Six Steps to SEO Content Review for Opportunities for Better Engagement
Review Your Content to Maintain Discoverability
These days content and SEO go hand-in-hand to deliver the right customers to your business.
It isn't enough to just write content. You want to optimize for search engines and reader engagement.
An SEO content review assures your website is up to date. You'll increase discoverability by Google and other search engines. Those search engines drive readers to your site, delivering your content as the relevant answer to their search query.
When you update your content, you make it easy for search engines to understand your content. You improve engagement by bringing more people to your site. Not just more people, but the right ones—the ones who need your business as a solution.
How Often to Review Your Site Content?
The best practice for content review is once a month. As a busy business owner with a mountain of tasks, you may want to stretch this timeframe out to once a quarter.
The more often you perform a content review, the less time you'll need to spend on the task.
To save time, you'll need to know the best practices to use to review your pages and posts.
Written Words - The Content
First, you want to evaluate each page, blog, or article to make sure you cover topics (keywords) with a clear focus. Each page, blog, or article answers questions focusing on one topic.
Look for unclear pages. These are usually places where you try to jam in too much information rather than a clear topic focus. You may need to create new content addressing specifics. And you want to rewrite the busy page, so it has one clear focus.
Make sure your article is formatted for easy reading. Have headings and sub-headings to guide your site visitor through the content. These give your content structure and signal relevant topics to both search engines and your reader.
Relevant Title Tags
The title tag is what search engines use to determine if your page is relevant. Help search engines and readers understand the topic by using the relevant keyword in the topic.
Short and Clear URL
The URL name is one of three titles for your content. Your article title may be long with inspirational words to grab reader attention, so they will read the rest of the page.
The URL title is for search engines. Make it short and include the focus keyword so search engines understand what the page is about. A clear, focused URL will help the page rise in rank, making it more discoverable.
Image Alt Text
Image alt text is not the title of your photo, which could be 2022214---12 or Casey at her Desk. The image title is the name of the file you upload.
Alt text has two functions. The alt text describes the image for search engines to know the intent of the image. And for site visitors, when an image doesn't render, alt text describes the image. It's the alternative (alt) to seeing the image.
Describe the image—two men in conversation at a café—and then add the keyword for the page’s main topic.
Internal and External Links
Links establish relevance and credibility for your content. Use them wisely.
Internal links refer to other pages on your website. They reinforce relevance for the page and build authority for your site. They help search engines understand the page’s context in the overall framework of your business as you present it on your website.
External links connect to outside sources. Referencing outside sources helps build reader trust. That trust comes from connecting them to material that expands their knowledge of the topic on the page.
As part of your content review, make sure that all your links are live, going to an active page either on your website or somewhere else.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions are short text of about 155 to 160 characters that encapsulate the topic of the web page. Along with the page title and URL, they help search engines understand the page topic as a source to answer a query.
Meta descriptions show up under the page title in search results. Use them as short selling text to increase reader interest.
Understand that Google may replace your meta description and choose other text from the page. But, having a meta description for each page is sound SEO practice.
Regular Review is Your Optimization Power Tool
Regular review of your content is a way to check optimization. Think of two sides of optimization: search engines and page visitors.
You want search engines to present your page as the answer to a query in a search. And once a reader receives that answer, they'll see by the title and meta description that you have an answer. And once they click on your page, formatting and links help your page visitor understand how your page has just the information they need.
There are tools to help you review each of these content components. It's up to you to use them.
The important thing is to schedule a regular SEO content review to improve your website's discoverability.
