Optimizing your Existing Content

Why You Should Optimizing Existing Content on Your Website

Optimizing your website content can significantly enhance its performance, engagement, and visibility. I’ll break down the optimization process into simple steps that you can follow along with.

Steps to Optimize Content for SEO

First select what content you want to optimize, generally you’ll want to start with the worst preforming pages on your website. Once these are addressed, you can start to move on to pages that are preforming but could use some attention.

Target Keywords with Traffic Potential

By targeting relevant keywords with high traffic potential, your content is more likely to appear in search results and attract visitors. Your page already probably has some kind of target keyword in mind, but if it is not attracting traffic, or converting well then, you’ll want to first verify that you are targeting the right keyword.

There may be a similar keyword that the page could focus on that will attract visitors better, or more closely align with the searcher’s intent.

Using tools like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to find keywords that are frequently searched and have manageable competition.

Align with Search Intent by placing yourself in the shoes of someone who’s putting this search term into Google. Ask yourself, “What am I trying to do with this search?” By matching search intent you ensure that your content meets users’ needs, increasing the likelihood of higher rankings and user engagement.

Now you should look at the competition.

Analyze top-ranking pages for your target keyword to understand content type, format, and angle. Ask yourself as well, is there an angle that is not being covered by these articles? Is there more information or detail that I could add to this to provide value and knowledge that everyone else is glossing over?

Be Comprehensive in Your Coverage

By covering all aspects of a topic you satisfy searchers’ queries, increasing dwell time and improving your metrics. If a customer stays on your page, or moves to another page, or even directly to another website, that tells Google that they probably found something useful to them. This metric is often called “bounce rate” or “pogo sticking”, when visitors “bounce” off of a page that they clicked on. 

This is where you should conduct a content gap analysis to identify any missing subtopics and ensure your content is thorough and informative.

Enhance Readability and Engagement

Make sure that your content is easy-to-read content so that you retain users. This reduces those “bounce rates”. A good rule of thumb is to keep the readability of your content around an 8th Grade level for most cases.

To do this eliminate fluff, use short paragraphs and bullet points, include a table of contents for long posts, and prioritize key information.

But keep in mind your audience and who your content is for. If you are trying to reach a mass audience, avoid industry jargon, if you are speaking to a more specialized audience more detail may be needed.

Make Compelling Title Tags and Descriptions

But no matter your audience you should have compelling title tags and descriptions. Attractive title tags and meta descriptions improve click-through rates from search results.

To do this, write clear and concise titles and descriptions. Naturally use keywords that match search intent and stand out from competitors.

Update your timestamps

Once you have updated an article or any other piece of content on your website, be sure to update the timestamps.
Google prioritizes freshness, along with other factors, but it would be a mistake to not update your last modified time stamp on your sitemap and on the page itself to tell Google that you are keeping your content fresh and relevant.

Backlink Acquisition

Backlinks from authoritative sites improve your content’s credibility and ranking. Quality content will naturally attract links, but you could also go on a proactive link building campaign to attract more of those links from quality sources.

So, you should identify and pursue opportunities for backlinks by creating high-quality, link-worthy content. Don’t be afraid to do some competition research, reach out to websites that have linked to your competition. Maybe they’ll like your content better?

If you want to learn more about link building, we have a dedicated guide that you can read.

Rich Snippets

Rich snippets make your search listings more appealing, increasing click-through rates and giving you the opportunity to jump ahead in the rankings to above the search results. However, this requires some additional work to make it happen.

We have a more in-depth article on Schema Markup that you can read here. But for now, we’ll keep the explanation short.

You’ll need to implement schema markup to each of your website pages. This highlights key information for Google to better understand the page. Look for and find places in your content to provide concise, and clear answers to questions that match the snippet formats.

Once you have your mark up in place, be sure to validate your code using Google’s Rich Results Test.

Polish your site speed and look

While this is less about individual pages, and applies more to the website as a whole. You want to make sure that your website loads quickly and has an easy to navigate user experience (UX).

Confusing menus, nonstandard site layout, and massive images are the most common issues that can pop up for websites. Each website will have its own unique challenges in optimizing these things but we do go into more detail in our Introduction to On Page SEO guide.

Optimizing With A Purpose

Above we talked about searcher intent, now we’ll talk about your intent. Once you’ve got someone to visit a page, what do you want them to do next?

This is where optimizing for your intent comes in. Both of the following cases is something that you need to be thinking about with each of the pages on your website.

Does it fulfill a purpose for Business or Social Shares?

Business Considerations

Focusing your content on attracting leads and sales potential. Naturally use keywords that are likely to be searched for by someone who is looking for what you are selling.

Show your product in action, demonstrate it, take pictures, write detailed explanations about what it’s benefits are, what problems it solves, and why it’s worth your customers or clients time or money.

Finally do not forget to add a strong Call to Action (CTA). Any page that is business related should have some kind of CTA on them. Talking about your product and comparing it to others? Have a good CTA on the page to convert traffic.

When crafting your call to action, use emotional triggers, credibility, and timing to craft effective CTA’s.

Optimizing Content for Social Shares

For more sharing focused content you’ll want to first and foremost have unique insights that encourage people to share them around. These are not always easy to do, but a fresh perspective can add to the conversation and encourage sharing.

Support your content with expert quotes. Most of us are not going to be the “big fish” and even if you are supporting your take with the positions of other experts, or heck even contradicting those takes, is a good way to drive shares of your articles.

Finally boost social sharing with engaging visual content. Add images, video, and other content to make it not only easier to share, but also to consume.

Optimizing Other Content Formats

Video content, will be, almost without exception, on YouTube.

A topic that could get its own entire post all to itself. However, these still follow some basic rules such as having an attractive thumbnail, strong title to encourage clicks, and relevant keywords in the description and title. For videos that you are self-hosting, you should also be ensuring that you are using descriptive filenames that utilize keywords as well.

For images, you should make sure that the image file names, tags, and alt tags, are descriptive and utilize relevant keywords to the subject of the image.

Finally for news content, again, another topic that could get a dedicated write up all to itself, there are some standard rules. Ensure that your URLs are static, use keyword rich headlines, and ensure that you are using comprehensive metadata for your news articles.

Optimizing Existing Content Has Major Benefits

By following these optimization steps, you can significantly enhance your website’s existing content performance, driving more traffic, engagement, and conversions. Optimize for your audience first, and search engines will follow.

If you are looking for help optimizing your existing content, or need a comprehensive Digital Marketing campaign, contact us today. We’ll devise and help to execute on a comprehensive digital marketing campaign.