At the same time, “more” is not always equivalent to “better.” The wise content marketing practitioner should optimize content to make it more search-friendly, user-friendly, and conversion-friendly.
MarketingProfs’ Dan Gorgone shared his wisdom on this very subject during MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum. Check out his actionable advice about optimizing B2B content.
Make your content useful for Google and for people
Start by developing a content marketing plan. Your plan should cover everything from the audience you want to reach to the topics you want to focus on to the types of content you will create from your initial concepts.
When you’re ready to create content, here is a list of writing basics:
- Avoid grammar errors and typos – How you write matters as much as what you write.
- Optimize content for Google – Check out Google Webmaster Guidelines.
- Remember your audience – Create content for both people and search engines. Keywords are important, but if your content doesn’t read naturally or contain useful information, it will not be effective.
- Link within and outside of your site – Linking to content adds value and helps your get found. The text within a link should be a short description of what you are linking to.
- Text length helps determine a page’s value – 500-1500 is optimal for search engines and readers.
- Make it scannable – Use bullet lists, headers, short sections, and relevant text to make website content more readable.
- Podcasts – 15-20 minutes is a good average length for a podcast (though you might go longer for more in-depth value). Note that you shouldn’t feel like once you start podcasting you have to do so forever. You can develop a podcast series (e.g., 6 episodes) and then take a break.
- eBooks – Reuse content from your blog and other sources to create eBooks. Once you post them, make sure you provide HTML content as well as the PDF or they won’t be searchable. Looking for some eBook samples to emulate? Look at what MailChimp or Glance Networks does.
- Presentations – Share remarks from events and workshops in slide decks and post them to SlideShare for an added traffic booster.
Visual engagement is key
Today’s audience is visually oriented. Whether you are talking static images, intricate graphics, recorded interaction, or live interaction, visual engagement is a must.
- Include at least one picture in your posts – When people share your content, make it easy for them to automatically include your eye-catching imagery in their posts.
- Don’t bury text inside visuals – Create HTML content to go with your visual pieces or they won’t be searchable. For example, type out an excerpt from your video or describe your infographic.
- Video done right captures audience interest – Keep most of your videos short – 3 minutes or less. Then intersperse longer videos if you want to take a deeper dive into a particular subject. Not sure where to start? Take a look at other companies who do video marketing well.
- Infographics are an instant hit – Infographics can be an extremely engaging way to capture your audience, making facts and figures more easily digestable. Not a graphic artist? Try Canva – a super easy graphics creation tool – to get you started.
- Keep it small – Reduce graphic file sizes to shorten website page load time.
- Include about live engagement – Webinars, presentations, and product walk-throughs are excellent for answering more detailed product questions or providing thought leadership. Consider using a cobrowsing or screen sharing tool for your live visual engagement efforts.
Ensure the back end is helping you
You may not be a programmer or an HTML expert, but there are some basics that every content marketer should be aware of.
- Robots.txt tells search engines what not to index (e.g., shopping carts, process pages).
- Noindex line of code tells search engines not to index a page (e.g., for the end of a process or conversion).
- 301 redirect sends people to a new page that is replacing a previously existing page.
- Canonical tag is good to use if you have multiple copies of a page and you want to assign SEO value to one of the pages (for instance, if you are doing A/B testing).
- XML sitemap helps Google to understand the structure of your site and define sitelinks.
- Rich snippets improve the look of search results and add specific details.
- Google Data Highlighter helps you highlight specific data.
- Your post’s URL should clearly state what the content of your article discusses.
- The title and description of your page should include keywords in a natural manner.
- Header tags are critical for creating a logical structure for the content on your page. Keep your headers reasonable short and to the point so they can be easily scanned.
Share content – and make it sharable
Once you’ve created your content, it’s time to share it!
- Make every page on your website impactful – Each page should drive traffic to your site.
- Leverage the power of all your channels – Social channels, email, newsletters, blog posts – use whatever you have in your arsenal to share website pages.
- Don’t post the same text on every social channel – Modify each post for each platform.
- Post multiple times via social media – Pull out your older yet still relevant pieces and post them. Post the same link several times during the week. Your audience is not always reading everything you post. Repetition gives them a chance to catch up.
- Add social media sharing buttons to your pages – If you don’t make it easy for your audience to share your content, they won’t.
- Look at social media from the audience’s point of view – Think about whether your social updates are helpful, valuable, easy to share, and unique.
Don’t forget your end goal
Driving traffic to your site is all well and good, but if you can’t convert any of it into business, you’re doing something wrong. That’s why a crucial step in optimizing content is making sure that the purchasing or sign-up processes are as painless as possible.
Here are some thoughts for how to achieve that goal:
- Test for ease of navigation – Give a partner a goal to accomplish on your site and see how easy or hard it is for him or her to complete it.
- Keep in mind the various stages of your buyer’s journey as you plan out your content. For example, during the discovery stage customers will ask, “What is this and why is it important to me?” During the consideration stage, customers might ask, “Why should I use you instead of your competitor?”
- Make it easy for customers to access content – Don’t hide all your content behind forms or you will erode customer trust.
Ongoing content optimization
I recognize that that’s a lot of steps to keep in mind. However, you should remember that optimizing content is a team effort. Include social, graphics, editorial, dev, data, finance, sales, and more in your process.
As you continue to create fantastic, optimized content, don’t forget to monitor the performance of your pieces so you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. While there are no guaranteed top rankings, if you continually work to optimize your content, you’ll be in excellent shape.
Photo credit: Flickr
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