Content marketing, but specifically optimized content marketing, isn't just about churning out content. More than 90% of businesses use content marketing. This means that success comes down to truly refining content for both search engines and people.
What is Content Optimization?
The Key Pillars of Optimized Content
Optimizing Content for Search Engines
E-E-A-T is the Future of Search
Meeting Search Intent is Non-Negotiable
Smart Keyword Usage
Make Sure your Content is Easy to Read and Digest
Outdated Information Impacts Relevancy
Cover a topic fully
Video Really Does Increase Engagement.
The Significance of News Optimization
Content Marketing Tactics
Create Graphic Design That Has Meaning
Leverage Influencer and Email Marketing
Focus on Technical SEO
Revisit your Optimization Strategies Regularly
Conclusion
Content optimization is the process of making sure content is written in a way so it can reach its largest target audience. The end result gives businesses the ability to improve their content in many ways, such as rankings, visibility and leads.
The first page of Google search results captures a staggering 71% to 92% of all web traffic. With so much competition and the opportunity cost of missing page 1, content optimization gives businesses the upper hand.
There are various pieces that fit under the larger optimized content umbrella.
On-Page SEO: This focuses on what you control on your web pages, including text, images, and meta descriptions. These are typically limited to 150-160 characters.
Off-Page SEO: Think of this as building your website's reputation. This is often done through quality backlinks from other respected sites.
Conversion Optimization: It’s the creation of content to get your readers to do what you want. This could be to subscribe to an email, attend an event or even buy a product.
Social Shares: Create posts, stories, images and even reels with shareability, and watch your content reach broader audiences on social media.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) are not just buzzwords. These factors show Google that your site offers real value. This helps the Google algorithms want to rank higher for your content.
Here's how to infuse your content with each piece to satisfy search engine algorithms:
Experience Do you have a firsthand life experience with this content? Lean into that.
Expertise: Showcase your knowledge, whether it's through research or personal skill. You can provide value when sharing facts, figures, comparisons and other in-depth content on the topic.
Authority: Cite trusted studies or sources to demonstrate a holistic, complete review. As an example, Wistia's State of Video report became a magnet for links, accruing over 1,000 backlinks, helping further establish domain authority.
Trustworthiness: Use accuracy. But more so, create a clear and honest voice across all the content you post.
Algorithms do change frequently though. So it's a reminder that optimization, while not easy, will continue to evolve, much like content marketing itself.
Google aims to give users exactly what they seek, by connecting to content. The user's search intent needs to be satisfied with your content. If you write content that's meeting expectations, you have a higher likelihood of a click turning into a conversion.
Ask yourself these key things, to stay aligned:
Informational: Are readers coming for data, facts, or general information? Give them exactly that.
Transactional: Are they looking to do a specific thing? Provide them calls to actions to take that next step.
Navigational: Maybe a visitor had a goal. Or did your brand help them get there?
Commercial: Do readers want recommendations or to buy products? Are you leading them down the right path to converting with a solid sales enablement strategy?
It's easy to fixate on a single main keyword, but it’s important to explore all of them. Expand your reach by targeting the full picture of secondary keywords too. Relevant keywords sprinkled into the copy will help it flow more naturally and read better.
Tools like Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner are useful for research. These tools help find they keywords target audience uses. Try to include target keywords within the title tag, in the meta description, and naturally within headings.
Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing, and focus on the reader's experience first. While you are writing content, keep the reader in mind, not just the search engine. You should write compelling content that they would want to read and avoid keyword over-saturation.
Remember most readers don’t take everything in word for word. Research suggests people read only about 20-28% of online content. So your formatting and visual elements count.
Follow this checklist for more scan-friendly content:
Give headers to set off your key points with H1s, H2s, H3s and maybe even some H4s.
Break things down for your readers, it's appreciated. Use numbered lists when steps need explaining and bullet points to show off those amazing facts.
Remember pictures too. They really help with your on-page search engine optimization.
The shelf-life of content can be short. Updating posts keeps them accurate, thus building on trust in you and your brand. Think of how statistics may evolve.
If your data, visuals and resources all seem dated, take the time to reoptimize those content pieces. This may just save your future conversions from an eventual sharp decline.
