Content optimization directly impacts ROI. The better the content for users and search engines, the more it drives results such as visibility, traffic, conversions and loyalty.
Even Ross Hudgens confirms it to be a mature content marketing strategy.
That’s why we now see people adding content optimization to their budget requests.
I’m not asking you to spot the mistake in the above tweet but to see a significant amount dedicated to content optimization.
Now that SEOs have the budget for content optimization and know how to optimize content (even for featured snippets), let me showcase the mistakes that happen directly or indirectly when planning and implementing content optimization.
I was able to find 17 of them. Let’s get straight to it.
1. Not doing audience research
The biggest mistake while optimizing content is not considering for whom this content needs to be. If the audience reading your content is not right, how can you expect ROI?
Every business and industry/segment has different audiences that read the content.
For example:
The publishing industry
A publishing site like Search Engine Land would target the audience such as:
- SEOs at all levels (entry, intermediate, experienced, managerial) to learn and inspire
- PPC professionals at all levels (entry, intermediate, experienced, managerial) to learn and inspire
- Business owners looking to market their SEO or PPC related products
Service industry
A marketing agency like Missive Digital would target the audience such as:
- Business Owners of SaaS, IT, and B2B companies
- Marketers at all levels (entry, intermediate, experienced, managerial) to learn and inspire about marketing
Product segment
A talent-hiring platform like Codemonk would target the audience such as:
- Developers of all technologies looking for jobs
- Project heads of global enterprises looking to hire remote talent
When I first thought about writing content on “top fashion eCommerce brands,” I found a lot of competing blogs that were talking about which fashion brands to buy from.
But, the target audience of eComKeeda is the eCommerce business owners. So, it was tricky to target that keyword.
Vatsal Shah and I concluded that rising fashion ecommerce business owners would be keen to know how the top online fashion brands became successful.
We decided to write the content showcasing the behind-the-scenes story of every top online fashion brand and their life-changing decisions.
The result is in front of you. We still own that featured snippet.
You can optimize your content for a specific audience and get a much higher ROI. It doesn’t matter what keywords you use, as long as they’re relevant to the people who will be reading them!
2. Not optimizing for users’ reading intent
Being an SEO, you care a lot about user search intent; what goes missed is their reading intent – the “Why” of a person reading the content.
For example, this week, we optimized content for “ReactJS developer skills.” When we received the blog for optimization, we saw it had the section, “What is ReactJS and its benefits.”
My team member quickly messaged me about whether we