Loading...- What Is SEO Content Optimization?
- Benefits of Content Optimization
- 11 Content Optimization Tips
- SEO Content Optimization - The Takeaway
What Is SEO Content Optimization?
SEO content optimization is the process of creating and formatting your content in a way that generates organic traffic from the search engine. This is possible thanks to targeting specific keywords that are related to your page content and correspond to users’ queries.Benefits of Content Optimization
Properly optimized content can benefit your website in a number of ways. It has a positive impact on:- Positions in the ranking - if your website contains keywords typed into Google by users, and is additionally filled with unique, quality content, it can rank higher in the search results for these specific phrases. Of course, there are a number of other ranking factors and Google standards you need to meet to reach the TOP10. Nevertheless, without keywords and content, you won’t make your way to the first page of the search results even if your site loads fast, is user-friendly, and has intuitive navigation.
- Website traffic - the higher your position in the search results, the more people visit your website. As simple as that. Any doubts? Just think how often you go to the second page of the search results, and how often you choose sites that aren’t ranked in the TOP10 ;).
- Brand awareness - being displayed high in the search results translates into better brand recognition. Even if users don’t choose your company right away when they come across it in the SERPs, they’ll see its name. Consequently, if they look for similar products or services in the future, they may go directly to your website.
- Revenue - without a shadow of a doubt, all the above-mentioned advantages of SEO content optimization translate into greater revenues. More quality website visits equal more finalized transactions.
11 Content Optimization Tips
How to optimize your website content? Keep reading to discover our best SEO content optimization tips!1. Find the Right Topics & Keywords
To optimize your content, first, you need to find keywords you want to use. How to do it properly? Focus on long-tail phrases that precisely describe your offer or website. It’s worth using them if you haven’t been in the business for long, or if your industry is highly competitive. Why? Because long-tail keywords give you a chance to rank in TOP positions for these specific phrases and reach potential customers interested in your offer. If you’ve just opened your online store, you won’t be able to compete with the greatest tycoons. Don’t try to bite more than you can chew. To do the keyword research, use tools such as Ahrefs, or SEMrush. Pay attention to keyword difficulty and search volume, meaning the number of times the keyword is entered into Google by users a month. Apart from the above-mentioned parameters, you should also remember about search intent.
Try to put yourself into users’ shoes and think about what types of content they expect to see when googling a specific phrase. Do they need an article, product page, or maybe a short direct answer?
If you aren’t sure about the search intent, just type in your selected long-tail keyword into Google and analyze the TOP3 search results.
If these are blog posts, this means that users expect to see articles when they enter a similar query. Consequently, optimizing your product or service page for this keyword won’t bring you any benefits and high positions.
You can also check the keyword intent in the tools we mentioned earlier.
Want to learn more about keyword research? Check out our entry describing 10 Useful Tools Supporting Keyword Research.
2. Create a Good Structure
Quality and well-optimized content is both user and search-engine friendly. This means that you should make your texts transparent, easy to read, and visually appealing. Remember about H1, and H2 headers. You can also use H3, or H4 ones if needed. Just remember to apply them in descending order.
Keep your paragraph concise. Use bullet points, and mark the most important elements (and keywords) with <b> tags. Separate blocks of text with attractive infographics, images, or videos.
Note that content isn’t only text. It includes all the elements mentioned above.
Making your website engaging and visually attractive will certainly help you attract users for longer. This, in turn, will inform Google that your page is valuable and deserves to be ranked higher.
3. Use Simple Language
When users type a specific question or query into Google, they usually expect to see a short, easy-to-comprehend piece of content that will provide them with the necessary information, and resolve their doubts. Writing concise, understandable sentences is one of our content optimization tips. After all, nobody looking for a quick cheesecake recipe, or the best smartphone in 2022 wants to read a complex article resembling a dissertation. Use benefit-driven language, and show users why it’s worth choosing your website and offer. Keep your sentences short, and simple.
Are you struggling with creating quality and unique content? Let us do it for you! Our specialists have years of experience in writing for different industries. Check out our SEO copywriting services!
4. Use Your Keywords
Once your keyword research is done, it’s time to use these long tails in the text. When optimizing your content, make sure that you apply keywords a few times. At the same time, remember that moderation is the key to success. Using the same phrases in every other sentence won’t look natural to users, and may deter them. Moreover, such activities may lead to keyword stuffing which has a negative impact on the SEO process and may decrease your position in the SERPs. In content optimization, synonyms, and paraphrases should be your best friends. Make your texts natural, and valuable. Apply keywords in various forms (infinitive, gerund, plural, singular) in the headers, and meta tags. Don’t worry - Google will recognize, and understand them!5. Make Your Keywords Stand Out
With all the probability, we won’t surprise you if we tell you that very few users read articles from cover to cover (or we should say from the introduction to the takeaway). It’s natural that we scan the text, trying to find the most important pieces that are of interest to us.
