Getting your site to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) requires a comprehensive SEO strategy that includes consistently posting high-quality content. Many sites, however, already include a variety of pages/posts that could be valuable for SEO but need to be optimized for important keywords. Here are a few quick content optimizations you can make on your site to improve SEO and boost user engagement.
Breadcrumbs for Easy Navigation
Breadcrumbs are navigational aids generally shown at the top of posts used to show visitors where they are on your site. The small text snippets can be hierarchy-based, attribute-based, or history-based to give visitors an easy way to see their current location. Breadcrumbs are helpful for SEO because they give search engines another tool to understand how your site is structured.
Reach Global Audience with Translation Options
Many sites get traffic from around the world so making sure you’re prepared for a global audience can be important. Identifying specific foreign locations with potential interest and making sure a translation option is available will ensure your site is ready for high traffic. There are a variety of plugins to add translation widgets to your site available for WordPress.
Keep Visitors Engaged with High Readability
An estimated 4.4 million blog posts are published each day so easy-to-read content is important. Reviewing posts and updated text to avoid run-on sentences and use inclusive language will help keep readers engaged. Using a natural writing style that flows well and sounds like you were talking to the reader can also be helpful.
Engaging Meta Info for SERPs
Reviewing the meta info (title, description, focus keyphrase, etc.) on existing posts to make sure each one targets a unique keyword will help make sure each post is doing as much as it can for your SEO. Titles should clearly indicate what a post is about and fit within recommended character limits. Descriptions that include valuable keywords and clear calls to action will help drive user engagement on SERPs.
Internal Links to Highlight Valuable Content
Internal links refer to links on a page that point to other pages on the same site. These can be links found in the main navigation, footer, blog text, etc. and are an essential part of SEO. Updating blog posts so keywords in the body text link to related pages will help make sure search engines connect your site to the most valuable terms.
Define Page Structure with Clear Heading Hierarchy
Using a clear heading hierarchy with one <h1> tag per page/post and a clear structure of <h2>, <h3>, <h4> tags and so on that indicates important topics is important. Descriptive headings that include keywords will help make pages more engaging and easier to navigate. Reviewing your posts to make sure they each have a unique <h1> and clear heading hierarchy is a good practice to improve SEO.
Optimize Images
Images are often one of the most important elements on a page so optimizing them for SEO is important. Making sure images are sized appropriately for the location where they’ll be displayed and filesize is essential. It’s a good idea to save images with filenames related to the page they’ll be displayed on to further connect your content to valuable keywords. Adding alt tags with valuable keywords is another way to optimize images for SEO.
Final Thoughts
Implementing the quick SEO content optimizations described above will help you refine your keyword strategy to improve the ranking for terms a site is already showing for. A good SEO strategy will make sure to include regular site audits in order to optimize existing content and increase the site’s presence on SERPs.