A Sensible SEO Strategy 2: 10 Tips for Optimizing Content

In the first part of this series, we laid out a sensible SEO keyword strategy for getting found in the search engines and capturing sales leads. This week we'll extend that strategy to content - how to optimize your content for organic search results. Research for this post comes to us courtesy of Chad Pollitt, who is an experienced Internet marketer and SEO consultant.

SEO Strategy for Web Pages and Blog Posts

In general, you should create web pages and blog posts that convey a coherent, focused message on each page. Your SEO strategy for each page is to optimize on one or two keywords you have identified as high priorities for getting found via organic search. For any given page, we assume you have already optimized the page (meta) title, meta keywords and meta description for these keywords. If you haven't, go back and do that first.

Specific on-page optimization steps for content include:

1. Assign one primary keyword and one secondary keyword or phrase to each page
2. Keep your content relatively short, no less than 250 words and no more than 1000 words per page
3. Include your primary keyword in both the first and last sentence of each page and at least once in the middle of your page
4. Keywords should be about 3-7% of the total words in your content. You can measure keyword density using a free tool like LiveKeywordAnalysis
5. Make sure your primary keyword appears more often than your secondary keyword
6. Use bulleted lists - they are easy to read and catch readers' attention
7. Make sure you use primary and secondary keywords in your bulleted lists
8. Use your primary and secondary keywords in headings (H1, H2...)
9. Bold your primary and secondary keywords once each
10. If you use internal or external links in your content, use your keywords in the link text and link url, and make sure the page they link to is about those keyword topics

What About Social Media Optimization?

You should utilize these same tactics when you write content for social media, such as Facebook and LinkedIn updates, tweets, and social media profiles. Since social media is fast becoming a crucial source for organic search, your strategy should be consistent across all types of content.

Next, we'll look at specific SEO strategies for advanced content, such as whitepapers, e-books, webinars and videos.

Need help with your SEO strategy and tactics? We're here to help.