To help users easily navigate the text, and boost your SEO content optimization, mark the most important extracts and keywords with <b> or <em> tags.
Apart from catching users’ eyes, this will inform Google that it should pay more attention to these specific pieces of content.
Consequently, the search engine will assign highlighted keywords to your page and will display your site to users entering a related query into Google.
6. Take Care of Meta Tags
Meta tags, meaning titles, meta descriptions, and alt texts are important page elements that have an impact on SEO. Since they aren’t displayed directly on the site, many website owners don’t know they exist or don’t realize they’re so crucial. In SEO content optimization, you should pay attention to:- Title tags - page titles displayed in the search results. They’re very important elements that affect your position in the SERPs and inform search engine robots about your page content. Title tags should be from 55 to 60 characters long, and they need to begin with the keyword that best describes the website.
- Meta descriptions - they’re displayed in the search results just below the page title. These elements don’t have a direct impact on SEO. However, writing attractive meta descriptions that are 140-160 characters long and include CTAs, or emojis, can help you gain a competitive edge over your market rivals, and convince users it’s worth visiting your page.
- Alt texts - these are elements used to describe the content of pictures, and graphics. They’ve been created for visually impaired users, and search engine robots. When describing images on your website, you can use important keywords. They’ll additionally boost the ranking, and will inform Google that these phrases should be associated with a specific piece of content on your page.
If you want to learn more about meta tags and their creation, check out: Meta Tags – What Are They and How do They Affect SEO?
7. Make Your URLs User-Friendly
URLs are important elements of SEO content optimization tips. To make sure your website address is user and search engine-friendly, you should keep them short, and transparent. Get rid of capital letters, special characters, or underscores. Make sure that your URLs contain important keywords and inspire trust. When looking at a URL, user should be able to tell what can be found at a given address, before they click on the link. Just think about it, which of the following URLs are you likely to choose, and consider more secure:- your-website.com/dolro3e;fkgmra_ndkKKw$%
- your-website.com/quick-and-simple-cheesecake-recipe
8. Add Images and Other Visuals & Optimize Them
As it’s been already mentioned, content isn’t just text. Diversifying your website, filling it with quality, and attractive elements such as photos, infographics, or videos will help you keep users on the page for longer, and reduce the bounce rate. Complementing your texts with high resolution, thematically related graphics will make your page more trustworthy, and will position you as an expert in the field. Images allow users to rest and are a great way to separate longer blocks of text. Moreover, as you already know, alt texts are an extra room for keywords. Thanks to them your page can be displayed in Google Images.
To fully benefit from the potential of graphics, you need to make sure that they don’t have a negative impact on your page loading time.
One of the content optimization tips is to compress images, name them in a transparent, user-friendly way (you can also include keywords here), and complete alt texts.
Remember that you should provide sources if you use someone else’s graphics or photos.
9. Link Your Other Articles
Internal linking facilitates website navigation and helps search engine robots understand your page better. With its help, you can organize your site, attract users’ attention for longer, and promote products, articles, or pages that are important to you. In content optimization, internal links allow you to create topic clusters, meaning pieces of content that revolve around a given subject. Thanks to them, users can learn everything about a specific issue directly from your page, and understand it better. Appropriate use of internal links has a positive impact on your brand recognition, website traffic, conversions, and CTR. With their help, you can cross-sell or up-sell products, and boost the experiences of your website visitors. Want to learn more? Check out our Internal Links Structure – Best Practices, and create a link chain that will amaze both users and Google robots!10. Add Sources
Depending on the type of content you create, you may need to cite external sources, or mention tools, programs, etc. It’s natural that in such a situation it would be both fair and useful to provide links to the mentioned websites, tools, or other elements. Thanks to it, you won’t have external duplicate content, your site won’t be accused of plagiarism, and users will be able to easily access these sources if they want. Another SEO content optimization tip is to use nofollow and noopener tags to mark external links. What do they mean?- Nofollow - using these tags inform search engine robots that they shouldn’t open the linked website, and shouldn’t transfer your website power to the destination page.
- Noopener - with this tag the link will open in a new tab, so the user won't leave your website in order to check it out.
11. Update Your Content Regularly
Recycling old content can bring lots of benefits to your website. This time and money-efficient option is a great way to attract new potential customers and to show Google that your website is active and up-to-date. Moreover, if you’ve used all your ideas and you don’t know what to write about, recycling existing texts is a solution for you. This way, you can tailor your content to Google’s requirements, and support your SEO.
Want to learn more on: How to Recycle Old Content Without Burning Time and Budget? Check out our entry!
