Successful online marketing works by providing content that is useful to consumers. Useful content gets shared, bookmarked, and talked about. Useful content helps turn readers into customers, subscribers, fans, and advocates.

Consumers need help finding the useful content we seek to provide, and search engines are the most likely source of this help. A good search engine optimization strategy means building content that search engines can understand. Such a strategy will empower search engine algorithms to connect relevant consumers with your enterprise.

Search Engine Optimization has a bad reputation because, in its infancy, it wasn’t useful to consumers. Strange articles, written to keyword density specifications, read unnaturally and feel like a scam to the average online consumer.

But today’s search engine algorithms create an environment which rewards good content punishes content designed to fool search engines. Google no longer rewards stuffing keywords into headlines. Rather, today’s search engines reward content that is authoritative, connected, and useful: links to other high-quality content, links from other high-quality content, and social media shares all can help build a good reputation with search engines.

For enterprises that understand smart SEO practices, search engines are an opportunity for cheap market research (keyword research reveals the actual language consumers use). Search engines offer unprecedented precision in marketing and communication, but only if content providers know how to harness this precision. Even a successful scheme to fool Google or Bing will result in readers who don’t see relevant content—readers who hit the back button. By working with the brilliant engineers at Google and Bing, we can maximize your enterprise’s generation of relevant visitors.

A successful approach to SEO combines (1) fundamental best practices in on-page optimization (writing content that can be read by search engines) (2) careful keyword research (using the same words consumers use) and (3) an artful, dynamic content strategy (to help generate views from off-site behavior like social media shares).

On-Page Fundamentals

 Changes in search engine algorithms have rendered crude practices like keyword stuffing irrelevant, but the basic nature of search engines means that we must pay attention to certain fundamental best-practices to ensure search engines can reliably read your content.

1. Keywords should be used in the headlines and marked as the title. This first step helps search engines classify your page. Better yet, it makes other sites that link to your content more likely to use your title in their anchor text link. Search engines evaluate anchor-text links from other sites when determining the relevance of your content. Good titles link strategically chosen keywords with relevant information.
   • Ideally, titles should be kept under 72 characters, so that they whole title can appear in search results.
2. Use meta-tags to encourage clicks from relevant readers. Actual search ranking algorithms do not take meta tag text into account, but meta-tags make up the actual text that search engine users see as a description of each link title. A descriptive tagline helps maximize click through, and should be kept under 165 characters.
3. Content should be at least 300 words to maximize ranking. Ideally, keywords will be utilized in sub-headers and/or bulleted lists within the written content.
4. Keyword Density should not be emphasized. Excessive keyword usage may even be penalized as likely fraudulent. However, at some basic level, Google must still count the number of keywords on the page and compare them against the overall length of the content. Online content pages should be tightly organized around relevant topics; strong organization will help ensure natural keyword usage.
5. Connectivity is emphasized by modern search engines. Your content should be linked to authoritative content (both externally and within your own website).
   • Ideally, links with naturally relevant anchor text should be included every 120 words or so.

Quality and Connectivity: A Dynamic Content Strategy

 These on-page fundamentals create a foundation for successful online content. But even a perfectly optimized page won’t reach its potential without being integrated into a broader content strategy.  Since search engines reward links from other authoritative sources, this strategy must begin with top quality content. Eyebrow-raising content earns links from appreciative readers on Facebook, LinkedIn, personal blogs, and professional websites.

Top quality content also helps future-proof your online communications. In the past, Google focused on crude metrics like keyword density. Now, they focus on explicit indicators of authority, like external links. In the future, as Google accrues more and more advanced analytical information on user behavior, many experts expect focus to shift to actual user behaviors (such as time spent on-site). The further we move toward search engine technologies that reward genuinely useful content, the more important quality will become relative to on-page SEO.

We can take proactive steps to maximize the value of this high quality content by structuring your information thoughtfully:

1. Utilize “landing” or “hub” pages to help direct users to your content. Individual content pages may contain the heart of information consumers are searching for. But by directing readers to our individual content pages at random, you lose control over the user experience. Readers may not read individual pages in the right order, or may miss essential supporting information. A user who clicks onto a closely-related but irrelevant page will likely hit the back button—even if relevant information is close by on your website.

We want to create a page which explains the purpose of your content ecosystem and quickly demonstrates your content’s usefulness, all while providing an immediately visually impactful guide to this content. Incoming readers will be directed to this page, which will feature links to individual content sections.

Our goal is for this page to impress the user with a large collection of well-organized, high-quality information.  We want visitors to think “I had better save this for later!” and reach for the bookmark bar instead of the back button. As a central repository of your content, this page also provides a handy point that content pages can be linked back to.

2. Provide Fresh, Routinely Updated Content. Google rewards sites with frequent updates. Utilizing shorter, blog-style posts helps generate updates without the effort and expense of creating new flagship content. These posts provide fresh content for social media and can report time-sensitive while pointing back to your hug and content pages.

 3. Understand Smart Keyword Research as a fundamental market-research tool in the digital marketplace. Keyword research shouldn’t be seen as a technical SEO responsibility; even print media should seek to use the same language its readers.

• Good keyword research doesn’t just tell us what words to place in our content. It can provide valuable reconnaissance on popular search terms for which your enterprise can create new content.

A Practical Approach               

 Good writing and a smart SEO strategy go hand-in-hand. And the right strategy—quality content structured for relevant consumers—find its roots in common sense, not technical wizardry.

Small business owners and beginning online content creators have nothing to fear: useful content and a little attention to the fundamentals will help maximize the potential of your online presence.  Many entrepreneurs may be able to handle the basics of keyword research, content strategy, and writing on their own. Please feel free to share this guide if you find it useful in implementing your own content strategy.

For some business owners, however, online marketing strategy and copywriting may be an efficient work area to offload. If writing and marketing are an inconvenient skillset, or simply eating up too much of your core business time, hiring a professional copywriter well-versed in online marketing best-practices can help streamline your operations.

You can contact me, Josh Divine, on Upwork or here, to discuss how I can help manage your online content and digital marketing ecosystem.