Content Optimization: A Step-By-Step Guide For Better Google Rankings
Content optimization…where to begin?
It starts with observing the best on-page search engine optimization (SEO) practices on your content.
This isn’t limited to basic SEO advice like mentioning your page’s target keyword in the title, meta description, and content.
This process involves mentioning words and phrases in the content that are semantically relevant to your target keyword.
This is important because it helps Google better understand your content, resulting in your page ranking high in Google search engine results for its relevant keywords.
Quick example: how you optimize your content about apples will help search engines determine if your content is about the tech company or the fruit.
Now that we’ve established the value that content optimization brings to the table, let’s go straight to the step-by-step process so you can incorporate it as part of your content creation process.
Map keywords to optimize
Optimizing your content for search engine rankings requires researching the best target keywords for each page.
However, instead of approaching content creation and optimization piece by piece, think of it as building a map.
You want to fill your map with individual content hubs covering a subtopic of your site’s overarching topic.
Topical mapping has generated considerable interest in the industry over the years. It enables you to develop a content plan that covers your website’s different categories.
By comprehensively covering your website with expertly written content, you can achieve topical authority, allowing your site pages to rank higher on Google.
To begin, you’ll need to do some keyword research. There are a bunch of keyword research tools on the market but we recommend using SE Ranking.
Enter your site’s industry or niche in the search bar.
On the results page, go to the detailed report of similar keywords about the industry you entered.
In the Keyword Suggestions page, look at the Group keyword section that shows you search terms grouped into their most common words.
Use the information here to determine the categories on your website.
In the example above, for a website with the topic “BMX,” potential categories to create for the site include:
- BMX bike (13.5k total number of keywords)
- BMX games (3.1k)
- BMX racing (1.7k)
- BMX frame (1.3k)
It’s worth noting that you may need to switch the words around to make more sense. For example, you wouldn’t write “BMX freestyle”. You would write “freestyle BMX” instead.
These categories can also serve as your pillar pages, the foundation of your topical map.
Click on the keyword group that you want to create a map for (in this case, it’s BMX bike) to see keyword suggestions containing the words “BMX” and “bike.”
From here, you can decide which keywords you want to include in the cluster based on the following:
- Difficulty (how easy ranking for the keyword is)
- Search volume (how many people are searching for it online)
- Trend (its popularity over time)
- Search intent (why people are searching it or what they expect to see on your page for this query).
Focus on finding keywords with low difficulty, high search volume, and increasing popularity.
As for search intent, you ideally want to optimize your pillar pages with commercial or transactional keywords and informational intent for your supporting articles.
From the results, you may notice that some keywords are pretty much the same thing. So, you don’t want to make the mistake of creating different pages for the same keyword (which causes keyword cannibalization).
In this case, you want to group similar keywords into their respective clusters. Thankfully, SE Ranking has this feature.
Export the keywords from the results and go to Keyword Grouper. Paste the keywords on the text box and click “Start Grouping.”
Keep in mind that this feature requires a separate payment from your tool subscription. Each query costs $0.004 (a query plus search volume check is $0.005).
Once you’ve grouped these terms, you should have a clear idea of content to write for your site based on your website’s topical map.
Note: Regardless of what any tool tells you, I’d always recommend sense checking your topical clusters manually. It’s also worth checking SERPs to see what types of content Google is ranking. For example, you may have two different keywords that are distinctly different where Google has decided they mean the same thing. In these cases, you can create just one page/article on the topic. For example, Google will treat “social media management software” and “social media management tools” as the same thing.
Find semantically relevant phrases for each keyword
The next step is to write the content.
You need to incorporate natural language processing (NLP) keywords into the content. This helps Google understand the content’s topic and rank your page on search engine results pages (SERPs) appropriately.
To simplify the process, there are many content optimization tools that automatically list the semantic keywords to include. We recommend Frase for this.
There are other tools and SE Ranking does have a similar feature but Frase offers the best balance of features and affordability.
Once you’ve created your account, create a new document and enter your target keyword here.
After creating the document, let Frase research Google SERPs for the keyword by clicking “Start” to generate the NLP keywords to include in the content, among other things.
Once the research is complete, click the Optimize tab to generate the phrases to include in your content.
Structure the content properly
Before writing the content, consider creating an outline first.
You can use Frase to help you build the content’s outline and there are two ways you can do it.
After clicking on the Outline tab, you have the choice to generate the outline using AI or build one manually using headers used by other pages ranking for your target keyword.
If you generate the outline using AI, you’ll see something like this:
Double-check the outline to ensure that it covers all the important topics about the keyword.
If you click on “Generate instructions with AI,” Frase will populate each header with bullet points discussing the topic in depth.
