By Neil Patel

Is your content not getting the results it deserves?

Unfortunately, in today’s ultra-competitive, crowded SERPs, creating great content isn’t enough. You need to optimize it effectively if you want it to rank and sell.

That doesn’t just mean optimizing content for Google. You also need to optimize your content for readability and for conversions.

Confused? This is the guide for you. I’ll show you a step-by-step guide for optimizing your content. We’ll cover:

• what content optimization is
• why you need content optimization
• how to optimize your content for SEO
• how to optimize your content for readability and style
• how to optimize your content for conversions
• common optimization mistakes

Ready? Let’s begin.

What Is Content Optimization?

Content optimization is the practice of updating and improving your content so it has the best possible chance of achieving its goals. That goal could be ranking in Google, but it could also be converting readers into customers or acquiring backlinks. In many cases, it’s a combination of several of these metrics.

Why Do You Need Content Optimization?

From an SEO standpoint, content optimization is essential if you want to rank. You might have written the best article in the world from a reader’s perspective. But if you don’t optimize content for Google, it won’t rank.

Getting your content to rank in Google has many additional benefits. These include:

• earning backlinks
• growing your audience
• increasing leads
• building trust

Optimizing your content for readability improves audience engagement and helps your brand to build trust with readers. It can also help to position your brand as an authority. It’s a lot easier to trust a brand that clearly puts time into content creation compared to one that puts out barely legible content.

Optimizing content for conversions is critical if you want to squeeze as much money out of your efforts as possible. You’ll never write the best-converting piece of copy the first time around, which is why tweaking your headings, targeting new keywords, and improving your CTA is vital. In addition, goals for conversion may change over time, and you want to make sure your content adapts with them.

How To Optimize Content For SEO

Improving your content’s rankings is the primary reason for content optimization. So let’s start by looking at how to optimize content for SEO.

Keyword Research

Optimizing content for SEO starts with keyword research. You need to make sure you’re targeting a keyword that

1. has traffic potential
2. you can rank for

Ubersuggest is one of the best ways to find suitable keywords. Use the Keyword Ideas tool to enter a seed keyword and get a list of relevant keywords along with their potential volume and SEO difficulty.

You’ll want to choose the keyword that best represents your content, but also has a decent amount of traffic and a realistic keyword difficulty. If your site is new, there’s little point optimizing for a term with an SEO difficulty in excess of 50. You’re fighting an uphill battle from …read more

Source:: Kiss Metrics Blog

Author: Aaron