How to Optimize Content for SEO
Regardless of your business goals, your website is nothing without visitors. Every piece of content, every image, every video and every update needs an audience. So how do you make sure you’re right there in the rankings when people are searching for you? It all comes down to optimizing your content for SEO.
Optimize Content for SEO: 6 Quick and Dirty Tips
While the concept is simple, the execution takes a little more work. We’ve rounded up the 6 best tips to quickly optimize your content to get found in google search engine results. Use these tips on your old content to push it up in the rankings, and remember to use it on future blogs and webpages to kick them off from the start!
1. Frontload keywords in the title
One of the most important on-page ranking factors is the title. Search engines will organically rank websites/pages with titles that start with the keyword users are searching for in order to bring relevant content to users. For example, we could have titled this 6 Quick and Dirty Tips to Optimize Content for SEO, however, we want search engines to immediately know what we’re trying to rank for.
If it doesn’t make any sense to put your keyword at the beginning, just be sure it’s as close to the beginning as possible. At a minimum, your keyword should be somewhere in the title.
2. Use H1 tags
The H1 tag, also known as the headline tag, is used to emphasize parts of your text and tell search engines what your page is about. Most WordPress themes automatically use this tag, but it doesn’t hurt to double check your code to make sure!
By front-loading your title using the H1 tag, you’ve already upped your chances to rank.
3. Use visuals
Reading a 700 word blog post may be fun for some, but research shows that people are 80% more likely to read a piece of content that includes colored visuals.
Consider this, would you be drawn to a website with visuals like photos, infographics, memes, videos and more, or a website with only text?
If people are bored, they’ll move on to a site that excites them.
4. Optimize visuals
Adding visuals is a great way to keep users engaged, but how can your visuals work to attract users? By optimizing them! If you have images with alt tags like ‘tampa bay sports t-shirts,’ ‘st pete themed t-shirts’ and ‘yoga t-shirts,’ then search engines will know your site is about t-shirts. When someone starts searching for shirts, your site will rank higher than if you had left out those alt tags.
5. Research your keywords
It’s important to research the keywords you’re using. You may think that there are thousands of people searching for your specific keyword, but in reality there may only be 10 searches per month.
The keyword research tool we use most is Google Keyword Planner. This is a free tool provided by Google to help marketers research keywords, find new keywords, and provide estimates on how well their keywords will perform. Google Keyword Planner works hand-in-hand with Google Adwords and PPC campaigns. It allows you to draft campaigns and enter daily budgets to estimate how many clicks you could expect.
By knowing how often people are searching for your keyword, you can optimize it to something that’s most often searched.
6. Use LSI keywords
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) works through search engines observing entire webpages and providing the searcher with pages that are relevant to their keywords. Search engines are learning that if certain keywords are used in the same content over and over, then they’re related and will show up in the searches.
For example, using LSI, if we search for ‘custom made shirts’ we’ll see a dropdown of related keywords like custom made t-shirts, custom made dress shirts, custom made dress shirts for men, custom t-shirts. These are LSI keywords, meaning they have shown up together in the same content numerous times, so Google understands they are related.
