SEO Content: Here is what you really need to know!

Whatever product or content your website offers, many visitors will reach it through a major search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. Giving your website the best SEO optimization possible ensures it appears at the top of these search rankings, maximizing the number of visitors to your website.

Successful search engine optimization is made up of several technical and creative factors that work together to drive traffic to your website. With good content marketing, you're aiming not only at achieving high rankings but also at creating content that people want to stay and read. Keywords, interlinks, anchor texts, meta tags and, of course, interesting and informative pages are all part of successful SEO optimized content.

Keywords

These are the building blocks of search engine optimization and drive traffic to your website. It makes sense when creating a content marketing brief to do some research on effective and popular keywords before starting. There are plenty of tools out there to help with this such as WordStream's keyword niche finder. But remember: search engines are more sophisticated than they used to be, so "keyword stuffing" won't get you very far these days!

Interlinks or hyperlinks

Providing internal links lets users navigate around the contents of your website, but, they also act as pathways that the search engine "crawlers" can use to get from one page of your site to another, allowing it to collect data from more pages of your site - this has a huge impact on SERP ranking. Providing external hyperlinks to other relevant web pages will improve your company image, making it look like an expert in the field.

Anchor text

The anchor text is the 'clickable' text part of a hyperlink. The most successful anchor texts are relevant to the page they're linking too while being naturally embedded into a sentence linguistically. For example, WordStream is a useful source of information about anchor texts.

Meta tags and title tags

A well-crafted meta tag can have a powerful impact on search engine rankings. These little snippets of text are an opportunity to give some precise information about your website. Keep them short and your keywords at the front for best results.

Great content

To ensure visitors stay on your website, make sure your content is interesting to read with plenty of relevant information and helpful links. The longer visitors stay on your landing page and click through your website, the more likely they are to buy. Sites with low-value content are also penalised by search engines and will slip down the rankings. Here are some tried-and-tested suggestions for successful content:

• Effective SEO content often contains expert photography (with alt text), accurate and succinct product information and a clear call to action.

• Blog posts that showcase your product or service while also being informative and entertaining generate readership.

• Updated articles and features can also have this effect.

• Lists - articles written as numbered lists are very clickable.

• Include guides showing potential customers how to use your products.

• Videos - there are fewer videos than text pages on the web, so supporting your page with a video (along with alt text) can mean a higher ranking.

• Infographics add interest but need to be supported by SEO optimized text.

• Glossaries are useful for supporting text in specialised areas such as cuisine, medicine or construction.

Four steps for content that's always great

• Know what you want your website to do: Are you looking for direct sales or do you want to increase return readership? If it's the first, your content should be focused on presenting your product in an attractive and informative way. If it's the second, your articles and blog features should be easy to read and provide an informative link to your product.

• Always keep your audience in mind: Get to know your audience with analytical tools such as Quantcast and aim your content directly at them. For example, busy business people appreciate high-quality texts that they can download and read at their leisure, while the teenage market enjoys visuals and frequent updates. Ensure all content is optimized for both desktops and mobile devices.

• Keep it fresh: Repeat visitors to your site will expect to see fresh content, whether it's new products or a recent blog post. Create an editorial diary and a workable schedule to keep on top of your content.

• Check whether your content works: Use page views, social networking likes and comments and conversions from viewing to sales to check if your content is working.

Text: Leonie Yeates
Image: thenextweb.com