Inbound Links (Backlinks)

As the term indicates, these are links coming from the outside that point to you. Think about blogs, influencers, companies, and brands in general that have included links to your content. The more reputable the sources of these links are, in turn, the more valuable those links become in helping establish your authority. Makes sense, right? Trustworthy references will always make a bigger impact in your resume; well, the same goes for search engines.

How do they determine what is trustworthy? Not all backlinks are created equal. Here are some of the items search engines take into account to determine how valuable those links are:

• Are the two pieces of content somehow related?

• Are the domains where the links are inserted reputable? (See “Domain Reputation” later in the chapter.) Do you own them by any chance?

• Are the pages where the link is inserted popular? Engaging?

• Are they linking to you using meaningful, descriptive (anchor) text? Or is everyone linking to your content using the exact same words (within links)?

Some ways to increase the amount of links back to your content pages include building up your social channels, investing in guest blogging partnerships, answering relevant questions, reaching out to fix broken links to your content, securing your presence in reputable directories, including influencers in roundups so that they will link to them, pitching your content in discussion forums, and fostering relationships with other relevant brands in your space. This brings us to our next factor.

Outbound Links (External Links)

Your content shouldn’t live in an island. Outbound links are the way in which you send traffic to other domains. In linking to third-party sites to provide more context for your audience, you are not only opening the door for valuable partner relationships, you’re improving the user experience by offering relevant, informative content. Other sites’ outbound links pointing to you become your inbound links.

Internal Linking

Sometimes, you want to extend the content experience by suggesting other pieces hosted in your own site. These links pointing to other pages within the same domain are part of what is called an internal linking strategy. You want to help users navigate a topic and provide meaningful connections to guide them there. Search engines value these kinds of links because they pass on authority from one page to another. Identify your content pieces with the strongest positions in search and find ways to add links that allow you to pass some of that “page authority” on to other pieces.

Domain Reputation

How established and reliable is the domain in which you are publishing your content? The site’s overall reputation can send positive or negative signals to search engines. Recall the discussion in Chapter 3 about choosing your main and supporting content hubs. Well, here is where it all begins to make sense: as your content helps establish your brand’s authority, the site’s “search prestige” rises.

Similarly, if your site is a creditable source within your space, that will give any content you publish an extra boost. Therefore, in selecting a self-hosted, same-domain blog as your content hub, you are effectively building up several areas of your business at the same time.

The links we just analyzed contribute greatly to a certain domain’s reputation. Having authoritative backlinks, meaningful internal linking, and removing those that might hurt your standing are all essential tactics to improve your site’s domain reputation over time. At the end of this chapter we’ll look at the key metrics available to track your success.

Visitor Engagement and Traffic

This factor is probably one of the most logical indicators that something is worth looking at. The fact that many users have found it useful in the past is a basic predictor that others will benefit from it in the future. As you look at traffic, however, be aware that it is also one of the easiest metrics to manipulate—and search engineers are well aware of this fact.

Therefore, as logical as it is, popularity in terms of traffic isn’t one of the most stable building blocks of search engine authority.

Engagement, on the other hand, is increasingly becoming the focus of major search algorithms. When people land on your content pages, do they find fast page speeds, intuitive layouts, and device-responsive experiences? Are they incredibly frustrated by what they find? Are searchers likely to bounce, or leave that page without interacting with it? If asked, would they express satisfaction?

Social Metrics

Social metrics are the various indicators that we use to track our content’s performance in relation to social networking sites. The first thing you need to know is that we can’t be 100 percent certain of the impact of social engagement in your content’s ability to rank in organic search.

We know that social shares indirectly increase your pieces’ chances of making it to other sites’ external links, drawing even more traffic, increasing the time spent on page, and expanding brand awareness, among many other SEO-related factors. What is still pending is a definite assertion that your social reputation is factored into your content pages’ position in search. We do, though, have strong reasons to believe that it will—if it does not already.

However, that is only one part of the search conversation. What about the search that takes place inside all major social platforms? What about the terms you type into an actual search box within Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Instagram, just to name a few? Have you thought of how video content is organically discovered using YouTube’s search box? The internal search algorithms these sites have come up with heavily weigh your links’ popularity.

Being discovered organically—after a searcher has used certain inputs to find a solution—is the essence of strong SEO. Moving forward, social metrics will become an even more essential part of the puzzle.

On-Page Keyword and Semantic Keyword Usage

If there is one SEO factor that has completely changed over the years, it is keyword placement. We have gone from shameless keyword stuffing to more subtle, humane, seamless insertions; from “splatter these terms everywhere” to “explore this topic in depth.” That isn’t to say that keywords don’t play a central role in SEO; they still do. But that the way in which we approach them has changed radically.

