Do You Have What It Takes To Write Optimized Content?

Producing content is an integral part of today’s online marketing efforts; however, writing optimized content is an art that takes time to perfect.  Creating captivating copy that meets the needs of both humans and machines can certainly be done, but it is undoubtedly a craft that requires constant care and cultivation.  

It can be equated to putting together a puzzle.  While you may have all of the tools, or pieces, that you need, it’s imperative that you take the time to analyze and digest how they fit together so that your result is exactly as it should be.

Here are a few quick tips to help you get on track for writing search engine optimized content:

1. Know & understand your target audience.  If you don’t know who your audience is or what they’re looking for, then you can’t operate an effective content strategy. Understanding the psyche of your consumers is paramount to producing and providing valuable, optimized content.
2. Ensure that you’re writing for your target audience.  Sure, optimizing pieces of content for your target keywords is a part of successful SEO; however, write an honest & informative piece and you’ll see that you can naturally and relevantly incorporate your specified phrases.
3. Perform extensive keyword research. Free tools like Google Analytics can help you to see which search terms are driving traffic to your site as well as which terms visitors are searching in order to arrive to your site.  Once you can analyze this data, then you can section your website and produce your content as relevantly as possible.
4. Use keywords as optimally as possible. While relevantly incorporating your keywords into content displayed on your site is a given, it’s as important to target these phrases in your Meta data and header tags so that you can properly inform the search engines of the goals of each page.
5. Outline your content before jumbling together incoherent thoughts & phrases that simply include your target keywords.  It’s critical that the content you share with your users and with search engine spiders is clear and cohesive.  If neither can decipher what your goals or messages are, then how well do you think the piece is going to rank?
6. Make sure that your content is presented in an easy-to-read format. In order to keep potential consumers returning to your site, make your content as easily readable as possible.  Formatting tactics like bullet points, numbered lists and shorter paragraphs help to not only convey your messages more concisely & easily, but also to retain readership for longer periods of time.
7. Edit your content.  Don’t simply regurgitate facts that you’ve found from around the web. Elaborate on existing thoughts and provide a fresh perspective so that your content attracts potential links from other sites. Always ensure that your content is grammatically and factually accurate so that you can maintain and increase your credibility in the marketplace.

What types of tactics have you found to be most helpful in your pursuit to provide consumers with useful optimized content?