“Content is king” – this phrase is often spoken by marketers like a mantra. Is that really the case? Is content most important in promoting a website on the web? Apart from technical optimization of SEO website and external links, texts within the domain are a key factor in the context of positioning, so it is worth paying them a lot of attention. In today’s article, I suggest how to optimize an article for SEO so that it ranks higher and generates more substantial traffic and seo courses & certifications.
Table of Contents
- What is content optimization for SEO?
- 3 useful tools for content optimization
- Step-by-step optimization of content for SEO
- Website content optimization – main advantages
- Threats resulting from content optimization <
- Summary
What is content optimization for SEO?
Content optimization for SEO is a cyclical work on texts. It involves analyzing the visibility of an article in the context of other texts on the subject on the web. It involves polishing several elements that together give a measurable effect.
As part of SEO optimization:
- We are expanding content with text, graphics, and video;
- We saturate with keywords that are in positions 11-30;
- We improve the structure of the article by adding: headers, bullets, listings, tables;
- We strengthen internal linking to a given article from other entries;
- We correct / extend the meta title and description;
- We’re checking the duplication (someone could have used the content without our agreement and didn’t add the canonical link).
You can also see Trends 2020…
3 useful tools for content optimization
To optimize the text for further positioning, I mainly use the following three SEO tools.
Google Search Console
This is the basic tool of every SEO specialist. A huge amount of data from Google itself. Why is this platform so important in the context of content? Because we receive information about how often the article data is displayed on the web, for which key phrases and what positions they occupy. Although Google Search Console underestimates click results from organic results (this information only for those using Google Ads), having access to both of these tools, we know a lot about the visibility of articles. It is important because other tools provide this data on an estimation basis.
Ahrefs
My favorite tool for watching competitors, both in terms of external links and the use of keywords. When it comes to content optimization in Ahrefs, I preview competitors from Top 10 for a given main phrase from the article, analyze for which key phrases the “opponent” articles are displayed and implement into the text I am working on.
SEO Surfer
This tool has been conquering the Polish market for several months. And rightly so. We receive a lot of relevant data for effective content optimization. First of all, it significantly speeds up the work. Once, you had to analyze Top 10 websites one by one to do what content they rank. Today, thanks to Surfer SEO, we immediately have an insight into how the competition does it, and the presented report suggests what should be added to the article, subtracted to catch up with the competition from the first page of Google. Use the best Instagram hashtags for you content.
These are the main tools in my work. I also use data from Semstorm and Google Analytics, but not to such an extent.
Step-by-step optimization of content for SEO
To successfully approach the optimization of the content of an article, you need to answer a few questions.
Here they are:
Does the content of the article correspond to the topic of the main keyword?
Does the subpage generate traffic from organic results?
Is the traffic big and what is the potential for further growth?
Where are key phrases important from the business point?
Are we able to quickly outperform the competition?
Will the extension of the text negatively affect UX?
Steps I take to optimize content for SEO:
- Launching Google Search Console -> Performance -> Last 3 months.
- I add a new filter as “Page” and paste the article link.
- I go to Inquiries -> Highest to the smallest position.
- I collect a list of the most interesting phrases from positions +/- 10 to 30.
Selected key phrase: optimization of AdWords campaign – 16th position
- I am looking for 3 URLs from TOP 3 for the selected expression.
- I pass to Ahrefs.
- I put URLs to Site Explorer.
- From organic keywords, I extract, among others, phrases such as Google AdWords guide and step by step AdWords campaign.
- Surfer SEO enters the analysis.
- Optimization of AdWords campaigns is the most frequently displayed from the list of phrases. At this point, I made an internal link, which is an optimization element ;).
- I enter a selected phrase in the search engine.
- I searched our website for 16 items.
- Next, the article should be optimized for audit guidelines.
The next steps I would take are:
- Request to get several external links;
- Adding several headers and expanding the current ones with partial match phrases.
- I would extend the article by at least 500 words.
- I would add a few lines with the main phrase in strong.
- I would saturate the text with the phrase. At the moment, exact-match anchor occurs 3 times. I would increase this amount to 6 times.
I would also use phrases that are on the pages of the Top 10 competition, which are missing in our article.
The last issue remains the Meta title.
I took this article for a reason. As you have noticed, it is a continuation of the previous one.
We have slight cannibalization here that we can easily optimize.
Therefore, I would suggest a title to the first article: “Introduction to AdWords campaigns – key issues”.
Website content optimization – main advantages
The main advantages of regular SEO optimization are:
- Increasing the visibility of more key phrases;
- Increasing traffic from key phrases;
- The ability to update the content (cool for all rankings and years – e.g. 2019/2010);
- An article can always be written better;
- You can enter ideas for increasing conversions – button, phone sticky, internal linking;
- Extensive content builds domain authority, which translates into better positions of key phrases.
Threats resulting from content optimization
By design, optimization of texts for SEO is a positive phenomenon and in most cases results in the intended effects.
However, there are two risks:
- Problem with UX – too much content and graphic elements can affect the fact that the user will be less willing to dig through the article. Therefore, the most important content and CTA should be placed as high as possible. You also need to remember the right architecture of the text. A good way is also to surprise the senses of the recipients by changing the arrangement of text, photos or also stimulating colors.
- Thematic blur – it can happen that it significantly awakens the content, and thus, moving the secondary threads will affect the blur of the topic. Google may find that the article is not as relevant to the key phrases for us. This is extremely rare because by keeping the right keywords destiny and using words under LSI, we should do the trick. You can also get help as buy Instagram Followers and Likes UK.
Summary
Optimization of content for SEO plan requires considerable knowledge, the use of paid tools and a lot of time. You can imagine how many man-hours we will spend if we want to optimize e.g. 100 articles on your website. And this is not the only SEO activity that we include in the cost of positioning.
Working on content is definitely worth it. Combined with the optimization of offer/product pages, as well as with external factors (link building and content marketing) is the right way to achieve success at Google.