How well is your content optimized for people and search engines?
Content optimization is the simplest element of SEO that you can get to understand.
Are you a newbie looking to learn content optimization or just in search of guides to jog your memory? If so, then this guide is definitely for you. You’ll get to see how a perfectly optimized content looks like.
Optimizing content is more than just a matter of keyword presence and metadata and more an issue of trust, intent, quality, and authority.
Content was and still remains Google’s strongest ranking signal yet most don’t seem to be getting it right. The days when you could write a 300 words content and rank well a long gone. It now takes a killer piece to rank on SERPs.
Ensure that every post you publish should automatically be able to answer one simple question.
Typically, you’ll be publishing content to meet one of a number of goals, including:
- To rank on the SERPs.
- To earn links.
- To educate an audience.
- To drive social engagement.
- To generate leads.
I insist don’t create content all for the wrong reasons like:
- Your boss wants to see a new blog post every day.
- Someone told you that the more content, the better (regardless of quality).
- Lots of fresh content helps our site to rank better.
To create perfectly optimized content, in this article we have prepared a comprehensive yet quick list that you can follow
Content optimization techniques
Target keywords
You should always make keyword research your starting point when writing your articles.
You need to establish whether you’re creating pillar content (the main hub of an overarching topic) or supporting content (related to the main topic and links back in) and map out keywords based upon this.
Focus on searching for highly-targeted keywords that will bring the right set of audiences to your site. You can also use LSI and long-tail keywords as they are generally of low competition and can bring good results.
Take your time and do thorough research. If you are not interested in using paid keyword research tools, you can use robust and free tools like Google Keyword Planner to search for keywords volume and competition
SEO Friendly URLs
SEO friendly URLs are URLs that are designed to meet the needs of users and searchers. URLs optimized for SEO tend to be short and keyword-rich.
Search engines use your webpage’s URL to understand what your content is all about.
Your URL should contain a keyword that you want your page to rank for(Preferably, that page’s target keyword). When you include a keyword in your URL, that keyword tells Google: “This page is about that keyword”.
Use hyphens as “word separators” in your URL. This is to let search engines know that “SEO”, “site” and “audit” are three separate words
Optimize title tags
Title tags are meant to provide the user with context for the page they are about to view. Page meta title tag are only visible in the search engine results page.
They are extremely valuable for SEO rankings because they provide users, and search engines, with context on the respective page.
The ideal title length should be within 60 characters as they are easy to read and remember. Your main target keyword should be included in the title and a few subheadings. Avoid including dates in the tiles to make the content look evergreen.
Metadescription
A quality meta description may not directly raise your site’s rankings, but it does play an important role in attracting well-qualified traffic.
A well written meta description can be the difference between getting the click and not.
Properly optimized meta descriptions can help in ranking the content much better in the search results. The ideal length of a meta description is around 155 to 160 characters and beyond that, the snippet got chipped in the search results.
Last updated timestamp
Google and other search engines pay a lot of attention to the freshness of the content and how frequently it gets updated for the readers.
To make sure that your content keeps ranking on the main keywords, focus on the last updated time-stamp. Time-stamp helps the readers to know when the article was published or when it was updated.
Rich media like images & videos
Images and videos improves the overall user experience and also add value. They makes content easier to read and consume.
It’s a well-known fact that we often learn better when content is visualized and there’s no denying that we’re more likely to work our way through a blog post which includes some form of visual content than simply one which includes nothing but text.
Heading tags
Header tags, also known as heading tags, are used to separate headings and subheadings on a webpage.
They rank in order of importance, from H1 to H6, with H1s usually being the title. Header tags improve the readability and SEO of a webpage
Make sure you are adding relevant keywords in the subheadings so that the content ranks higher. The standard rule of headings says that there should be only one H1 tag on a single page and that should be followed by H2 and H3 headings.
Internal linking
Internally linking through to other key pages on your site is compulsory.
Internal linking are a key way to navigate both users and search engines through your content and help to spread link equity to key pages.
They help establish information hierarchy for the given website. They help spread link equity (ranking power) around websites.
Outbound links
Outbound links, or external links, are the opposite of backlinks. Rather than another site having a link to your website (a backlink), outbound links are when you include a link to an external site on your blog page or website.
Outbound links are one way that people and search engines discover useful content. They are important because they can improve organic traffic, build trust, and even facilitate relationships with other businesses.
Page speed
Page speed is important to users because, well, faster pages are more efficient and provide a much better on-page user experience. Per a recent Kissmetrics infographic, if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, over a quarter of users will click away and choose a different search result.
These were some important content optimization tips to perfectly optimize the content and rank it higher in the search results. Follow these simple steps and take a leap from your competitors.