Keep an eye out for broken content link issues, as these will become an issue as your website changes and evolves. Use tools like Google Analytics 4, SurveyMonkey, and Hotjar for insights.
If you don’t create that *ultimate resource*, your readers will jump to search engines again to get the missing answers. Your post could be the perfect place for comprehensive answers on your subject.
Do your readers want the whole answer right at their fingertips? Provide it, because depth makes your expertise evident, showcasing your thought leadership.
It's been found that videos greatly increase time on page. This has many on-page search engine optimization benefits. If you produce quality content with videos, there's a strong chance content rank improves for those pages.
Visual content should always compliment the post. If it has no meaning and is just for the sake of creating media, think more deeply of how your creative will give your content value.
Try new videos or create reels. Even 2D animations are exciting. Think out of the box for better and more appealing graphic assets to reach a greater target audience. The better the user experience, the more likely a visitor turns into a customer.
For content creators in media, breaking news can really give sites leverage. This competitive content area demands extra thought. When you approach content from a position of expertise, you help become seen as a thought leader.
Google has clear requirements for those news organizations, seeking inclusion in those results. If this type of optimization matters to you, it would help to know about their program of sending blog and press release sections over to Google News to be accepted into this news engine.
Focusing on being technically sound helps show search engine crawlers your worth. Making use of proper meta tags can only help the cause.
Optimization extends beyond those popular search engine requirements. Here's more areas to focus on when publishing amazing online content.
Having top notch graphic designers comes into focus with optimization, but also brand building. Use assets with intention. The best images and graphics are directly related to the subject at hand, not just fluff.
Poor graphic design could give the feeling that your content is low quality and not worth viewing. First impressions matter, so spend time creating visual appealing content.
Tap into existing audience networks with targeted content creation. Influencers can show how brands solve pain points. The main goal of a content marketing strategy is often to bring in new business, so use every avenue to your advantage.
Or try building an email campaign that is custom to audience personas and provides answers. Email is often an overlooked area in content marketing. Think of email marketing as a follow-up, that keeps you in the customer's mind.
You need your website to perform well, load fast, and be mobile friendly. Look into data within Google PageSpeed Insights. Or just improve page experience with better imagery.
It is worth exploring your Core Web Vitals within Google Search Console too. Improving load times could lead to higher engine rankings overall, along with the other efforts. Be sure all of your internal links are working well and no 404 errors appear for visitors.
The better the technical foundation of the website, the better chance your content will perform. Explore ways to enhance on-page optimization such as improving URL slugs, headings, and other structural areas. Improving these little areas will compound with each optimization, which can eventually move you up in search engine rankings.
Once you get things moving, don't just move on to the next thing and forget the previous areas of focus. It will pay dividends down the line if you continue updating. It takes more work up front, but a continued content optimization strategy should be expected.
Make sure to optimize content often. The more often that you are optimizing content, the better it will perform long-term. Your ongoing plan of optimizing content will lead to continued improved engine rank.
There are so many potential areas to look at when creating an optimization strategy. With continued improvements, a piece of content helps increase a websites visibility. When you write and format things correctly, content helps visitors have a better journey too.
Below is an overview of various optimization strategies.
Keyword Targeting: Use tools to research keywords, use those naturally in content and headers, and use related LSI keywords. *Improved content relevance, better targeting
On-Page Factors: Update title tags, improve URL structures, improve headers, use short paragraphs, improve load times and check Google PageSpeed Insights. *Better search engine visibility and organic traffic growth
Technical Improvements: Improve overall load time, enhance security, improve website design, check internal links. *Faster, secure, and functional website that results in increased organic traffic.
Freshness of Information: Revisit existing content, rewrite old data and update old statistics. Improved search engine rankings and sustained growth.
With so many businesses doing some level of content marketing these days, its amazing there aren't a lot of case studies showing data. One found that about 60% of marketers report that inbound content provides their highest quality leads, however this needs further investigation. Ultimately optimized content marketing has been proven a necessity.
So this process starts by acknowledging all those challenges, including those with competition. Content optimization matters for the success of all marketing campaigns. Optimization matters, especially with organic growth.
From creating content all the time and still getting no search results and leads - to finding time to keep the blog going. Writing new and re-optimizing existing content leads to increased traffic, which results in more business and happy customers, completing the cycle of success.
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