Learning how to improve your content strategy with SEO is fundamental if you want to rank high on search engines. If you are a digital marketer, want to optimize your blog to reach your target audience, or drive more potential customers to the landing page of your product or service, this is for you. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is becoming more relevant by the day. Continuous changes to the Google ranking algorithm can generate fluctuations in organic search, which is why you need to keep yourself up to date with these changes and, more importantly, the things you can do to rank higher on Google and maintain your organic search performance.

Here are some SEO insights and tactics you need to know to optimize your content and rank higher.  

Table of Contents

1. Understand Search Intent

2. Using SERP (Search Engine Results Page) to boost your SEO

3. Long-tail vs short-tail keywords

4. People-first content

5. E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness

6. How to Optimize Images

7. Backlinks 

Let’s start with how you optimize your content. The first and simplest step is understanding search intent. 

1. Understand Search Intent

The content of your article or blog post should align with the search intent of the keyword you are using. This is why you need to know what people search for and why they search for those keywords. 

• Navigational: these users want to find a specific website.
• Informational: they are looking for information. They want to learn. If you are working on a blog post, most of the time, you will want keywords with this search intent.
• Commercial: about to make a purchase, so before they purchase.
• Transactional: want to make a purchase.

💻 User Experience (UX): If a user finds what they need on your site, you increase trust, and people will likely visit your site again. 

To determine the 🔍 search intent of a keyword, you can use tools like SEMRush (see image below).

• Input the keyword you want to rank for, and you will get the search intent.
• Then, you create your content based on addressing that intent.

These tools can also give you ideas of questions to answer with your content or questions you can use for your outline. But most importantly, SEO tools are very useful to improve your content strategy.

For example, I quickly Googled “How to rank higher on Google.” Simply by looking at the results, I can see that people who have this question are looking for steps, strategies, and tips.

So, I wouldn’t write a blog post with the keyword “how to rank higher on Google” where I talk about the challenges of ranking on Google because that is not what people are looking for. 

2. Use SERP to boost your SEO 💥

Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These are additional elements to organic search results. For example, featured snippets, reviews, 📸 images, top stories, People Also Ask section, Google Ads, related searches, and so on.

These elements are important because, according to SEMRush (2024), 25% of 🖥️ desktop searches and 17.3% of 📲 mobile “searches end without a click”.

➡️ What you can do. These elements can help you identify the type of content that attracts people’s attention and solves their answers or searches. This is the type of information you want to include in your content. 

• For example, by looking at the People Also Ask section and at More to Ask you can get ideas of questions to use as the outline and answer with your content. 

➡️ Something else. If you want to improve your content strategy for SEO, then don’t choose zero-click keywords. When choosing the keywords you want to rank for, try and find those that aren’t 🚫 zero-click searches. That is, if you google the keyword or question you will solve with your post, and Google shows a Feature Snippet that probably answers the user’s question, they no longer need to click on your post (example below).

So, in conclusion, you can find opportunities in keywords that don’t have a Featured Snippet (instant answer).

3. Leverage Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are those that are very specific and have a low search volume, making them easier to rank for as there is less competition. 

People who search for these keywords know what they want and are likely to complete an action, for example, make a purchase, which makes for high-quality traffic and qualified leads. 

You can find ideas 💡 for these keywords in the “People also search for” section.

In contrast, short-tail keywords have a high search volume but are not specific; they are very broad. These people are not likely to convert; they are in the initial phases of their research. 

Going deeper into knowing how competitive a keyword is, you can also view the keyword difficulty using any SEO tool, which can give you an idea of how hard it will be to rank for this keyword.

I’ve heard some SEO experts say that any keyword with a difficulty around or above 50% is one they won’t go for. Since the search results will probably show industry authorities first. Take, for example, my search for “How to rank higher on Google.” The first results are from industry authorities like SEMRush, SEO base, SERP Clix, Backlinko, and so on. 

4. People-first Content ✅

Create content for humans. This is so important, especially now, that content can easily be created with AI tools. Google knows if your content was created by an AI tool, so don’t think you can fool the algorithm. If people find your content helpful, Google will prioritize it.  

Going back to understanding the intent of the keyword, make sure your content is helpful and solves people’s questions. Again, if people find your content helpful, you build trust, and they will return. 

So, how can you improve your content strategy with SEO? Here are some actionable tips:

• Understand your audience 👥: know their pains and motivations. Some people say, know their pains and miracles. That is what they are trying to solve and also what an ideal solution looks like for them. 
• Create original content and show expertise👩🏻‍💻. You can include or quote subject-matter experts. 
• Choose the right format ✔️. Not everything performs the same in every platform. Do your research and choose what works best for you. This may require some testing.
• Start with relevant information 👀; don’t go on talking about something the audience doesn’t care about; go straight to what generates value. 
• Write short sentences, add title tags, and make your content easy to read and understand ✍🏻. You can get many tips on readability through different SEO tools.
• Features for easy navigation that you can include 📝: on this page widget, progress bar.

