By Dan Duke

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Content optimization is a strategic process for improving digital content to boost its visibility and relevance. It focuses on maximizing organic search traffic by improving a webpage’s search engine ranking. It does this by formatting and structuring content so that it can easily be found and ranked by bots. Just as importantly, it involves making content as satisfying and useful to readers as possible.

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There are many elements to content optimization and it must be considered as an ongoing process. Key components of content optimization include:

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• Thorough keyword research, where relevant search terms are identified.
• On-page SEO techniques like optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and headers.
• Composing quality content that answers readers' search intent clearly and authoritatively.

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The content optimization techniques that we are going to describe will help you create high-quality, user-friendly, engaging content that caters to your target audience.

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Failure to use content optimization means less traffic on your website. It means you waste time and money on articles because you didn’t go that last mile to help them fulfill their potential. Without optimization, your content falls into the vast ocean of words on the internet that are seldom, if ever, seen.

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What is the impact of content optimization?

According to research by digital marketing firm Conductor, consumers who read a brand’s educational content were 131% more likely to buy from that brand. A week after reading that content, the study indicated, people were still 48% more likely to buy. Those people also tended to maintain trust and brand affinity.

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But first, the content must be seen. Research indicates that the No. 1 result on a Google query earns about 28.5% percent of all clicks. Also, 88% of searchers click on organic results on the first page. The second page of search results gets less than 6% of website clicks (a marketer’s nightmare).

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The competition for those top spots is fierce, and content optimization is essential. However, SEO-driven tactics have had to change to keep pace with ranking factors and search visibility.

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Jürgen Kranz, CTO EMEA for Rellify, explains that millions of websites and content providers compete for the first page of a Google search. “In the past decades, the SEO industry tried to guess and re-engineer Google’s search algorithms that were handwritten by human developers. The SEO industry implemented all kinds of tricks and hacks to get website listings to #1.”

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Now, search engine optimization requires more than loading up on keywords. Newer algorithms put more emphasis on content quality and the context of articles on websites, Kranz says.

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How to approach content optimization like a pro

Google wants to make every user experience satisfying by providing exactly what a searcher wants as quickly as possible. Part of how it achieves that is an emphasis on what it calls E-E-A-T — experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Google wants to exhibit that, and it rewards websites that display it by putting them at the top of Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs.

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Here are several ways that content optimization

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will help you establish E-E-A-T:

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Keyword research

How can you show your expertise and experience if you don't write about the things that people care about?

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Your custom-made Rellify Relliverse™ can help you find ideas for content and focus them so you can create high-quality content that yields high search volume while avoiding competitors who have SERPs locked up. Our deep machine learning will help you find content gaps — the keywords and long-tail keywords that have good search volume but have not been addressed by competitors.

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Authority

Savvy use of links is one way to establish page authority. Search engines judge you, in part, by the company you keep, or the links on your page. Links from your content to reputable, well-traveled sites bolster your reputation. Avoid external linking to sites that give off a spam vibe and get little traffic. If your quality content has been mentioned by other sites but didn’t get backlinks, reach out to them and request it.

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Internal linking to quality web pages on your own site also helps bolster your reputation as an expert in your field or market. Readers and bots will see that you have plenty of relevant content to check out. This also will help you keep a low bounce rate, which is the percentage of visitors who enter your site and leave without continuing on to any other pages there.

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Trustworthiness

Consider the user intent behind searches that could draw traffic to your page — a potential customer or someone who shares the interest or passion that drives your site. Answer their questions accurately and thoroughly. If the users, or search engines, sense that you lack expertise and authority and are wasting their time or manipulating them, they will bounce quickly and never return. Part of earning trust is being vigilant about monitoring and updating your site to maintain content freshness. Even an article that's only 2 or 3 years old might make readers wonder about its accuracy and relevance.

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Don't neglect technical optimization

Website managers can tighten up their sites and establish formatting standards for the optimization process in relatively simple ways. Here are some examples of technical aspects and on-page elements to look out for.

• Title tags. These tell visitors and search engines what a web page is all about. They also can lead to positive SERP and social media placement. Make them count by using your focus keyword and getting it as early in the title tag as possible.
• Meta descriptions. This is one of the most common types of meta tags. They are one-sentence descriptions of the content and are a great way to sell your content and boost click-through rates (CTR). Make these rich in keywords, within reason.
• H1 tag. The H1, H2, and H3 tags are, respectively, the main head, subheads, and sub-subheads. They help readers and web crawlers navigate an article. Think of them as clear, engaging signposts. It helps to use keywords here, too.
• Page speed. Google, and readers, want a page to load instantly. Elements that load slowly and shift about can be frustrating and disorienting. It makes for a bad user experience and low user engagement.
• Crawling errors. Every link on your website should lead to a working page. These errors frustrate users and the bots trying to index your content.
• Image optimization. When you optimize images, you compress and resize them while using descriptive and keyword-rich alt text to enhance on-page SEO.
• Alt tags, or alt text. These often represent a lost opportunity. These HTML tags allow you to describe an image, making it easier for search engines and readers with vision trouble to know what the image conveys. It's a good practice to use your focus keyword in alt tags and captions.
• Mobile optimization. With so many people using their smartphones for voice searching, mobile optimization is a must. The key is to have a responsive web design (RWD), which means your pages will adjust to the size of the display window and still look great and perform well. Another way of approaching this is the use of AMP (Accelerated-Mobile-Pages). This technique gives a better user experience for mobile users by creating stripped-down versions of web pages for mobile devices.

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How content optimization services can help

There are many free SEO tools on the market, including Google Analytics. But there are so many elements that go into content optimization and the stakes are so high, you might want to hire someone to help.

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If you are comfortable with things like migrating your website to HTTPS protocol and using schema markup, you could use Rellify's platform to produce content and make the most of our AI and SEO tools. If not, Rellify can provide the expertise you need to build a content plan and line up top-notch writers to do the work for you.

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We can begin with a content audit and technical SEO audit to make sure your foundations are solid. Then, Rellify’s content performance application uses AI to identify strategic topics and leverages IA (Intelligence Augmentation) to produce and optimize relevant content that naturally ranks well in search engines.

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Rellify’s AI connective writing and content brief functions help you to structure articles according to your content optimization strategy. We combine the functions of many content optimization tools used by other services, simplifying the journey from brainstorming to boosting your conversion rate.

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Level up your content optimization with Rellify

You can’t automate content optimization. It requires vigilance. There can be risks to a business if things are not done properly. Unethical or clumsy SEO companies and practices (looking at you, keyword stuffing) can also result in a company being penalized by Google — dropping you down in the search rankings.

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Rellify can help you to constantly monitor the effectiveness of your content marketing, just as we constantly strive to improve our service. For example, we recently updated the platform to enable users to create LinkedIn posts directly from articles. This feature is a game-changer for professionals and businesses looking to expand their reach on the popular professional networking platform. With just a few clicks, you can now repurpose your existing articles and turn them into engaging LinkedIn posts.

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Another notable enhancement is the integration of AI-powered image generation. Visual content plays a crucial role in attracting and engaging website visitors. With the new AI image generation feature, you can effortlessly create captivating images for your blog posts, enhancing their overall appeal and SEO optimization.

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Ready to create new content, get more traffic, and secure more leads? Maybe you’re looking to optimize your existing content? The experts at Rellify are ready to develop a customized content strategy with end-to-end content development, management, publishing, and analysis. Want a free demo? Contact the experts today!

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Content Performance Hot Topics

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