min read

Intro to Content Optimization

Written by

Search Historian

Edited by

Emanuel Skrobonja

TL;DR:

What is Content Optimization?

Content optimization involves improving various elements of your website's content to enhance its performance and effectiveness.

The goal is to make the content more appealing to both search engines and users:

In other words, the goals are to:

Increase traffic from search engines (SEO)
Improve the user experience on the page (UX): Encourage users to comment, share, and interact with the page.
Increase conversions, and revenue (CRO)

Content optimization usually happens in three main steps:

Analyzing existing content (auditing)
Identifying content weaknesses
Making strategic content changes

Content Optimization in SEO

A common misconception is that “an SEO Expert will come in, sprinkle in some keywords, add some metadata and the site will rank”.

In other words, SEO content optimization is often an “afterthought” in Webflow projects.

However, this is a big mistake!

Optimizing Websites, not Content

Search engines focus on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), and search intent matches when determining content quality.

This means that you have to optimize your whole website for SEO, not just a single web page.

Search engines rank your website by comparing both your entire site and individual pages against other websites and their top pages.

Now, let’s talk about conversions.

Content Optimization for Conversions

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a key part of improving a website's income.

Think of your website as a grocery store. SEO experts are like the people who attract customers to the store by choosing attractive products and good store locations.

Once customers are in the store, CRO specialists and UX designers ensure they have a good experience and buy more.

SEO brings people to your website, and CRO makes sure they engage and buy.

However, it's a balancing act; some strategies are good for SEO but not for CRO, and vice versa.

Optimizing Webflow Websites for SEO

A strong content strategy includes these elements:

Keyword research: Identify keywords with sufficient search volume and that are achievable for your site's authority.
Search intent analysis: Understand the purpose behind each keyword group.
Competitor analysis: Study competitors appearing in search results.
Topic mapping: Develop a clear and organized visual representation of topics.
Sitemap structure: Plan the layout of your website's content.
Heading optimization: Strategize the structure of your content headings.
Content clustering: Group related content to build authority and relevance.

Begin with Topic Research

This involves finding keywords, understanding search intent, analyzing competitors, and planning a topical map with a visual sitemap.

Deepen Your Understanding

Read our guides on:

These resources will clarify what to include or exclude from your pages.

Study Existing Content

Analyze the headings, layout, content types, and internal links of pages currently ranking for your target keywords.

Aim for High Quality

Use the gathered information to create pages that are not only similar but also superior in quality, ensuring they meet the search intent of users.

Make sure to cover the topic in-depth and offer way more value than your competition.

You can use various content optimization tools to make sure that written content matches or even outperforms other pages that rank.

Most content optimization tools will analyze top results and will help assess the quality of your content on things like:

Wordcount
Mentioned phrases and their density
Other content quality aspects (based on the selected tool)

But don’t over-optimize your content for these tools. You are writing for humans after all.

So make sure to also manually assess the quality of your content.

Aside from written content, you can find other areas of improvement.

For example, you can make your page easier to use, add more, and better media than your competitors, and use simple language.

Add Contextual Internal Links

In our internal linking guide, we explained the differences between contextual and navigational internal linking.

If you also consider content clusters, taxonomy needs, and topical authority guidelines…

You know that there are huge benefits to using contextual links wherever you can.

When you publish a new page, link to it from some existing pages.

The more interlinked your content is with relevant links, the better.

Fix Technical SEO and Performance Issues

All other tips on this page are significantly more important than this one.

Nevertheless!

Checking core web vitals and page load performance on mobile or desktop is mandatory.

Faster loading times and good page performance can lead to lower bounce rates and higher rankings, provided that content is optimized for specific search intent.

Running SEO audits on SEO tools and fixing issues they find is also a great way to ensure the website is easy to crawl and navigate.

Add Metadata

Make sure that your page has all the metadata it needs, like:

Ensure your page is not blocked by robots.txt or robots meta tags, and include it in your sitemap for optimal accessibility.

Update Pages Regularly

One of the biggest challenges of running a successful website is auditing, and updating content regularly.

Information changes both within your company and around the world.

This means pages also should be updated constantly.

If you want to keep your ranking positions, you should review competition and constantly improve your pages if you spot any areas of improvement.

Another great tip is to have a tool for user behavior, heatmap, or mouse movement tracking on your website. This allows you to easily come up with data-inspired ways to improve your website.

Text Optimization Tips

Understanding that most visitors glance and scroll through your page, instead of reading everything is key to great content optimization.

But there are a few other things to keep in mind when writing your content or optimizing it.

Talk to Humans

Write to your page's target audience and use their language. In other words, write like you’re talking to a friend.

Keep it Simple

Simplify sentences, don’t use overly complicated words, and make sure that users can understand your content even if they are absolute beginners.

Short Paragraphs!

The best way to make sure that your paragraphs are short and easier to read is to look at your mobile page version.

If any of the paragraphs are longer than half of the mobile device screen, split them in two.

Peaks and Valleys

Just like in music, to keep the page experience entertaining there have to be ups and downs.

Same with any written content on the web: use short sentences, then longer ones, use headings, use images to divide content into parts.

Do whatever it takes to create an alternating reading experience that makes it easy to follow the page without boring the user.

Final Tip: Be the Best!

This article has focused mostly on single-page optimization, especially content optimization that can boost the metrics of that page.

But to get plenty of organic search traffic, it’s not enough to publish one good page. Your website has to be optimized as a whole.

If you want to learn more about this, start scrolling up and check all the links in this article one by one.

Each of these links will contain our guides on topics that will help you have the best website you can!