build a Content Creation Engine - Playbook & Template

![keyword target](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/7HEA3vbcmPKhrOiQ2nYt61/be2249e4d1d5223a3ad6e3d997e7b171/keyword_target.png)
SEO content marketing is a powerful strategy startups can use to capture sales leads and new customers from people researching solutions to their problems. 

The universe of people searching for an answer to a use-case that a product can help solve far exceeds those searching for the features or benefits of the product itself.

However, one of the most difficult parts of finding good SEO content topics to write about is knowing what to write about and where to start. This is where SEO keyword research can assist.

Keyword research is used to find out within the Google search engine what questions people are asking and how many people are asking it on a given monthly basis.

Here are 5 tactics for picking topics that drive demand generation:
1. [Brainstorm](#brainstorm):  How to brainstorm use-cases
2. [Pick Keywords](#pick-keywords): SEO Keyword Planner tool tips
3. [Assess Competition](#assess-competition): Competitor content assessment framework
4. [Frame Content](#frame-content): What to write about
5. [Measure & Track](#measure-and-track): Topic goal tracking template

Imagine we are a B2B startup with a product that helps customers perform food safety checks in the manufacturing sector.

### <a name="brainstorm"></a>1. How to brainstorm use-cases
Bad SEO content strategies often focus on highly competitive or low volume search topics related to product features and benefits. Good SEO content strategies focus on the use-cases and struggle of the user leading up to the need to use the product or service.

| 👎 Bad SEO Content Topics     | 👍 Good SEO Content Topics     |
| ---------- | ---------- |
| The Best Food Safety Software       | HACCP Food Safety Hazards       |
| How Food Safety Software Saves you Money       | GMP Food Safety Audits   |
| Food Safety Photo Sharing and Digital Tracking Features | Template Food Safety Logs |

Start by brainstorming a list of specific use-cases and tasks that your customers would use either your product or their existing solution for (e.g. even if it’s paper or spreadsheets). Pull out general keyword ideas.

| Use-case     | Keywords     |
| ------------ | ---------- |
| Spotting and recording food safety hazards       | Food safety hazard, contamination, hazard types, salmonella, thawing, violations       |
| Preparing for food safety regulatory audits       | HACCP, GMP, CCP, ISO22000       |
| Managing food product recalls       | Food recall, food outbreak       |
| Food safety prevention       | Food safety control measures, food safety program and training       |

### <a name="pick-keywords"></a>2. SEO Keyword Planner tool tips
Enter your list of brainstorm use-case keywords in [Google Keyword Planner](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7337243?hl=en-AU) and record the monthly search volume. Keyword Planner is a free tool built by Google to assist marketers with conducting paid google search campaigns. You can get free access to it by signing up for a free [Google Ads account](https://ads.google.com/intl/en_AU/home/#!/). 

![keyword planner](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/3W21OY8PVYFnz72hcCgdKn/05fdc98c3f88cb549d0648a847daff24/keyword_planner.png)

The important properties and metrics include:
- __Keyword (by relevance)__: list of exact keyword searches that broadly match the term you searched including other keyword ideas that Google identified based on people’s search patterns
- __Avg. monthly searches__: Google’s estimate of the total average monthly searches for that specific term based on the selected location. Very low search volume is likely to yield low results even if your content ranks whilst high search volume is likely to be highly competitive and will be difficult to rank for
- __Competition__: how competitive a term is in terms of paid search. High competition keywords will likely be dominated by paid search ads at the top of the search results, meaning even if you rank you will likely achieve low click through rates
- __Locations__: country and region for the search volume. Narrow this down for your core regions where you are targeting potential customers or a specific topic 

[Google Trends](https://trends.google.com/trends/) can also be a helpful tool as a leading indicator as to whether a keyword term is trending higher or has recently broken out. In the example below we can see that kinder salmonella has been a breakout term and could be a case study topic for customers to learn about. 

![google trends](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/7xAIsakmODo3zx9IXyEVrU/79748b017194a175fc200b12db88f0d0/google_trends.png)

In a spreadsheet, create a list of your keywords including the avg. monthly searches, competition and general trend.