5. Demonstrate Experience👷🏻‍♀️

Review Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) guidelines.

Experience

This is the content creator’s first-hand experience with the topic. This can allow for the sharing of personal experiences and provide more in-depth insight instead of generic content. Personal experiences can set human content apart from that generated by AI.

• How you can show experience and expertise:
  • Include the author’s bio and mention it throughout the website
  • Create multiple pieces of content about a topic, not just one.
  • Include videos, images, and other content that reinforces the knowledge. 

Expertise

This is expertise, skills, or knowledge in the field or subject matter. Google looks for this at a page level, not sitewide. 

• Most articles or posts have an expertise stamp at the bottom, where they include the author’s bio. 
• Another example is an expertise stamp at the top. Many articles on psychology or scientific topics have an expertise stamp at the top. They usually say, “reviewed by X or Y expert in psychology or medicine.” 

Authoritativeness

To develop a reputation, you start with the previous two (Experience and Expertise). 

• How to build authoritativeness
  • Contribute to your industry
  • Share original findings of some tests or studies
  • Make publications on well-established sites
  • Speak at conferences, webinars, and so on
  • Website crawlers can associate all of this with your name. 

Trustworthiness

This is the most important element. Trustworthiness establishes if your website is considered accurate, safe, reliable, and honest. How you establish trustworthiness can vary depending on the purpose of your website, whether you are an e-commerce or product reviews website, a blog, and so on. The intent of the content determines this.

• To increase trustworthiness, you can:
  • Communicate trustworthiness through your About page
  • Include the authors’ bio 
  • Continually update and optimize your content and information
  • Include reviews that are authentic  
  • Cite reliable and trustworthy websites 
  • Improve the User Experience (UX): have a website that is easy to navigate so users can find what they need
  • There are many things you can do to build Trustworthiness, but again, they will vary depending on your website’s purpose.

	Things You Can Do To Improve Your Content Strategy
Experience 📸	– Include the authors’ bio and mention it throughout the website – Create multiple pieces of content about a topic – Include real-life stories and experiences – Include videos, images, and other content, for example, behind-the-scenes content.
Expertise 🔗	– Add an expertise stamp like the authors bio or reviewed by – Share original findings of some tests or studies – Make publications on well-established sites – Speak at conferences, webinars, and so on – Try and generate backlinks
Authoritativeness 💭	– Participate as guest writer in other blogs
Trustworthiness 🖋️	– Have guest authors – Have a website that is easy to navigate so users can find what they need

In conclusion, Google wants to know you are a reliable source ✔️.

6. Optimize Images 📸

To improve your content strategy, you should also optimize your images, which can help you increase engagement, make your site load faster, and increase traffic. 

Images appear not only on the images page but can also show up in the main SERP (Search Engine Results Page), which gives your content more exposure and chances to be clicked on.

How to improve your images for SEO:

• Add Alt Text to your images. These should be written descriptions instead of file names.
• Reduce the image size to increase loading speed.
• Use adequate formats like JPEG, PNG, SVG, or WebP.

7. Backlinks to Improve SEO 🔗

Backlinks are one of Google’s top-ranking factors. They can build trustworthiness and show you are a reliable source. The higher the quality, the better. 

• How to build backlinks
  • Create engaging content that attracts links
  • Contribute a guest post on a different website (remember the web crawlers)
  • Publish original results from tests or studies
  • Research: identify competitors’ backlinks and identify opportunities  

Bonus: Tools you need and my personal experience with them.

1. SEMRush 🎯. This is one of my favorite tools by far. Even the free version gives you access to plenty of insight on how to improve your content strategy, fix your site, help you with keyword research, keyword difficulty, and so on. If you get the paid version, you will have access to an endless sea of features, but if you are just starting out, SEMrush’s organic traffic tools can guide you in the right direction. I would also recommend taking some of their courses, which, from personal experience, I can say are very useful.
2. 🔍 Google Search Console (GSC). I’ve mainly used this tool for technical SEO 🛠️. It has helped me identify issues and fix them. I’ll later have a guide where I talk more about Google Search Console and what you need to know and do when starting your website.
3. Google Analytics 📈. Unlike GSC, I use Google Analytics to have an overview of traffic, user interactions, and engagement metrics. Google Analytics or GA4 is one of the first tools you should be setting up, otherwise, it will start tracking performance until you set it up. Besides, it can give you insights into your audience, which can help you improve your content.

Now you know how to create content that is Search Engine Optimized. For more on digital marketing, you can click on the ➡️ Digital Marketing category and find other useful posts.