If you’re happy with the generated outline and research, you can click “Generate article” to ask Frase to write the content using the researched information.
When generating content, Frase also provides you with information about the average words, images, headers, and links of the top-ranking pages for your target keyword.
This helps you make your content look similar (if not better) to the pages dominating SERPs, thereby increasing your content’s chances of generating more organic traffic once published!
Note: AI article generation is an add-on feature that requires a separate payment from your subscription ($35/month).
Strive to be “link-worthy”
Great content is often rewarded with backlinks, which Google perceives as a form of recommendation to your page. Think of links as votes.
The more backlinks from trustworthy sites you have, the higher the page will rank on SERPs.
However, creating content that demands backlinks doesn’t always mean you need to create exhausting, comprehensive content at all times.
Sometimes, you need to come up with unique ideas to generate the attention from people, causing them to link to your site.
Brian Dean is an excellent example of this.
He coined “Skyscraper Technique” almost a decade ago, which is a strategy that people in the industry have long been using.
It’s just that Brian was the only one who created a term for it, and people still refer to that technique to this day!
As of writing, the page has 5.8k backlinks from 2.1k domains and is still growing after all these years!
Ever heard of reverse outreach?
You know, the tactic of creating content optimized for journalists to pick it up and run within their stories?
Again, this has been a tactic that SEOs have used for years.
But only Brian was crafty enough to come up with a name for it!
With over 200 backlinks, it may not be a rousing success as the skyscraper technique post. But this ain’t too shabby at all!
Say anything you want about Brian Dean, but his link-worthy content ideas are what drove the success of Backlinko and the links it generated.
Here’s the lesson:
Find processes in your industry and come up with naming conventions for them.
This will be a trial-and-error process, but once it catches on, you can drive more backlinks to your site passively – a true SEO dream!
Create unique and custom images
Stock photos won’t cut it anymore. You run the risk of using images that other websites have used, which dilutes your content’s uniqueness.
Thankfully, it’s much easier and more cost-effective to generate images for your site with AI.
Midjourney and ChatGPT’s DALL-E enables you to describe the image you want AI to create, and it will create it for you.
Identify the size, style, and appearance so the images align with your brand.
On the downside, many businesses also use AI to create images for their sites, which doesn’t help make your site stand out.
However, this is where image editing tools like Canva and Visme come into play. You can edit the images further with custom text, icons, and additional designs to make your images even more professional.
Make content easy to read
When writing content, you want to use language and style that resonates with your target audience. The goal is to make your blog posts easier to read so they can understand what you’re saying.
Like images, there are tons of tools that make generating easy-to-read content much easier.
If you have no issue editing content using AI, you can always run your written content using ChatGPT and ask it to edit the content for grammatical errors.
More importantly, you want it to observe writing guidelines that suit your readership. You should be clear on how you want ChatGPT to edit your content to ensure readability without compromising on your message.
In fact, ChatGPT’s Canvas feature enables you to polish the content to ensure that it is written according to your specifications.
Note: You’ll always want to fact check anything that’s been written or rewritten with AI.
Grammarly Premium is another tool that helps improve readability, shorten sentences, replace complex words with simple ones, and more.
Get a paid subscription to the tool and install its Chrome extension to unlock its premium features directly in your browser.
From here, the tool will spot potential errors you can correct with just a few clicks.
Also, if you encounter complex or unclear sentences, you can ask Grammarly to rewrite it or simplify it for you.
Note: You’ll still need to use your own initiative when editing using Grammarly. It’s not perfect so use it as a guide. Still, it can be very useful.
Add metadata
Once you’ve written the content for your web pages, you should create their title tags and meta descriptions.
These will appear on SERPs and can entice users to click on your page even if it doesn’t appear at the top of the search results.
Again, ChatGPT will be your best friend here. Paste your content on the prompt and ask it to generate the meta description for you.
Ask for as many suggestions as possible and choose the best one it generates.
Generate schema markup
Rich snippets are the extra information that appears on your page’s SERPs for specific queries. They are common among keywords related to recipes, reviews, products, and services.
Rich snippets help you attract more eyeballs and generate more clicks in the process.
To trigger rich snippets to appear for your page, therefore, you need to add Schema markup to your site.
But before you do, you must ensure that the SERP pages have rich snippets activated for your target keyword. You can confirm this with a quick Google search.
If not, feel free to skip this step.
Now, to create schema markups for your page, install the Schema Pro WordPress plugin for your site.
It supports all schema markup types and automatically implements them on your site with a few clicks. No need to post the markup code anywhere on your site!
Build internal links
Internal links help make your pages much easier for search engines to find.