In our food safety example above, we follow the systematic approach and come to the following conclusion: “__HACCP Plan__” will be the target keyword we should research and write content on:

| Exact Keyword     | Avg. Monthly Searches     | Comments     |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| Food safety       | 60,500       | 👎 Broad term covering restaurants, at home, manufacturing. Google may only pick 1 or 2 manufacturing specific results for page 1 given how broad the term is       |
| Food safety manufacturing       | 70       | 👎 Relevant to manufacturing food safety standards but search volume is too low       |
| HACCP       | 246,000       | 👎 Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is certification of a food safety management system that food manufacturers follow. However, it is quite competitive with lots of great regulatory content on it already. Will need to write lots of amazing content to outrank       |
| HACCP Plan       | 8,100       | 👍 Bingo. The specific plan that is written to implement HACCP certification. Medium competition, not amazing content on a HACCP Plan.       |

### <a name="assess-competition"></a>3. Competitor content assessment framework
Google has one job: 
> “To match a person’s question being searched for with the best possible answer”

After you have determined the keyword is worth chasing after (e.g. sufficient volume, the right audience and where your product could offer a solution related to that use-case) you will need to evaluate the current ranking content to determine what content you will be competing with.

#### How to view competitor pages in the relevant region
Google tailors its search results to individual browsing history and specific localised region. You will need to use Google’s free [Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool](https://ads.google.com/aw/diagnostic/AdPreview?ocid=97975120&__c=7032476880&__u=2081691172&authuser=1&__o=kp&lang=en&loc=9060914&device=30001) to preview competitor search results as it would most likely appear to your target customers.

![adnetwork](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/1Qs3FWJsvp6ataujgFVh5y/7303672f510529687a187e5c4b6aa2f2/adnetwork.png)

Go through each page and assess for the following:
- __Audience__: is this audience right for our solution? 
- __Authority__: is the writer a high authority figure on the topic? Regulatory agencies will be more difficult to beat, however not impossible if the content is of low value
- __Relevance__: is the answer relevant to the question being asked? Is it still timely or has not been updated in a long time?

In assessing the top search result for our keyword example: HACCP Plan

| Category     | Competitor Assessment     | Good Fit     |
| ---------- | ---------- | ---------- |
| __Audience__       | Good fit audience likely food safety officers       | 👍       |
| __Authority__       | US FDA ultimate authority hard to beat       | 👎       |
| __Relevance__       | Long set of legal regulatory guidelines, difficult for people to digest and understand.        | 👍       |

The audience is a good fit with a relevance to our solution but the competing authority is very high. However, given the highly technical nature of the page there exists an opportunity for us to create better content summarising the key aspects of the HACCP Plan that would be more digestible for a non-regulatory audience. 

Following the competitor assessment and before framing a topic, ask yourself: 

*“Can we write a piece of content within the time constraints that would be better than these pages”?*

### <a name="frame-content"></a>4. What to write about
Frame your content to ask the who, what and why of your customer’s struggle related to the keyword. In our example for the keyword: "__HACCP Plan__"

| Question     | Answer     |
| ---------- | ---------- |
| Who is the target audience?       | Food safety officers working in food manufacturing       |
| What questions would they ask?       | How to develop a HACCP Plan       |
| Why are they asking this question?       | Preparing information and processes to provide to food safety auditor to comply with HACCP       |

With the target customer, struggle and intent established we can propose a title and meta and see how it would compare against the first page results (in essence our book cover).

Proposed title and meta for our content:

__How to Develop a HACCP Plan - Preparing for Audit__
*What is a HACCP Plan? What information to provide to HACCP auditors? Choosing the right food safety management software to document your records.*

This can then be added to the content management plan for further detailed research and content drafting. [See my previous article for a detailed guide on how to write SEO content](https://mannhowie.com/how-to-rank-without-backlinks).

### <a name="measure-and-track"></a>5. Topic goal tracking template
After publishing your content (via your web CMS), request for the page to be indexed via Google Search Console ([click here to learn how](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/ask-google-to-recrawl)). 

