6 steps to optimize content for Google Search

seo

November 21, 2018

6 steps to optimize content for Google Search

When you already know what options are better to boost your website, it’s right time to start thinking about content optimization.

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times. While most of these changes are minor, Google occasionally rolls out a “major” algorithmic update that affects search results in significant ways.

In order to gain as much visibility as possible on Google for your business or brand, you need to keep on top of these changes and work out how best to optimize your website for the ever-expanding opportunities that Google Search presents. Here are some tips for you:

1. Start with Keyword Research

Best way to start optimizing the content is with keyword research. Keywords serve as a proxy for customer intent and are an indicator if your topic is valuable and relevant for your customers.

Optimizing your blog posts for keywords is not about incorporating as many keywords into your posts as possible.

Nowadays, this actually hurts your SEO because search engines consider this keyword stuffing.

When choosing a keyword, there are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • How many people are searching for this keyword?
  • How competitive is this keyword?
  • What stage of the buyer’s journey is this keyword?
  • Doing regular keyword research also keeps you updated while creating your content calendar.

2. Optimize your images

Never forget to add visual content to your text, which will help explain your content. But search engines don’t just look for images. Rather, they look for images with alt text.
Because search engines can’t “see” images, an image’s alt text tells them what an image is about which ultimately helps those images rank in Google Images results.

Image optimization doesn’t stop there. One more tip: did you know the size of your photos can impact your content’s load time? Follow Google’s image optimization guide.

Before hitting publish button, ensure your images are sized properly in the correct file type.

3. Create quality content

Creating quality content is the most effective way to market a business. While there is no evidence, at this time, that grammar is a ranking signal, it’s a UX/credibility concern.

How can I produce the right volume of valuable, shareable content? The truth is, you can pump out a ridiculous number of killer blog posts and still wind up with a poor conversion rate because you’re not answering your audience’s needs.

What you post drives consumer interest in your company and inspires your fans to become brand advocates.

High-quality content:

  • is free of spelling and grammatical errors.
  • links to good, reputable sources.
  • has been fact-checked.

4. Use Google’s Search Console.

Use Google’s free Search Console that contains a section called the Search Analytics Report. This report helps you analyze clicks from Google Search, and it’s useful to determine which keywords people are using to find your blog content.

You don’t have to sign up for Search Console for your site to be included in Google’s search results, but doing so can help you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results.

A lot of content marketers struggle with optimizing their blog posts for search. The truth is, your blog posts won’t start ranking immediately. Marketers should avoid SEO big mistakes, to have a result in the future.

It takes time to build up search authority.

But when you publish blog posts frequently and consistently optimize them for search while maintaining an intent-based reader experience, you’ll reap the rewards in the form of traffic and leads long-term.

5. Impact of Page Speed

According to data from Google, if your content takes longer than three seconds to load, you might be losing 53 percent of your mobile site visitors.

People have little patience for slow load times or poor user experiences. Any friction and they’ll move on to another site.

It’s essential to your content’s performance that your page loads quickly across device types.

To make sure your webpage is fast, Google offers a free PageSpeed Insights tool. This tool not only tells you how you’re doing on mobile and desktop but also offers recommendations to improve your content’s speed.

6. Add Transcripts to Your Videos

Video marketing is growing and growing. According to a survey by Wyzowl 81 percent of businesses use video as a marketing tool – up from 63 percent from 2017.

Next time you create a video landing page, add a transcript of the video to the page. Search engines crawl the text on a page for indexing. A transcript enables search engines to understand your video content and rank it for the appropriate search terms.

Don’t forget that once you have the video transcript, you can repurpose it into a blog post, social quotes, white paper, etc.

Finally, don’t let content optimization for search be an afterthought. You’ll miss huge traffic and conversion opportunities. If you start optimizing today, you’ll see long-term gains.

Need more assistance? Contact our Digital Marketing team and let us make your business top ranking on Google.

author avatar
Tereza Marketing Manager
Tereza is an experienced digital marketing manager known for her effective strategies that drive business growth. She brings extensive experience in using digital channels to boost brand visibility and engagement.
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