Content Optimization: How To Optimize Your Website Pages For SEO

Have you ever wondered how digital marketing agencies optimize website content to improve SEO? Take a behind-the-scenes look at the process of optimizing website content for higher search engine rankings! 

The Website Content Optimization Process

The process of optimizing website content can vary depending on who is doing it, what software is used, and what type of content is being optimized. In this blog, we’ll take a basic look into the process of optimizing a web page at Global Reach. 

Step 1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is a crucial part of the search engine optimization process. It involves identifying and analyzing the specific words and phrases (keywords) that people use when searching for information, products, or services on search engines. It’s important to have keywords that your target audience is searching for on your website so that when they search that phrase, they find your website. 

There are several different ways that you can conduct keyword research. At Global Reach, our SEO experts use a variety of keyword research tools to conduct different types of keyword research including general volume analysis, competitor comparison, and local search trends.

General Volume Keyword Research

Slight changes in phrasing can make a big difference in search volume. Choosing one term over another can be the difference between capturing 10 new users vs 10,000.

Competitor Keyword Comparison

At Global Reach, we utilize SEO software that allows us to directly compare websites to gain insights into how client websites compare to their competitors to help clients stay ahead of the competition. 

Local Keyword Research

Search trends can vary from state to state and even city to city. If your business has a localized service area, it is important to use the same search terms your local audience is using. Google Ads Keyword Planner is a great tool for narrowing down location-specific search trends.

Step 2. Analyze Your Content

The way you assess your content for SEO will vary depending on the SEO tools that you have available to you. At Global Reach, we use an SEO checker that assigns content an SEO score out of ten based on:

• SEO 
  • Are you using your target keywords? Does your content include links? Do you have any title issues? Are you utilizing images?
• Readability
  • Is your blog/web page/press release the right length and reading level for your intended audience?
• Originality 
  • Is the content your own and not copied from someone else?
• Tone of Voice
  • Is your tone casual, neutral, or formal? Is that tone consistent throughout the content?

Step 3. Optimize Your Content (SEO Checklist)

Once you have your keyword list and an SEO audit to get an idea of where your content needs improvement, start optimizing your content. There are many ways you can optimize your content depending on your industry, resources, and personal preferences, but a basic SEO optimization checklist includes:

• Keywords
  • Do: Incorporate the list of keywords you compiled from your keyword list throughout your content. Work them in naturally where they make sense, if you need to leave a couple out, that’s fine as well.
  • Don’t: Stuff keywords in unnatural places, use the same keyword too many times, or “hide” keywords in white text to try and sneak them in. 
• Links
  • Do: Add a few internal links to other content on your website that is relevant to the page you are optimizing to encourage users to visit other pages of your website and to help search engines crawl and understand your site.
  • Don’t: Add tons of links or link to external websites that are spammy or untrustworthy. 
• Headings 
  • Do: Include a keyword(s) in headings when possible and follow a logical and clear heading hierarchy. 
  • Don’t: Have more than one H1 or stuff lots of keywords in one heading. 
• Length 
  • Do: Ensure your content is at least 200 meaningful words, catering the length to the type of content and your audience's preferences. 
  • Don’t: Make your content unnecessarily long just to add in more keywords. 
• Images 
  • Do: Add images where they make sense on a page to appeal to both users and search engines. Make sure to add alt text to your images to ensure WCAG compliance. Alt text can also be a great way to work in another keyword and your business name to hopefully have it appear under image search results.
  • Don’t: Add an overwhelming number of images or images that are too large. Large images can slow down your website, which is bad for both user experience and SEO. 

Step 4. Implement Your Newly Optimized Content

Once your content is optimized and ready to go, it’s time to make it live on your website. When implementing your optimized content, keep these tips in mind:

• Be careful with copy/paste
  • When copying and pasting from Google Docs, Word, etc., formatting can also be copied over. This can impact the way the content looks as well as how “heavy” the code is on the back end of your website. If you’re drafting your content outside of your CMS, first copy and paste it into a .txt file to strip any formatting code and then copy from that file to your website. 
• Watch for extra spacing
  • Make sure there are no extra, unnecessary spaces between your paragraphs.
• Check mobile view
  • Make sure your newly added/updated content looks good on both desktop and mobile. 
• Optimize your metadata
  • Make sure that your H1 and title tag are different, eye-catching, clear, and include a keyword.
  • Add alt text to your images.
  • Write a catchy meta description that is no more than 160 characters to entice users to click on the page when it comes up in search engine results. 

Step 5. Monitor & Refine

Keep track of what keywords you optimized for and when you made your optimized content live. Once your content has had some time to sit (at least three months), check to see if the page is performing better after optimization than it was before. Google Analytics 4 can help you track a wide variety of performance metrics such as position in search results, page visits, and engagement with the page. Note what optimizations are performing well, which are not, and what they have in common. Routinely monitor and refine your SEO-optimized content, but don’t overdo it with constant page overhauls. 

Key Takeaway

Content optimization is an essential aspect of any SEO strategy for improving your website's visibility, attracting the right audience, and providing a positive user experience. By investing time and effort in optimizing your content, you can achieve better search engine rankings, increased organic website traffic, and ultimately, greater success in your overall digital marketing strategy.

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Looking for an SEO company with comprehensive SEO services? From SEO copywriting services to SEO marketing consulting, Global Reach has the tools, team, and experience to take your website content to the next level!