Track the content published in a spreadsheet with the following columns:
- __Exact Keyword__: the name of the main keyword we are targeting (e.g. HACCP Plan)
- __Avg. Monthly Searches__: from Keyword Planner above (e.g. 8,100)
- __Date Published__: date article was published and google search index request made
- __URL__: url of the content page

It will take a few weeks for Google to start gathering search performance data on your newly published page. Use Google Search Console to track the organic performance of your pages by entering the specific URL.  
![search console](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/1VSax2eXPQT4BoofYrZ5vC/277c852f990ce053e518dc2a3364dddc/search_console.png)

The important properties and metrics to understand are:
- __Clicks__: organic unique SEO visits to your page during the date range
- __Impressions__: number of times your page has come up in search query results
- __CTR__: % Click Through Rate being Clicks / Impressions (i.e. the % of people who clicked on your result upon seeing it on the page against other results)
- __Position__: the average position ranking of your page across all queries

Track these results in your same spreadsheet and follow the discipline of benchmarking and measuring the results of your content pages against your original keyword targets. Review your results at the end of each quarter to identify whether further content optimisation is needed to improve the relevance of your pages, or optimisation to the title and description may increase your CTR, or whether further content improvement is required to reflect change in competing pages.   

#### How long does it take to rank
Established websites with high quality pages should begin to rank on page 1 globally within a month and achieve top 3 ranking within 3 months. You can expect this to take longer if you have a newer website that has not published much content.

__Organic weekly traffic of pages published in December (redacted private data)__
![Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 9.50.46 pm](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/2jbNMVJbLPFob5wK2s7o4c/bfe8e57a46a652465520213df77392f3/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_9.50.46_pm.png)


5 tactics for picking topics that drive demand generation. 1) How to Brainstorm Use-Cases; 2) SEO Keyword Planner Tool Tips; 3) Competitor Content Assessment Framework; 4) What to Write About; 5) Keyword Goal Tracking Template 

keyword target

SEO Keywords for Demand Generation - A Content Marketing Playbook

Product, marketing and sales teams can learn to run growth experiments to validate new strategies in the real world before incurring significant resource investment.
![guess_vs_experiment](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/40uy9hD2VDsloevHEODX5m/7231e7f18856fa8c00e0f9eaef7347ec/guess_vs_experiment.png)

[Confirmation bias](https://mannhowie.com/cognitive-bias#confirmation) is a psychological tendency where we seek information that validates our existing beliefs as well as avoiding contradictory information. This bias often causes teams to waste resources on initiatives that validate existing views but are ineffective in the real world.

This article explains the 4 key steps of a growth experiment and a practical example of how you can run your own growth experiment quickly and cost effectively:
1. [Hypothesis](#hypothesis)
2. [Trigger](#trigger)
3. [Action](#action)
4. [Measure](#measure)

Imagine we are in the product marketing team of a B2B software startup that provides a tool for capturing customer complaints called Capturo.

## <a name="hypothesis"></a>1. Hypothesis
Set a hypothesis early. Start by identifying a customer struggle and business outcome of what you are trying to achieve. Form your own explanation as to what is causing the customer struggle and come up with a solution as to what could ease that struggle. [User interviews](https://mannhowie.com/user-interviews) are an effective tool at this stage if you have the time.

It is important at this stage to avoid the pitfall of falling in love with your explanation and solution. Focusing on the struggle will allow you to run a new growth experiment if the current one fails.

### __Example Hypothesis__
__Struggle:__ Our new users are observed to create a lower number of customer complaint forms on the platform than our existing users which is leading to lower product engagement and complaints captured.

__Explanation:__ We suspect two core reasons: 1) New users are unfamiliar with the types of questions to ask to gather complaints; 2) New users lack the time or know-how to digitise their existing questions into our platform.

__Solution:__ Our proposed solution will address the first explanation of new users not knowing what questions to ask. We will research and propose the most frequently asked questions to address customer complaints by service type (e.g. contact centre, restaurant, consultation).

