When people say that content is king, they really mean it. Content is vital for eCommerce and online companies to not only reach new audiences but to convert them. Content needs to be carefully collated, created and optimized so that your target audience can easily find your brand.

Though we have to say that content optimization is different from content creation. Content creation is the development of content to attract the audience and the reader. Content optimization, on the other hand, is specifically done for the machines. By this, we mean search engines like Google.

Google regularly scrapes your site in order to ascertain where to categorize you, and where to place you in the search results. While you are creating content that is reader and audience-focused, you need to keep the algorithms in mind, to make sure that you are correctly ranked.

So, we thought that we would take a look at what factors you need to consider for your content optimization. Below we unpack what is necessary for your content to be found through SEO and search engines.

Make Sure Your Content Speaks to Your Audience

Content is no longer just a few phrases on your site to describe your company and product. Content has evolved over the last few years to something that draws your customer in, creates a sense of trust and loyalty, and converts them to paying customers.

When you create content, you use it to educate, inform, entertain and empower your customer. By giving them valuable advice, information and tools, they will learn to trust you and will consider your brand as an authority in that particular field. And this is what you want.

Imagine that you are a pet food and accessory retailer. Potential customers will be looking for information about their pet’s health and diet. So if you write content and blogs like ‘5 Reasons Why My Dog is Fat’, potential customers will organically land on your site when they search for that.

By sharing this content with other authority sites, you can establish even more of a monopoly in the industry, and reach more clients. SEO link building services allow you to reach out to authority sites to share links and content. Not only will their audiences see you, but Google will recognize that you are associated with an authoritative site and rank you accordingly. So, it is important to keep that content fresh and informative as well as to be associated with the right sites.

Optimize Your Text

Let’s move beyond what your content should be, and talk about how you should be posting your content and text on your site. First, keyword research is absolutely vital for your text to represent what your brand is, and for customers to organically find you. By knowing who your audience is and having set goals in place, you can do keyword research to have an overview of what words need to be strategically placed on your pages. Keep in mind though, don’t fill your content with keywords, Google will pick this up and penalize you for it.

Next, look at the key SEO elements of your page. It is important to get every single aspect right so that it would be correctly ranked and found on the search. Luckily, platforms like WordPress have tools like Yoast to help you out, but let’s unpack what you need to look at for SEO optimization.

Title Tag

The title tag is the name of your page or blog and the first thing that will catch the reader’s eye. Keep it as simple and to the point as possible, yet catchy to heighten click-through rates. Include a keyword in the title and keep it to around 50 to 60 characters.

Meta Description

Your meta description is a breakdown of what the page is about. That is why you need to make sure that you include your keywords, and enticing text to encourage your visitor to check out the page. Keep the length at around 70 to 150 characters.

H1 and H2 Headings

These headings are key to communicate sections and information to the reader. They too will need to contain the keywords, but will also need to break up the information on the page into readable sections.

URL

Your URL should describe what the page is about, it should be short and simple and contain keywords. Try and remove unnecessary text and conjunctions.

Well placed keywords and links

Naturally, keywords will need to be incorporated throughout the body of the text. It is important to ensure it is in the first paragraph for SEO optimization. Include links in your content too. Both external and internal are important and if there is a key client or concept you are linking to, keep it at the top of the page.

Focus on Images and Videos

While the images and videos will themselves speak to your audience, you will need your images to speak to the algorithms and machines. So, work on getting those images optimized.

Alt Tags

Make sure that you describe the image simply and with the right text and keywords when including the code for the image. So, if you are uploading an image of a dog eating its food, make sure you have it described correctly. It should look something like <img src=”dog.png” alt=”dog eating dog food from bowl”>.

When it comes to your videos, treat your videos something like your blogs and pages. You will need to include titles, descriptions, and URLs. Try and host the video on your site yourself too. This will increase your SEO rankings as your video will pop up in the search results for people looking specifically for that information.

Try to keep up to one video on a page for optimized SEO ranking, include social share buttons, and submit your video sitemap to Google.

Improve your Click-Through Rates and Usability

Keep your site as usable as possible. Not only do you need to ensure that the page speed is as high as possible, but you will need to make sure that the page is both mobile and desktop friendly. It is important that you monitor how your pages are laid out and how your audience views your content and your pages.

Next important thing is to keep that content fresh and updated. Regular keyword research will allow you to keep up to date with the latest trends and what is being searched for. So, regularly update your pages to match this. A bonus to this is that every time you update a page, Google will re-scrape it and rerank you. So keep it as fresh as possible.

Last but not least, test your titles and descriptions as much as you can. You can experiment with various options to see what is clicked on more and plan ahead from there.

Last Thoughts

In wrapping up, it is important to keep the reader in mind at all times. The more catchy, and interesting the content, the more likely you are to convert customers. Keep your site and layout simple and easy to use, and know that Google is always watching, so give it something great to rank.