How to improve visibility of new content

[aliciaporrata1009]

What are best SEO practices to improve visibility in SERP for new content apart from meta data.

[EGOL]

If this is good content that is highly sharable then I would start by promoting it prominently on every page of my website.  If you use social get it out there with a carefully crafted pitch.

[erickcalderon]

This is a long answer

To get content to rank you need to have a good plan in place before you write the content and then patience after.

Make sure your content is something that people are interested in and are willing to share before you actually write it. Good content actually starts with keyword and viral research. So for example lets say your site sells dog collars. Instead of writing all your content about dog collars, you can think in more broad terms like: Dog collars for training purposes, Things you need to know about puppies, dog skin irritations, do prong collars hurt or help training... Do keyword research to find what these terms can be. (use google ad words to estimate traffic).

Next use content explorer from AHREFS to see what content having to do with your keywords has been viral in the last 24hrs to 6 months.
For Example: If you type in dog collars it shows that in the past 24 hours an article about "16 things you need to know about getting a puppy." has been shared on Facebook 4.2k times and retweeted 82 times. Narrow your keyword list to the top content ideas.

Next go to google, search your new keyword list to see what ranks for the them.

Next quickly use Moz Open Site Explorer to check the DA/ PA / and link and spam metrics of the guys on the front page of those results. Try to identify if there are sites you can knock out with a properly optimized piece and some links.

Narrow down your keyword list again based on your results and then you can run a keyword difficulty report on Moz. Run a FULL REPORT so you can see all the different variables that makes those sites rank. This can give you a strategy for what you will need to outrank what is already there.

Next start to write your content based on what is MOST SHARABLE SOCIALLY, what is MOST ATTAINABLE to rank for, and what shows decent traffic. Make sure you follow proper on page SEO. Use Moz On Page Grader to grade your content while you write it. Check the results. Adjust your content to get the best grade. You should also grade the competitor pages you are trying to outrank to make sure your on page SEO is at least as good or better than theirs.
Link Tip: see who the top sites are linking to and link to those resources or better ones. Research in Moz and Ahrefs and Majestic who is linking to the already ranking content. Try to see if there are ways to build links from those same places. Replicate what is making them rank, follows, no follows, as long as they are relevant are good.

After you are happy with your content it's time to distribute it. This part is the hard part.

Make sure you use Google web master tools / search console to Fetch and Render the new page. Then submit it to index.

Start your Social Distribution Campaign by first posting to your sites social media pages.
Check your visibility for the article by seeing how much it is shared, liked, retweeted...
If you are posting to a businesses Facebook page you can see how many people have viewed the post. You may be surprised to see that not too many people see posts at first due to Facebook's sharing algorithm.
There are 2 ways to get more distribution on Facebook, the easy way is pay for it, promote/boost your post or run an add with your post pointing to your content, make sure you target the ad to your preferred audience.
The harder way is to get engagement on your post (likes, shares, and comments) in the first hour(s) your post is published.
If you run an ad you can track conversions on sales or goals with Faceebook's pixel so that you can see people coming back and purchasing after the first visit. This pixel will also place your post/ad in front of visitors after they leave your site if they did not complete a transaction.

Hopefully you can get some traffic from here. Check your web analytics to see what networks sent better traffic. More conversions, more time on site, etc... Based on this data you can invest more time and money in promoting to that network as your target customers are more likely there than on the other networks.

Monitor the groups on these networks as well to see if your content can add value to the discussion in the groups. Word of caution DONT SPAM the groups it just looks bad for you in the long run. As with reputation management it is better to already be a part of the Group and have an established presence by sharing valuable content, so when you share content you're affiliated with as long as it adds value it wont be seen as SPAM and you won't get banned.

To see if Google has indexed your new page do a site:websiteURL search and check to see if your new page is listed.

Next search your target keyword and synonyms to see where you rank for those. Record your position.

Next you can use google to look for outreach points. Sites you can contact to do traditional link building. If your content is original and adds value to the conversation you have a better chance at getting good links. Don't worry if you don't get too many, this can be really hard depending on what you are writing about.

Check your Google Results positions regularly. (I do it every morning and again throughout the day).

Track your results and keep doing competitive research. As you learn more of what your competitors are doing, repeat your outreach process to get more exposure.

If you are a site with low authority you can have the most amazing content and still have trouble ranking or getting traffic. For example in the hair product space, L'Oreal will always have an easier time ranking a page than a small hair care brand. It can be done but it is a harder job because of the trust google places on Authority. To help rank less authority sites you need social presence and social importance.

Hope this helps. Make sure you track all of this in a spreadsheet of some sort, so the next time you launch a new piece of content you can just follow a blue print. MOZ's white board Fridays cover how to do a lot of this and Ahrefs has a great series called over simplified SEO that talks about all this in easy to understand terms. Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Erick