__Hypothesis:__
> “Teaching new users the most commonly asked customer complaint questions relevant to their business will help them create more forms on the platform and gather more customer complaints”

## <a name="trigger"></a>2. Trigger
Establish a trigger point to communicate with your customer around their struggle and your proposed solution. The most effective mediums are email and calling customers directly. In-app banners, notifications and user flows are expensive if you do not already have the infrastructure in place. As this is a growth experiment we do not need to worry about solutions that don’t scale yet. 

The three most important components of a trigger:
1. __Audience:__ identify your target audience. Start with bigger groups, segmenting at this stage will be time consuming and take longer to gather results
2. __Message:__ keep consistent with your original hypothesis. There is no need to A/B test on a small scale but avoid message variation overkill
3. __Timing:__ identify the best time to contact your users to get their attention. Be sparing for when you trigger again due to lack of response

### __Example Trigger__
__Audience:__ our growth experiment will be to email new users who have created two forms or less in the platform from their first three months of joining

__Message:__ “Real examples of customer survey questions [Dental Practices] are using in Capturo” or “Top 6 customer survey questions [Dental Practices] ask in Capturo”

__Timing:__ Send when admin users are most active on the platform (for example mid-week mornings)

## <a name="action"></a>3. Action
Establish an action that you can measure based on the trigger. This can include opening a link to an article, registering interest via a form, logging in to the platform to perform an activity, emailing or calling back to respond.

Without creating an action it will be difficult to measure the success of your growth experiment.

### __Example Action__
Create a webpage link in the email which takes a user to the top customer survey questions.
E.g email link.
“View top 6 customer survey question examples”

## <a name="measure"></a>4. Measure
Measure and track the performance of the trigger and action stages. Start simple and use a spreadsheet to track key results. Free or cheap email tracking plug-ins are an effective way of tracking email open and click-through rates.

Once you feel you have gathered enough insight (can take a few weeks) assess the results and determine if your hypothesis was correct. Within the same experiment you can go back and modify the trigger and action to gather more data if needed.

### Example Measure
Create a spreadsheet with columns to track the following:
User contact email and id
- Email message sent
- Date and time sent
- Date and time opened email (use email tracking tools)
- Date and time opened link (use email tracking tools)
- Already sent (Y/N)
- Created a new template (Y/N) (check manually each week)

After measuring the performance assess engagement metrics for example:
- Total users contacted
- Average contact count per user
- % email open rate
- % click through rate
- % users creating new template

__Happy case__
If the % click through rate and % users creating a new template is good we have quickly validated that knowing the right questions to ask can help boost form creation. We now have an improved business case for investing more resources in-app to build onboarding tours in the form creation stage.

__Sad case__
If the % open rate is poor after adjusting for message and timing then the solution of our hypothesis is likely incorrect. We can go back to our original hypothesis and form a solution for our second explanation (e.g. already know what questions to ask but don’t have the time to create a new form). 


4 steps to a successful growth experiment: 1) Hypothesis; 2) Trigger; 3) Action; 4) Measure. Practical example for how teams can run growth experiments quickly and cheaply.

guess_vs_experiment

How to Run a Growth Experiment - Learn the 4 Steps

Why do most startups fail to find product market fit? 
![beware_solutions_seeking_problems](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/2rGuWsynYvglJNeJeWcQoz/b11da185061ef24f957efe1f9683d4f8/beware_solutions_seeking_problems.png)

Because our [confirmation bias](https://mannhowie.com/cognitive-bias) creates tunnel vision towards our existing solutions. Instead we should frame our focus on solving the user’s struggle.

Here are 5 questions you can ask in user interviews to validate if your startup has found product market fit.

Imagine we are a startup building solutions for mortgage brokers.

## 1. What progress are you trying to make in X?
__*Example:*__
__Q.__ What progress are you trying to make in finalising loan applications?

__A.__ I’m looking for my team to close more loans and shorten the bank approval times.

## 2. What is your biggest struggle when trying to make progress in X?
__*Example:*__
__Q.__ What is your biggest struggle in getting bank approvals completed on time?

__A.__ Document gathering with our customers. A single important lost or incomplete document can slow the whole process down and cause frustration amongst both lenders and borrowers, both of whom are our customers.

## 3. Tell me about the last time you encountered this struggle?
*__Example__*
__Q.__ Tell me about the last time you encountered this struggle? (create a timeline of the event as if you were in their shoes)

__A.__ Last month one of our new starters had a backlog of 10 applications with one of our newer lenders. An applicant customer did not submit a key piece of information that the new lender required but this only came to light a couple of weeks after the applicant had already submitted all the documents we asked. The lender was frustrated that we missed the information (as they said they had asked us for this before) and the applicant was livid as they had already terminated their rental lease.

## 4. What solutions have you previously tried?
__Example:__
__Q.__ What solutions have you previously tried to avoid or manage this struggle?

__A.__ We’ve used shared cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox, onboarding checklists to make sure we don’t miss things and our CRM tool to keep track of emails.

## 5. What didn’t you love about those solutions?
__Example:__
__Q.__ What don’t you love about those solutions you’ve previously tried?

__A.__ Some of the tools create more work for our team in managing the document workflow and version control, we still have to review all the documents to make sure they are complete. As a result we still rely heavily on email to follow-up and confirm next steps with both lenders and customers but then it’s easy for us to miss things and drown in emails.

## Bad User Interview Questions
User interviews to find product market fit should be framed around the user’s struggle and not solution ideas. 

Bad user interview questions include:
- What ideal solution would you like to solve your struggle? ❌
- Do you have any feedback on our solution? ❌
- Would you use this solution if we offered it? ❌
- What do you think we could do to improve your process? ❌
- Do you know anyone else in your company who would use our solution? ❌

## User Interview Insights
Following the insights from our 5 user interview questions we are now better able to frame the struggle for our mortgage broker manager as:

> “Communicating between lenders and customers the missing information needed to complete a loan application”

Solutions we can now explore to solve the problem could include:
- Assignees for onboarding docs (whose court is it in now) 💡
- Automatic email reminders of incomplete docs 💡
- Auto-logging emails to capture a digital chat history 💡
- Identify which docs have not been updated in a while 💡

Framing the challenge around the user struggle allows us to continue iterating on solutions to help users make progress instead of being fully invested into one solution. 

⚠️ Beware solutions seeking problems.


5 user interview questions to validate product market fit: 1) What progress are you trying to make?; 2) What is the hardest thing about making progress?; 3) Tell me about the last time you encountered the struggle; 4) What solutions have you previously tried? 5) What didn’t you love about those solutions?

beware_solutions_seeking_problems

5 Questions to Ask to Find Product Market Fit - User Interviews

> *TLDR; Google’s job is to match the best content to the relevant question. If an answer is better, then it should outrank. Backlinks should be a reflection of, not a source of ranking.*

Do you need SEO backlinks to rank? The answer is no. Here is an SEO Content Template and framework to show you how. Without creating backlinks, we built SEO to be our largest acquisition channel for a world class B2B SaaS company.

By the end of this article you will learn:
- 👈[What are Backlinks?](#what-are-backlinks)
- 🚀[How we Built Huge SEO Traffic Without Backlinks](#how-we-built)
- ✔️[3 Simple Steps to Follow](#3-simple)
- 📥[Download SEO Content Template](#framework)
- ⌛[How Long Does it Take to Rank?](#how-long)
- 🤔[Do Backlinks Still Matter?](#do-backlinks-matter)

📥<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yq7iLrVDq5oWBLXzLw4ZftvnMHFrqYhzJ7amuK87is4/edit" target="_blank">Skip the article and download the SEO Content Template we use to write SEO content that ranks.</a>

## 👈<a name="what-are-backlinks"></a> What are Backlinks?
Let’s start with some background. Backlinks are external websites that link back to your webpages. They occur when others cite you or refer to you as something of interest to their readers through a hyperlink. 