As search engines draw closer to humans in their “understanding” of content, it has become more important to think semantically. Although this might appear to be a complex word, semantics is simply the study of meaning in the language we use. Focusing on semantics involves going back to what keywords stand for in order to come up with more useful ways to serve and insert them. It also implies finding other related keywords that users would also think of when typing in a search box.

Instead of splashing specific words everywhere, new algorithm changes focus on figuring out if a certain page answers searchers’ needs—a principle also known as user search intent. Put simply: why are they searching in the first place? The answer to this question is tightly related to the reader personas introduced in Chapter 3. If you understand who is the audience for any particular content piece, thinking of keyword phrases will become much easier. For this example’s sake, let’s imagine that you sell tablet accessories. These are the convertible reader personas you have nailed down for your blog:

• Matt, the professional illustrator

• Joanna, the amateur letterer

• Richard, the business note-taker

Now, even within those clearly defined personas, you will find different kinds of intentions in how Matt, Joanna, and Richard approach search. In 2002, researcher Andrei Broder published three types of search intent that have since influenced SEO experts everywhere—including Moz CEO Rand Fishkin. According to Broder’s research, we can classify searches as navigational, informational, or transactional. Navigational searches are made to reach a particular website; informational searches intend to learn something new; and transactional searches are actionable: you want to do, buy, interact.

Table 13-1 illustrates what each of those types of searches might look like.

Whereas Richard is clearly trying to enter the purchase process, Joanna is interested in learning how to use the iPad to create something else. Matt, on the other hand, is most probably just trying to find a link to your website because he can’t remember the URL. Needless to say, any of the three personas can exhibit different search intents on any given day.

What this looks like in terms of keywords is a new emphasis on detecting groups of naturally occurring phrases versus forced, very specific terms. After all, topics are composed of many different keyword phrases. Think about it: if you were searching for an “iPad stylus” (keyword) right now, would you be interested in related (keyword) phrases like these:

• A specific descriptor: iPad stylus with a fine tip

• A synonym: tablet stylus

• A variant: iPad Air 2 stylus

This topic is, of course, much more complex than what has been explained here. Emerging search paradigms are based in sophisticated math and artificial intelligence. Content SEO merits not one but multiple books that would, unfortunately, still be constantly outdated. The key is to train yourself to get in the habit of considering search engines as you manage old and create new content pieces.

Heading Usage

Content managers get to wear lots of hats throughout the day. One such hat requires basic HTML knowledge. Congratulations, you are also a part-time developer! You can choose not to be one at your own risk, but I guarantee that your online content will benefit from some (very) basic code skills.

After you have narrowed down a list of keyword phrases that work for the content piece you are planning, as just explained, it is time to find a place to insert them. HTML contains different tags whose goal is to inform search bots and humans alike what is most important, not as important, and least important on the page. Behind every content page you publish, no matter how text-intensive, there is a basic source code that determines what is shown. Some content creators might try to function without ever looking at this code, but I can’t say I have high hopes for the future of their careers, considering where all of this is going.

Table 13-4 looks at some of the basic HTML tags and the kind of importance they convey.

Try to place important ideas in equally important spaces on the page. Many SEO experts claim that including your main/focus keyword in the first paragraph has a positive impact in the way search engines rank the piece for that term. Reserve your main container and headings for outstanding, strategic content.

Title and Meta Description Optimization

There is an HTML tag we have not mentioned yet and whose importance can’t be overstated: <title>. We spent most of Chapter 8 analyzing the importance of headlines and how they can either boost or sink your content.

To optimize for search engines, make sure you work with title lengths that prevent cutoff. Remember that <title> tags are what search engines and other platforms display when they “read” your pages. Google, for example, builds out a snippet that includes your title, meta description, date, and URL. When searchers see your content piece in results, they should be able to garner either a complete or pretty good idea of what it is about.

Most SEO experts claim that the ideal title length lies somewhere between 50 and 65 characters, but you should test it yourself and see where the cutoff takes place in your audience’s most popular devices. SEO specialists at companies like Moz and Yoast claim that your focus, or most important, keyword should be at the beginning of the title. Both humans and search engines see your initial words first.

Just like the title is important for your visibility in SERP listings, the content page’s meta description directly informs searchers what they are about to find when they click your search engine result. SEO specialists recommend keeping your meta description text between 150 and 160 characters long. Although they’re no longer weighed heavily in search rankings, these descriptions can be crucial to improve your listings’ click-through rate. Nobody complains when organic traffic goes up, especially given that it can indirectly affect your links’ positions.

