8 essential content optimization strategies for growing your brand
Content marketing has become the definitive way to build brand awareness and get more people to notice your business. You can use content to drive up organic visits to your website, generate more leads and increase sales. However, you need to optimize your content if you want to get noticed and recommended by search engines. Here are 8 content optimization strategies to implement today if you want to reach a larger audience.
#1: Create long-form content
Search engines prefer longer articles with at least 1,000 words. Recently we have also seen that content that exceeds 2,400 words often gets recommended in SERPs. Therefore, you should avoid writing short, throwaway articles. Longer content will also give you more opportunities to optimize your text and include other important SEO-boosting features. You can hire experts for SEO services NYC to make sure your articles fully conform to all of the search engine requirements for optimization. If you have plenty of short-form articles on your website, you can update them and add more text. It is generally much easier to update and rework old content than to create plenty of new articles from scratch.
#2: Write well-researched articles
When you are writing longer articles, you should avoid including too many filler sentences and paragraphs. Every part of your text needs to add value and new information. Do extensive research for every article and make sure to include plenty of facts and information that is going to be interesting to your readers. Quality content generally gets more shares and is great for boosting brand growth. Keep in mind that if you have plenty of stats and numbers in your text, you should cite your references. If you create links to authoritative sites, you will also boost your own site authority in the process.
#3: Structure your text
An important part of most content optimization strategies is to structure your text to be friendlier for both users and search engines. This includes creating title tags and meta descriptions for your pages. However, you should also divide the text itself with headings and subheadings to make it easier to read. It’s also a good idea to include lists that allow users to skim through your text quickly. Search engines will also bring up lists in snippet form on page one, which is a great way to boost traffic.
#4: Research keywords
Catering to the needs of your users is a must for any marketing strategy. However, you first need to know what users are exactly searching for, and which terms they use. You can hire a digital marketing agency New York to perform keyword research. This can help you come up with relevant topics for your content. Exercise caution when placing keywords in your articles. If you go overboard, search engines will see that as an attempt at keyword stuffing. That is considered to be a black hat SEO practice, and can actually result in a penalty to your overall website rank. Instead, you should create multiple pages on your site, each dedicated to a specific keyword.
#5: Optimize your media files
Try to reduce the file size of all your media files because website loading speed is an important SEO factor. When it comes to reducing the size of your images and videos, there are several content optimization strategies that you can implement:
- Use web-friendly formats. Not every image type is going to be suitable for all situations. You should mostly use compressed image formats such as .jpg or .png.
- Crop images and video. If you reduce the resolution, the file size should also go down significantly.
- Host videos on other platforms. Instead of uploading videos to your own site, you can host them on YouTube and just embed them on your pages.
#6: Spread your content on social media
If you want your content to be seen by a large audience, you will need to distribute it on platforms where people spend most of their time. Consult with professionals for social media advertising NYC and create a marketing strategy with social networks in mind. However, some platforms will have a preference for specific types of content. Ideally, you should create different content for each of your social channels. This means that you should create vertical videos for platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. Other video platforms like YouTube still prefer the traditional horizontal video format, but they have also recently included a separate category for short vertical videos.
#7: Have an FAQ section
Try to answer most of the common questions regarding your products or services. A large number of users will phrase their search engine queries in the form of questions. This means that if you have a dedicated FAQ section on your site, your pages are more likely to get brought up in search results. However, it is also a good idea to include a questions section on every page to boost their visibility. Of course, the questions need to relate to the topic you are covering on the page in order for you to get an SEO boost.
#8: Test and optimize again
Whenever you are implementing changes to your website or its content we recommend that you track the results. Monitor how well your content is performing and make adjustments as needed. Most importantly, testing can also help you when you are undecided about which version of your content you should post. In those situations, simple A/B testing and other optimization tools can help you figure out which version gets the best results. Additionally, most content optimization strategies aren’t a one-and-done affair. For this reason, you will need to regularly test and optimize your site and its content.
In summary
If you want to get more users to notice your business, content marketing is definitely the way to go. Thankfully, there are many content optimization strategies to implement today which can help your business stand out and get more customers. Always remember that the best content is the one that is interesting and valuable to your audience. Therefore, when you are optimizing your content, you should keep your user’s best interests in mind.