Backlinks formed the basis of Google’s patented [PageRank algorithm](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/a9/18/d7c46ea42c4b05/US6285999.pdf) (named after founder Larry Page). The invention ranked the importance of a webpage not just on the number of citations it had, but on the importance of those citing pages.

#### Google PageRank Patent Filed 9 Jan 1998
[![Google PageRank patent](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/4fep3mpwZl6DRj1fZGtXNT/25e1f20de062f2c0d279811248c80056/unnamed.png?h=300)
](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/a9/18/d7c46ea42c4b05/US6285999.pdf)
> The rank assigned to a document is calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. This implies a recursive definition of rank. In addition, the rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document. 

Then the world changed forever. Fast forward 20 years and today Google answers over [3.5 billion](http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/) questions daily and has become the information portal for the human race (minus China). People globally are actively using Google to find information and make important decisions.

How well you rank on Google can be a determining factor in your audience reach and success.

## 🚀<a name="how-we-built"></a> How we Built Huge SEO traffic Without Backlinks
I had the privilege and joy to build and lead the SEO team for [SafetyCulture](http://safetyculture.com/), a global B2B SaaS startup with a mission to improve safety and quality in the global workplace. 

Within 12 months we turned a virtually non-existent SEO presence into our largest and fastest growing customer acquisition channel and cut dependency on costly paid advertising to fuel growth. All without link building.

#### SEMrush organic US traffic for safetyculture.com (public)
![SEMrush organic traffic chart](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/3sKDGJ1avIOLWzWonddpWY/8d09c396809791ac12afc250fb7b428f/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_11.32.41_am.png?h=300)

With zero experience in marketing or SEO, I was overwhelmed by the countless guides, tools, hacks, tips and must-dos to rank in Google. I tried many link building strategies, but after  sending hundreds of spam emails only to get a handful of backlinks, I felt there must be a better way and went back to basics.

Google’s [stated mission](https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/) is to: 

> organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, people around the world turn to Search to find information, learn about topics of interest, and make important decisions.

Google makes public the factors that determine its search quality ranking in this [164 page document](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf). Google contracts with over 10,000 search quality evaluators worldwide who use this document to rank the quality ranking of webpages to help power Google’s machine learning search algorithms.

Here are the 4 most important factors that Google uses to determine page quality ranking:
- __Purpose__ - how well does the page achieve its stated purpose vs the user intent
- __Quality of the content__ - is it factually accurate, well researched, clearly written and provides value
- __Authority__ - does the author and website have expertise and are they trustworthy
- __Functionality__ - is it mobile responsive, good UX, functionality and widgets all working

[PageRank](https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/algorithms/) remains an important factor, but namely from backlinks to high quality content that naturally gain popularity. 

[Google](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) has this to say about backlinks:

> The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.

The next section will provide a framework for how you can create unique, relevant content that readers want.

## ✔️<a name="3-simple"></a> 3 Simple Steps to Rank
Here are the 3 simple steps our SEO team still uses to write targeted and high quality content
1. Find the Right Keyword to Target - Know Your Audience
2. Competition - What Have Others Already Said on the Topic
3. Write Great Content

💡To illustrate how to apply these steps, we will use the preparation and writing of this article itself as an example.

### 1. Find the Right Keyword to Target - Know Your Audience
This is the most important step. In order to write high quality content that achieves its stated purpose we need to understand who we are writing for and their intent.

- __Who - is the target audience?__ For this article, our audience is online and growth marketers and people working in tech startups
- __What - questions would they ask?__ How to create backlinks
- __Why - are they asking this question?__ What is the intent behind the question? What is the [Job To Be Done](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done) from creating backlinks? In this case, it is to have content that ranks and drives traffic

From here we use Google’s [free keyword planner tool](https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/) to select the right keywords (questions) to target. In our case we know that users mostly search for `backlinks`, `seo backlinks`, `what are backlinks` etc. as opposed to `link building`. 

