As an SEO Agency we continuously strive to optimise our clients’ content marketing material to please search engine algorithms and achieve the top rankings for our clients’ relevant search terms. This is just one of many areas we cover in the process of search engine optimisation but, since it’s an important one, we often produce our own content related to this topic. On-Page content optimisation can be a complicated process, particularly when Google algorithm updates and changes in search trends come into play, so this time we’re breaking it down into a simple 5 step process which covers the basics for any piece of online content.
1. Use Headings!
Using headings in your written content is useful for 2 key reasons. The first is that Google will look at content within heading tags to understand the main ideas within your piece, and as such will help it to rank your website accordingly for relevant search terms. This means that it’s a good idea, where possible, to include the keywords you’re targeting in your section headings.
The other reason headings can benefit your online content is simply that they help you to break your writing down into manageable snippets of information which are more engaging to your readers, contributing to improved user experience.
2. Give Sufficient Detail
Reeling off a webpage or blog post purely for SEO purposes isn’t enough to achieve high rankings in SERPs. Search engines have become extremely intelligent in recent years and can now understand the words on a webpage, so they’re unlikely to be impressed by content which doesn’t provide useful or insightful information. To avoid this, make sure the content you publish is in-depth and informative, primarily so that it will be valuable to your users, and secondly so that it will be taken seriously by search engines.
3. Internal Linking
Building a strong backlink profile is a key factor to SEO success, but internal linking across your website also gets a big tick as far as SEO is concerned (see what we did there). Inserting internal links not only helps users to navigate their way around your website more easily, but it also indicates to search engines that your content is relevant, particularly if the anchor text for your links contains keywords.
4. Integrate Keywords
All businesses have their respective search terms or keywords that they aim to rank for, and one outdated technique of getting search engines to pick up on these is what we call ‘keyword stuffing’, which essentially involves inserting your keywords as often as possible into a piece of copy. The usual result of this is content that reads awkwardly and sounds unnatural, which means it will actually be penalised by search engines when ranking results. It is still important to include your keywords within your copy, but they don’t need to appear in every sentence. If your content is well-targeted and relevant, integrating your keywords organically shouldn’t be a problem.
5. Calls To Action
Once you’ve got users to your site and had them engage to some measure with your content, don’t fall at the final hurdle. Having users visit your site is one step on a path to conversion, and ideally want this to translate into further action which leads to the fulfilment of your business goals. Including calls to action such as ‘download a brochure’ or ‘get a quote’ are key next steps to achieve conversions, so make sure these are included and clearly visible within your content. Self-evidently, you’re missing a trick if you don’t also use these as anchor text for internal links.
Whether you’re creating a new page for your website or posting an article on your industry blog, putting these 5 steps in place will help search engines to read the page positively and rank your website accordingly in SERPs.
To discuss how POLARIS can help with your SEO campaigns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.