Before the digital age, entrepreneurs could only sell to the people around them. Today, the internet has given aspiring entrepreneurs access to a worldwide market. Search engine optimization (SEO) best practices, in particular, can give business owners a huge advantage online. Good engine optimization allows a business to rise in the search results, which leads to more organic traffic and greater potential for conversions.
One of the best things you can do for an effective SEO campaign is to take advantage of content marketing. This involves original content creation that showcases your business and what you can offer your target audience— whether that’s your products and services, information, entertainment, etc. Producing relevant content that answers your audience’s questions and solves their problems builds trust and establishes your brand as an expert voice in your field. Website content optimization is not only more affordable than traditional paid advertising, but it’s often more effective as well. Here are some great ways you can optimize different types of content.
Text Optimization
Text content typically includes things like blog posts and articles. You’ll want to conduct keyword research to find good keywords for your field and incorporate these into your content. Your target keywords are the words and phrases users are likely to enter in the Google search console to find your business.
Which title sounds better? “How to Edit Your YouTube Videos Using Final Cut” or “Final Cut for Beginners”? Many would think the latter because it’s precise and gets straight to the point. That’s not necessarily the case, though. The first one is wordier, but it’s also more specific. These blog post and article titles are your title tags, and the more relevant keywords you fit in here and in your content, the easier it is for the search engine to find your content. Your meta descriptions also help search engines find your content. An accurate description combined with the right keywords can significantly improve your odds of being found.
Video Optimization
Video optimization is partly similar to text optimization in that it also employs title tags and meta descriptions. Videos also use thumbnail images, so you’ll want to choose one that’s attention-grabbing and accurately reflects your content. You also need to be aware that not all video hosting platforms are created equal. If your primary goal is simply to build brand awareness, then sites like YouTube and Vimeo can help you reach a great number of people. Search engines that index these videos, however, will only take users to the hosting site. If you’re primarily trying to increase traffic to your own website, you’ll be better off using alternative tools to host your video content on your own site.
Image Optimization
Google image search accounts for nearly 27% of searches conducted in the United States. Thanks to Google updating the “view image” button to the “visit page” button, images can now be an excellent source of traffic to your site. You can help your images rank higher by giving them file names with relevant keywords separated by hyphens. You can also add title attributes to images, which provide context for your site and can help you rank better for user intent. You can add more Alt attributes (text describing your image) to product images that describe the model and other product information to help your rank as well.
Page load speed is one of the most important factors for on-page SEO, so you’ll want to keep your image file sizes under control to avoid slowing down your site. JPEGs are the easiest file sizes to keep low, and your aim should be to keep images to 100Kb or lower.
The key to consistent high-quality content is to make sure it’s helpful to your audience and not just trying to sell them a product. The more trust you can build, the more likely you are to convert visitors into buyers or subscribers.
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