Updated June 17, 2022
Reading Time: 2 minutes
3 Things For Your Checklist
As more businesses join the online marketing fray, competition for audience’s attention and time gets more difficult, making content optimization strategies increasingly important. Though some of your content marketing strategy needs to be a unique combination of your voice, marketing research, and brand, there are some White Hat SEO best practices that every website owner should be doing right now.
Conform to Google Guidelines
Google is the big dog when it comes to search engines. Even when you’re targeting traffic through sites like Bing or Yahoo, conforming to Google’s guidelines for content optimization is likely to help. It certainly won’t hurt. Search engines like to see a clear structure on your site — it’s not enough to cram pages full of keywords and call it a day. Information must flow, every page should be reachable from another, and architecture should follow a logical methodology. You wouldn’t build a building with stairs running no where. Keep the same principles in mind when creating a site. Title pages, links, headers, and images all play a role in content optimization and user enjoyment, so use them appropriately throughout your pages.
Don’t Get Caught up in Trending Content Optimization Tips
Google makes changes to their algorithms often. With each change comes panic and a flurry of online content changes. Though you always want to be aware of large Google changes, you don’t need to overhaul your entire site the day after Google makes an announcement. Sudden, all-encompassing changes to your site can actually cause problems for users. If you’re providing solid, brand-centric content that you audience actually wants to read, Google changes aren’t going to hit you as hard. Google is on a mission to hit sites that rely on tricks such as linkbait titles or inorganic backlinks.
Keep Mobile Users in Mind
According to a Telemetrics study, half of people who research online begin searching on a mobile device. For some users, cell phones or tablets are the sole device used to access the Internet. Failure to optimize your site and content for mobile users loses you a large percentage of the audience. Even if you appear in the top search results, if your site is cumbersome to view on a mobile device, you’ll only accomplish a large number of bounces.
Maximize user traffic and engagement on your sites by following Google’s top guidelines, avoiding popular linkbait or traffic trends, and delivering mobile-friendly content for the growing on-the-go audience.
What’s on your content optimization checklist?
Blog Style Guide Tips
Off-page optimization is more important than on-page. So, keep reading good practices like this one.
While link popularity is important to page rank, I still think it’s important to ask this question of any piece of content: if search engine’s didn’t exist, would this content be of value to my customers and prospects? If the answer is “yes,” then you’re on the right track. If “no,” my advice is to go back and re-write it.