You invest heavily in creating, editing and publishing outstanding content.
Your goal is to grow your business with top notch content that will educate and persuade your audience into becoming customers or clients.
However, if you aren’t optimizing several key aspects of your content, you’ll fall short in your metrics and fail to reach your goals. Instead, go the extra mile and invest some time into content optimization.
Below, you’ll learn three excellent ways to optimize your content.
What is Content Optimization?
Before we dive into content optimization techniques, what is content optimization itself?
According to Gartner, content optimization is the “process by which a content provider is able to use a variety of techniques to improve search results and ranking, as well as extend the value of core content by automating the content management process to develop new Web pages on the fly.”
As algorithms change, it’s important to both add to the conversation, provide the most recent and relevant information in a comprehensive, yet optimized manner.
Today, we’ll be looking at several techniques to improve search results and ranking and user engagement through content optimization.
We’ll also help you avoid some of the many mistakes that people make with content optimization.
Optimize Your Text
Most of the content on your website is written text. Learning how to optimize your text for search engines will help enhance your traffic, and ultimately, your conversions.
Pay attention to the below areas of your text:
- Title tags. Your title tag is one of the most important elements of overall optimization. The title tag within your HTML code is used in several different areas – primarily at the top of the content and the top of the browser. Use a descriptive, keyword-focused title tag to optimize this field.
- Meta descriptions. What is your blog post all about? Your meta description should do a great job of summarizing the content in a way that’s engaging. Search engines will use your meta description to display this summary below the title in the results. So, it needs to be compelling and attract clicks.
- URLs. Keep your URLs well organized and incorporate your target keywords within them. Avoid the default WordPress URLs, and instead make the post title your URL.
Lastly, think about optimizing your content for your audience to go beyond industry best practices.
Write in the way people are searching for information using contractions to sound more conversational while remaining concise.
Optimize Your Images
Images are often an afterthought. This means that they are not optimized and don’t contribute as much as they can for the website. If you use images (and you should), this is how you optimize them:
- Alt tags. Search engines can’t ‘see’ an image and know what it contains. Instead, they rely on alt tags to ascertain what’s going on with an image. Use your keywords in your alt tags.
- Filename. Name your file something descriptive to help search engines further understand what the image is of. Instead of using a name like “DC0238.jpg,” use a descriptive name like “Granite_Cabinets.jpg.”
Incorporate Timely Optimization
You may not think of yourself as a news website, but if you have a blog you have the potential to become a news outlet.
However, unlike traditional blog posts that will be good for months or even years, news posts have a very short shelf life.
To compete, you need to optimize your news:
- Submit to Google News. Want to show up on Google News? You’ll have to submit your blog directly to Google News. Abiding by their strict guidelines will help optimize your news content for readers. Once approved, your news submission will be included in Google search results.
- Craft quality headlines. You may get listed on Google News, but your headline will determine if you get clicks or you get ditched. Don’t stuff your headline with keywords – focus on attention grabbing headlines.
- Use static URLs. Every article that you produce needs to have its own page to compete with the big news websites. Use static URLs for every news post.
Now you’re ready to make the most out of every piece of content that you produce by using the above optimization techniques.
Looking to learn more about content optimization and content marketing?
Register for the Content Marketing Conference today and see over 40 speakers share their experiences.