#### Google Keyword Planner Tool Snapshot
![Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 4.44.47 pm](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/34zMMRwzeV90S7ZydJks1I/f5dcd5ac29cba9fac639c273710db78c/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_4.44.47_pm.png?h=300)
> ☝️General Rule of Thumb: Top ranking search results on average capture 30% of average monthly search volume (known as the Click Through Rate - __CTR__). So over time if this article were able to achieve a #1 ranking for the `backlinks` keyword that would represent a potential 15,000 global visits a month. The CTR falls exponentially as rankings drop. Very few visitors go beyond page 1 search results.

### 2. Competition - What Have Others Already Said on the Topic
To create a quality piece of content, we need to know what others have already said on the topic and determine if we can write something better. This is where many fall short and end up paraphrasing or writing content that is inferior to existing pages that rank. 

For our target keyword of `backlinks`, we must google and review the first page results to evaluate what has been said.

#### First Page Search Results for Target Keyword
![Google result for keyword backlinks](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/QgLsTaayCrmL9bADStT1y/94796327e61195875a8dfe31ec6ad49b/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_5.20.42_pm.png?h=300)

We see many definitive strategy guides on how to backlink and the importance of backlinking. As I have nothing more insightful to add to this topic I have opted for a contrarian response to the same question:

👉 *__How to Rank Without Backlinks: 3 Simple Steps [Free Framework]__*

### 3. Write Great Content
Now that we have a topic based on a target audience, intent and question, we can get to work. While it is still possible to write high quality content without being an authoritative expert (in fact it’s often easier) finding an author with expertise on the topic would rank content higher.

For this article I felt I have both the authority and experience to discuss this topic. There are basic online writing tips you can follow but never forget to empathize with the user. Don’t be selfish with your writing. Write for your user, deliver value, solve their problem.

## 📥<a name="framework"></a> Free SEO Content Template
On the topic of giving value to your users. I have created a Framework Template you can view, download and customize for your content. Our team uses this framework before researching and writing any piece of SEO content.

#### Download SEO Content Template
[![SEO Content Framework Template Screenshot](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/5H9VRaQTV6pZrU1RCBVAj4/e9b849b2d8462a7bd5728d338b87219f/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_6.26.34_pm.png?h=300)
](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yq7iLrVDq5oWBLXzLw4ZftvnMHFrqYhzJ7amuK87is4/edit)

## ⌛<a name="how-long"></a> How Long Does it Take to Rank Without Backlinks?
The ability to rank for keywords will depend on the relative competitiveness of your content. A piece of content that is better researched, articulated and solves the user's problem should rank well even without backlinks.

Our experience was that high quality pages would begin to rank on page 1 globally within a month and achieve top 3 ranking within 3 months. If we didn’t rank page 1 within a month then we would revisit the content, competition and user problem.

#### Organic weekly traffic of pages published in December (redacted private data)
![Amplitude chart](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/2jbNMVJbLPFob5wK2s7o4c/bfe8e57a46a652465520213df77392f3/Screen_Shot_2019-05-01_at_9.50.46_pm.png?h=300)

However, if the competing content is of higher quality and has greater backlinks and authority ([use a free tool to check](https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar)), then you are unlikely to outrank others.

## 🤔<a name="do-backlinks-matter"></a> Do Backlinks Still Matter?
Yes, while not the deciding factor, the PageRank algorithm remains an indicator of a page’s authority. It should be used as an outreach tool to amplify high quality content you have already written.

Remember, time spent understanding your user and solving their problems is always time better spent. 

---
*Final note: Thank you to the amazing SafetyCulture SEO team for giving me the opportunity to lead, teach and work alongside all you beautiful humans 💖.*
#### SafetyCulture SEO Team Photo

![SEO Team Photo](//images.ctfassets.net/vwq10xzbe6iz/6XoDFOg6jR7SPmHsRiLHWC/e11229b0e3b39b59184e08ffcd2aadd0/IMG_20190308_160804.jpg?h=300)


What are backlinks? Do you need SEO backlinks to rank? The answer is no. Here is a framework to show you how. Without creating backlinks, we built SEO to be our largest acquisition channel for a world class SaaS company.