How to create and optimise content for your site
Creating relevant content that is engaging is a vital part of your SEO strategy: without it your site will feel too formal, not answer user questions, and struggle to hold rapport resulting in higher bounce rates. When writing online content, there are a number of considerations that you need to think about .We will go through a few points that are necessary to writing good content below.
1 – Knowing Your Audience
To write relevant content, you firstly need to identify what would be relevant to your audience. You need to identify your audience and their likes and interests, and what their search intent is: Are they looking for answers? More information about a certain product or service? Or a solution to a problem?
“68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.”
There are multiple ways you can find this information, such as using Google Keyword planner to identify what your market is searching for, looking at what they follow on social media through Google Analytics to look at likes and interests. All this information will make sure that content you write is relevant to what your audience is looking for, and therefore are more likely to click, and stay on your page.
Another important thing to consider is what do you want your users to do after they have read the content on your site? Having a clear Call to Action (CTA) is important to get those conversions. Identify your key objectives, to purchase, subscribe or enquire.
2 – Relevant
“39%: The percentage of purchasers who were influenced by a relevant search.”
The key to content is relevancy. Once you have identified your market you can narrow your content to focus on a particular segmented audience. This audience segmentation involves dividing your users into groups of demographics and interests. Therefore, creating content aimed at particular segments means that your content will be highly relevant to them and drive a higher conversion rate.
Keep in mind current trends or seasons that could affect what people are searching for, e.g., if you are a clothing company, a back-to-school article or must have winter coats during September.
Sometimes it is easier to pop down major trends or events that will affect your business onto a content calendar, and work your blog and social posts around these, this will give you a wealth of ideas for topics that remain relevant, so you don’t miss events that could interest your readers.
3 – Keywords
Any keywords that you have identified as important should appear in your content. However, make sure not to overuse them, this is known as keyword stuffing and can cause some search engines to consider your content as spam. They should also appear in your page titles and meta description, all of which contributes to a solid targeted landing page.
4 – Old Content
If your site already contains content such as blogs, and articles make sure you optimise them! Look for your top performing old content and add additional, now relevant data. For example, if you are in the farming industry, knowledge on how to grow potatoes will always be relevant to your users, however, changes in pesticides, hardier varieties and harvesting techniques may change as knowledge and technology grows.
Therefore, update the information with current knowledge and republish, but don’t forget to mention that it has been updated at the top of the article.
5 – Language and Localisation
Make sure the content is phrased suitably for your audience. Some regions and counties, even in the same country will have different meanings and intent for common phrases. Therefore, by localising your content, you will make sure that it suits the target audience, in their location, which means they are more likely to complete the CTA as the content is written in a way that makes sense to them.
Make sure that if your content is going to be translated in multiple languages that it is translated properly. Try to use a local person, or a highly competent speaker to translate it as some automatic translators do not translate effectively, in a way that would make sense.
Think about your audience, think about language in terms of vocabulary and tone. Don’t use technical language in your content if it does not suit the product or brand. This is your chance to engage with your customers so try to convey the same tone and feel throughout all your content as it will contribute to a stronger brand identity and develop trust and rapport with your customer.
6 – Layout and Design
“38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout are unattractive.”
Keep your content interesting, where applicable use images, infographics, and videos, to help reinforce messages and retain interest. Data is consumed differently when it is viewed online or offline. Online is about convenience and time, we consume data much more rapidly, particularly on mobile. Ensure that any text and content display well in mobile by using a responsive site. Also make sure that the layout is interesting and not hard to digest, use subheadings and titles to break up large amounts of text.
“52.94% internet users worldwide operate mobile and tablet devices, while 47.06% use desktop.”
Remember:
- Always review and edit content prior to publishing
- Always measure the performance of your content by using KPI’s and adjust your content after monitoring. Your audience will always determine whether your content is useful or not.
The main aim of using content is to drive traffic to your site which it achieves by increasing awareness of your brand and building trust and recognition among your audience. To use content efficiently though, it must be optimised, this will help you perform better in search engine results and help achieve business objectives.