Whenever a search engine’s crawler lands on your site, it will crawl through each page that it finds.
But if you don’t have internal links to certain pages, these bots or spiders won’t be able to crawl those pages or even index them.
Consider these factors:
- Pages with no internal links are considered orphaned pages and search engines may not be able to index them.
- If the page is linked far away from the homepage, search engines will also have a hard time crawling it.
- Internal links pass link equity throughout your site and will help you rank pages higher.
- Be careful with your anchor text for internal links. Google may choose to ignore certain internal links when you re-use the same anchors too much. So, be sure to use your secondary keywords in addition to your primary keywords.
Not only do internal links help search bots to crawl and index your site, they also help users find related pages on your site.
The topical map discussed in the keyword research section should help you implement internal links.
The pages within the cluster should link to each other, allowing the site authority to circulate and increase your topical authority.
But let’s say you have published content on your site already. You want to audit and see if you have pages with no links pointing to them or have opportunities to build internal links on your other pages.
Link Whisper solves this problem. This WordPress plugin will scan your site’s links and provide you with a report about them, including orphaned pages (pages that don’t have internal links pointing to them), broken links and pages, and others.
Click on the orphaned pages to generate links pointing to them in a few clicks.
Optimize for featured snippets
For some search queries, there’s a feature snippet that appears before organic search results that immediately answers the question asked in the keyword.
This is known as “position zero” and achieving it requires you to take the following steps:
- Identify the format of the snippets – Check if the information is organized into a list or table or if it has images or videos.
- Use headers – Clearly show Google the structure of your content so it quickly picks up your snippet.
- Answer the question in the same way it is displayed – If the snippet is text-based, go straight with your answer for the query. Use simple and clear language. Refer to how the featured snippet showing for your query looks and write it similarly to that one while improving it. And if you’re seeing a table in SERPs, you’ll need to create a table.
- Create an FAQ section – If the question is related to your target keyword and has featured snippets in their SERPs, answer them in the content within the Frequently Asked Questions section, often found just before the content’s conclusion.
Additional content optimization tips
Need more tips for optimizing content? Thankfully, we have more in store for you!
Have a clear CTA
Just ranking pages isn’t enough; you need to mobilize readers to perform your desired action.
Determine the keyword’s call to action and create a CTA that visitors will act upon.
For informational keywords, a good CTA is to get users to join your mailing list to receive updates straight to their inbox. Commercial keywords require you to put up a link to a product or service relevant to your keyword that enables users to purchase it.
You’ll also need to consider the appearance of the CTA. Ensure that its button is big enough, has a compelling copy, and is contrasting in color to attract attention.
Finally, monitor the performance of your CTA using heat mapping tools to determine if people are clicking or taking on them. If not, recreate your CTA and test whether this variant performs better.
Add videos
If you’re optimizing your content for a how-to keyword, it’s best to create a video that shows the exact steps described in the article.
For best results, you need to set up a high-resolution camera to capture how to do something for users. This helps them visualize your content and ensures they follow the steps correctly.
The same goes if you’re showing a how-to video using software. Recording the steps using Descript is a good way to ensure that the video will be of the highest quality since it has editing features to help you produce a video with minimal to no mistakes.
Once you’ve created the video, upload it to YouTube, link it to the page URL in the description, and embed it on the page.
This also gives you the opportunity to rank your video in YouTube, and within Google’s Search Results. Not just ranking your article in regular organic results.
Avoid over-optimization
Mentioning your keywords multiple times in the article to optimize content is an antiquated tactic. In fact, it can do more harm than good, as keyword stuffing disrupts the flow of the content by mentioning the same phrase multiple times for the sake of SEO.
If you use Frase to optimize your content, this problem shouldn’t exist. Simply integrate the NLP keywords in the Optimize tab to make your content more semantically relevant to your target keyword.
Make content shareable on social media
Social media isn’t necessarily related to SEO and vice versa. Still, it doesn’t hurt to get visitors from Google to share your content on Facebook, X, and others.
To do this, you need to set up social share buttons that are optimized to appear on desktop and mobile.
We recommend Novashare for this. It’s the same plugin we use here on Search Endurance.
Unlike other social sharing plugins, it’s extremely lightweight (under 4kb) while remaining feature-rich, helping you display your share count accurately.
The share count also works as social proof for visitors to your site. The more shares your content has, the more people will think that the content is excellent (which should be the case).
Conclusion
Now you know how to approach content optimization. This process is critical if you want to get better results from your content marketing efforts.
It’s not just about creating good content – it’s also about structuring your content to help search engines understand what your content is about and its relationship with the other pages on your site.
By doing this, you should be able to effectively create content that satisfies search engines and people. Good luck!
Related reading: