How to Use Content to Improve Search Results
You can improve your search results by optimizing the content you publish. You need to ensure it speaks to your audience but also shows search engines that your content is authentic, on topic, and relevant to your audience. Let’s explore how to use content to improve search results.
- Publish Content Regularly – Even if you have 100 articles to publish today, don’t do it all in one day. Instead, drip content out over a few months and even years so that the search engines and your audience are fed a regular supply of useful information from you.
- Promote the Content You Publish – Publishing it will eventually work even if you do next to nothing, but it could take years. Instead, take matters into your own hands and shout to the world about the content you want them to read. Share on social networks, ask your readers to share, and get the word out.
- Repurpose Your Content into New Formats – Once you create content in one format, remember to repurpose that content into a new format too. Some of your audience likes reading a blog post. Some would rather watch a YouTube video. Create your content in all the forms they like.
- Name Files Properly – If you upload images and other files to your website, which of course you should, name them using keywords so that the search engines see them. Use the alt and meta information to further describe the file, for accessibility as well as for search engines.
- Build Links Internally and Externally – Link building was trendy in the ’90s, but some people think it doesn’t work anymore. This is not true. It’s always worked, but when you build links now you need to do it strategically. Don’t let people link to you who aren’t authentic, authoritative, and legitimate. Link internally to the content you want readers to see, but also content you want search engines to index.
- Develop Headlines Using Keywords – A headline is designed to grab the attention of your viewers, but also it helps the search engines know what your information is about. They’ll match those keywords to keywords in the content to ensure it’s a match.
- Make Your Content More Visual – Beautiful content with attractive images, colors, and typeface grabs your audience’s attention, but it also lets the search engine know that your site is legit and professional.
- Use a Variety of Types of Content – Don’t just put up one type of content; switch it up. Add video, images, text-based content, infographics, and more to your website. The variety will help people learn better and signal to search engines that you’re authentic.
- Choose the Right Keywords – Keywords need to be specific to your audience and your niche. There is no point in adding keywords that fit another idea or niche to grab traffic because, ultimately, it does not work. Take the time to use the tools of the trade, like SEMRUSH.com, to study keywords.
- Optimize Search Results – After adding all the keywords, content, and more to your website, you’ll also want to ensure that the resulting search looks right. You can use a plugin like Yoast SEO to help edit the meta descriptions that will show up in the search results.
- Optimize Your Website – The other factor in ensuring that the content you add improves your search results is to make sure you optimize all parts of your site. Add keywords and information to the meta description, tagging when needed, and more.
Search engine optimization is good for search engines, but it’s also useful for your audience. Optimization ensures the topics you choose to publish are relevant to your audience and that they can find the content through search engines due to the keywords and signals you provide the search engine bots.
