Top 5 Content Optimization Tips

By now, you may have heard that content marketing is the future of marketing.  If you haven’t, you soon will!  Content marketing involves many aspects of search engine optimization, including keyword research, website structure, meta tags and link building, all with the ultimate goal of increasing website traffic and sales.  However, content optimization is one of the most important factors for content marketing success.

For customer-focused content that attracts both humans and search engines, try the following tips:

1.  Tell people what they want to hear.  If your target market has no interest in what you’re writing about, they won’t read it, they won’t share it and they won’t click through or buy.  Once you’ve established who your audience is, you should take the time to figure out what pushes their buttons.  Do your customers have questions that you can answer?  Do you see yourself as a solution to a problem?  Find your niche and write with authority.  Your content needs to focus on topics that are of interest to your particular readers in order to be effective.

2.  Write well.   Interesting, informative content, free from grammatical errors and awkward sentence structure, always attracts people to it.  Try attention-grabbing titles.  Engage your readers with stories and examples to illustrate your points.  How does this optimize your content?  People will enjoy reading it, recommend it to others and come back again to read more.  Well-written content garners back links and RSS subscriptions more effectively than just about any other marketing tool you can use.

3. Use keywords wisely.  The proper keywords are important for SEO purposes.  However, the way you use them can make or break the marketing value of your content.  One of the assertions of content marketing is that you must write for the reader, not the search engines.  Keywords used too often in your content (also known as keyword stuffing) results in unnatural-sounding, salesy material that people will not read.  You may ask, but what about SEO?  How will the search engines find me if I don’t add enough keywords?

The answer is, don’t underestimate today’s search engine algorithms!  They are now sophisticated enough to understand the meaning of your content without excessive keyword use.  By using related terms (often found naturally in the content anyway), your text will be indexed properly and found by customers.  Of course, since your readers are the real source of rankings for you anyway, quality content will gain more readership, get passed on and linked to, and boost your rankings naturally.

4.  Tag properly.  SEO involves a little bit of behind-the-scenes magic.  Make sure that you use heading tags to tell the search engines what your main keywords are (H1, H2, H3, etc.).  Titles and subtitles should include your primary keyword and it wouldn’t hurt to bold them.  Another tip is to put some of your most important keywords toward the top of article.  Search engines will understand that these words are more important to the meaning of your text, and will look for related terms in order to determine how to index you.

5.   Update.  Providing your readers with fresh, original content on a regular basis will maintain interest and build your authority over time.  In fact, it’s one of the best ways to optimize your content, because posting something new each week (or each day, if you can) actually draws people to your site where they can read more of your past content.  Blogs are a great example of content that is constantly updated with new information.  The popularity of blogging as a marketing tool is a reflection of people’s love of interesting, timely new content.

Content optimization is one of the best ways to get your site noticed!  Follow these simple tips, and you’ll soon be on your way to better online visibility and increased profitability for your business.

About The Author
Beth Hrusch is Senior Editor at Interact Media, a content marketing software company.