One of the most effective ways in digital marketing to build your brand and stand out from competitors is through content marketing. Content marketing is a strategy that uses various types of media to communicate with consumers as well as provide relevant information for users searching through search engines.
There are many types of content assets that can be created including blog writing, social media, ebooks, case studies, and more. A best practice in content marketing is to produce diversified, high quality content to encourage higher traffic and visibility for consumers.
Content is indexed by search engines to help with organic ranking through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and also help elevate your brand presence throughout various websites across the Internet.
Here are some best practices to follow in your strategy to strengthen the quality of your content for consumers and optimize it for search engines. Get the most out of your content marketing strategy by following these tips.
1. Add Visual Assets
Adding visual assets into your content marketing strategy is a good way to be interactive with your audience. Using different types of visual assets can diversify content for different needs and keep your audience engaged. For example if you’re looking to inform your consumers, you may opt for an infographic with a staggering statistic to capture attention. A few examples of visual content include:
Photos
Videos
Infographics
Gifs
Memes
Polls
2. Image Optimization and Alt Text
Image optimization is the process of updating your images to allow search engines to better index assets on your website. Businesses can benefit from image optimization since search engines often display images in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). With that said, image optimization and alt (alternative) text can help increase organic visibility.
Updating the alt text on content is important for three main reasons.
Alt text provides contextual information to be indexed by search engines like Google to contribute to SEO efforts.
Image optimization may increase traffic from Google Images.
It helps with website ADA compliance using screen readers to read a description about the image while scanning the photo.
3. Incorporate Social Media into Content Use
Social media is a cost effective marketing channel that can be used to feed into higher traffic and conversions for your website. Incorporating social media into your content marketing has the potential to grow your following, communicate with your customers, and increase sales. A few tips for using social media in your content marketing strategy are
Remain consistent with the brand message
Mimic viral trends if applicable
Post regularly and consistently
Interact with your audience through questions and responding to comments
4. Easy to Read Content
Blog writing is a crucial piece of content marketing and businesses can maximize the SEO benefits by following a few best practices. One of the best practices in blog writing is creating easy to read content, and there are a few ways to execute this.
OPT FOR SHORTER SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS
Using shorter sentences and paragraphs in blog writing will allow the reader to digest information easily. Shorter sections also keep the writing on topic by making sentences and paragraphs concise.
BREAK UP TEXT WITH BULLET POINTS
Bullet points help in the readability because it visually helps to break up sections of text. Readers are able to view bullet points rather than cramming the list into one long sentence.
INSERT IMAGES INTO CONTENT
Using images in content helps provide visual elements to your writing, as well as breaking up the content into sections. Images or visual assets can help enhance the readers experience, and when images are optimized, they can help with SEO efforts.
5. Optimize the Meta Data
One excellent way to help with search engine indexing is by optimizing the meta data for the content that is being posted. Users on search engines also view the meta description and the title tag so it’s imperative that these sections are readable and updated.
META TAGS
Meta tags should be updated to maximize the positive effects from content creation. This section indicates to search engines what your content is about. Types of meta tags are the meta description, title tags, and headers (H1, H2, H3).
META DESCRIPTION
This is one of the website’s meta tags that should be updated for search engine success. The meta description should include a captivating description with at least one keyword.
Avoid keyword stuffing because search engines may penalize your website and readers will dismiss your content.
Keyword stuffing is including excessive keywords in an attempt to achieve higher ranking or increased traffic. The meta description should be accurate, readable, and succinct.
CORRECT HEADERS
It’s necessary to use correct headers to assist with SEO efforts and help users understand your content. Here are a few differentiating factors for headers: A page title or meta title is the text that gets clicked on in the search engine results page.
The meta title helps to describe the page content and can be optimized for SEO.
Use an H1 tag to introduce what the page content is all about, and a best practice is to only use one H1 tag.
For longer content, it can be useful to insert H2 and H3 tags to separate long pieces of content.
6. Link Building
Link Building is when other websites hyperlinks to your website within their content as a reference or information source. Link building helps with SEO because search engines crawl websites and move between the links on the web pages for indexing.
This practice may also be beneficial for increasing traffic because users are able to click directly to your site through the hyperlink.
We recommend link building to optimize your content because it can build your authority through search engines, and encourage traffic from users.
INTERNAL LINKING
Internal linking (interlinking) can also be a best practice for SEO efforts and user experience on your website.
The difference between link building and internal linking is where the hyperlink for the other page is located. If you are linking from one page of a website, to another page of the same website; that is interlinking. If an outside website includes a link to your website; that is link building.
Interlinking helps with SEO because Google indexes your content and may lead to a higher ranking on the SERP. Interlinking can be advantageous for user experience because users can quickly locate information on your website without having to click around.
7. Evaluate Your Content
Evaluating content is a vital part of a content marketing strategy to determine where there were successes and shortcomings. Here are some questions to evaluate your successful content:
What content was successful and unsuccessful?
Why was this content successful?
Who interacted with this content in a valuable way?
Is this the audience I want to continue to target?
How can I repurpose topics in content that performed well without duplicating it?
What types of content don’t work and how can I improve in these areas?
Now that you have analyzed your content, determine how you can structure your strategy around the successful content. Hone in on the content that represents your brand and maintain that same style to enhance your brand awareness.
Content Optimization to Feed into Ultimate SEO Success
Optimizing your content is an indispensable step because content feeds directly into search engine optimization. These are just 7 tips but there are many more ways to optimize your content to help maximize your success in organic ranking and higher traffic.
For more information, please contact us for a consultation.