Today SEO is more than just about off-page and creating local citations, SEO is about on-page. Creating compelling content that will make people want to share it, link to it, and tweet it. How often do you optimize your content for search engines?

Creating content that is SEO friendly refers to the process of optimizing specific sections of your site, making it clearer for visitors and search engines to read.

The main goal of on-page SEO is to make sure that every page on your website and blog are optimized for a given keyword, so that when a prospect searches for that specific keyword, they can find your site and rockin’ marketing content.

Looking to learn more about creating content optimized for SEO? Contact IMPACT and learn how we can help!

Optimizing Your Content for SEO

So what does an optimized page look like? Lets take a look at our inbound marketing page as an example.

While reading, you will notice the keyword we optimized for is of course, inbound marketing. You will find the keyword in the title, in the headings throughout the content, used frequently throughout the copy, and even in the meta description (twice). Those are all relevant and effective ways to optimize your content for SEO and grab the attention of those search engines indexing your site.

Note: Don’t get carried away with the keyword either. You don’t want to get penalized by Google for practicing “black hat SEO.” It’s a delicate balance. 

It is very important to place your keyword in the title, the closer to the beginning the better. By adding the keyword you are optimizing in the page title you are telling search engines and your visitors what the content is about. Would you use a word that has nothing to do with your pages content in your title? I would hope not!

If the title of our inbound marketing page was “helping customers come to you,” many would wonder what does that actually mean, vistors and search engines would be unsure what the page is. What does the company actually do? Not only do the keywords in the title need to make sense from a practical stand point, but they also need to be search engine friendly. There should be nothing mysterious about your content.

Utilizing keywords in your title is also important when people start linking to you, when you use a keyword that tells visitors and search engines what the page is about, people are more likely going to link to you. Keep in mind that your title should not be more than 72 characters, you don’t want a long title for a number of reasons. You want to get to the point, also ensuring that your entire title is visible in search results.

The Importance of your Meta Description

When searching for something in particular, how often do you read the meta description? Not even sure what a meta description is? A meta description is a brief description of what the webpage is about, you can find a meta description in the search results under each url.

You want people to come across your site while searching for a keyword. Using the meta description you can tell them what they will find after clicking on the url. How often have you read a meta description and it had nothing to do with the content on that page? Adding your keywords and relevant information will increase the number of people who will click on your companies site. Remember to keep your meta description around 165 characters to ensure that your whole description can be seen.

Have you ever read a companies blog or content and all the keywords distracted you? It is common to add as many keywords as possible to your content, however it can become distracting and actually take away from it. When writing your content there should be a keyword frequency that looks at the amount of keywords used on each page. It is commonly accepted that you should have a ratio of 5.5% of keywords compared to the overall length. Having a ratio any higher can cause Google to consider your content spam.

Linking is something that all search engines look for, they want to know you connected with other pages and content. Not only can you link to pages within your own site but you can also link to other sites.

Here are some best practices when linking:

  • Cross-link to pages and content on your site
  • Link to relevant pages and content from other sites
  • Link with relevant anchor text
  • Link early in the body copy

Make sure your content is at least 300 words, content that is too short and brief will make it harder for search engines to index and readers to understand.  Stay on topic and centered on a focus keyword, not only will it make your content search engine friendly but reader friendly.

Creating content is not just about making it interesting and being an industry leader, you have to make it SEO friendly as well. You want to add your keywords to your title, meta description, and also link to other content and utilize keyword frequency. Create content that will make not only your visitors but the search engines happy, use white hat marketing techniques and optimize your content to help your company rank higher and keep visitors coming to your site.

Optimize Your Content More Effectively

Overwhelmed at the amount of work necessary to create optimized content? Contact IMPACT and learn how we can help!