URL Structure

A good rule of thumb when thinking about URLs is to avoid making them obscure: if your URLs look excessively long and incomprehensible you are probably doing it wrong. So, here is what you want to avoid:

http://www.example.com/index.php?id_session=4045&sid=30349503495000

Unnecessary parameters and session IDs make it difficult for both bots and humans to understand what you mean. For the preceding link, a structure like forexample.com/ipad-accessories would have been much more descriptive and meaningful. Remember semantics—search’s improved focus on meaning? Again, it is all about making sure human searchers want to read you when bots serve your content to them, based on what they deem most relevant.

As with titles, most SEO consultants recommend placing your focus keyword in the actual URL. Additionally, they also are part of that snippet that is served in search results, and send signals to searchers that could attract them to or repel them from your content. Like titles, they also can be truncated.

Google also has spoken openly in favor of using hyphens instead of underscores in URLs. When you use hyphens, bots will read the words as two separate terms. Something like forexample.com/content-marketing.html is much more useful to them than forexample.com/content_marketing.html.

Content Freshness

To serve the most relevant content possible, search engines also consider how up-to-date it will be perceived by users. Of course, not every topic on Earth depends on newness to appear relevant or useful. Sometimes, evergreen pieces, those that have a longer shelf-life, can become important reference points that continue to bring traffic regardless of their publishing date. Freshness weighs in when we are dealing with time-sensitive content that provides value insofar as it is updated. Yearly roundups, current-events pieces, and social trend coverage are all good examples.

The key here is to continuously look at your content catalog and maintain a list of pieces that need to be refreshed periodically. As you publish new content, link to older, related pieces that would still be pertinent pending minor updates. Complete those minor updates as needed.

I learned the hard way (as in losing a lot of organic traffic) that whenever content pieces contain years in their titles (e.g., 2014, 2015, 2016) they will quickly age unless you update them. When you do, it is crucial to redirect incoming traffic to the new version of the piece. In case the URL has changed, this means implementing 301 redirects to avoid losing search and referral traffic. You will quickly find value in removing any aging factors from your URLs and opting for easily updatable titles instead.

Image and Media Optimization

At the beginning of this chapter, I asked you to look at a raw, black-and-white version of your site to understand how bots actually read your content. We noticed that images and other media types receive special treatment when crawled by search engines. Essentially, unless we implement proper alt tags or text backups, it will be very difficult for all kinds of good bots to understand what our multimedia content is about. Because these kinds of formats add to the quality of our content experience, it is in our best interest to define them in a way that search engines can make sense out of them.

Page speed

Have you ever left a site because it was taking too much time to load? Exactly. So, do most users, no matter where they live, what they do, or what device they are using. Page loading impatience is universal.

Search engineers know this and design search engines so that they reward fast loading times while punishing slow pages. Google publicly announced that page speed became a ranking factor in 2010. In 2016, they announced that mobile page speed would also become a ranking factor for mobile sites. What does all of this tell us? There is an interest in improving search experience via speed, so our content pages better measure up.

You can begin by compressing large files that are slowing you down, whether those are images, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, or anything else you are loading on the page. When dealing with images in particular, opt for faster loading formats like JPGs for photographs. PNGs are better for smaller graphics with fewer colors and less transparency. SVG, although not fully supported by every browser yet, promises great improvements in terms of loading time—especially for large, crisp graphics.

Many of the most impactful improvements you can make to page speed will require close communication with a web developer. After you have done everything in your power to optimize all the files you are loading in the content section of your page, the developer will be able to work on more technical improvements. Those include implementing Content Distribution Networks (CDNs), improving browser caching, optimizing code, removing scripts that prevent page load, and speeding up your server’s responses, among many others.

Content Quality and Length

Needless to say, higher-quality content is the number one source of satisfaction for any visitor—whether he is coming in from search, a referral, or anywhere else in the World Wide Web. That is how you get top-ranking pieces from content hubs that don’t look particularly stellar. They have nailed the quality side of the equation and continuously offer value in the form of trustworthy, long-form information.

Even though there is no such thing as an ideal length that will get you the first position in search results, many experts have noticed patterns in the top-ranking content pieces. Social shares, backlinks, and search positions have all been found to relate to an article’s wordcount. Most studies report that top-ranking content pieces are somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words (Quicksprout, serpIQ). Publishing platform Medium studied thousands of data points and concluded that seven-minute reads captured the most total reading time on average. At 300 words per minute, that is around 2,100 words.

With factors like shareability, time on page, and linking improving with long-form content, it is no surprise that these pieces end up ranking better in search—at least it shouldn’t be, considering everything we have analyzed in this chapter.

Responsive Design and User Experience

As search engines move toward rewarding positive user experiences, making sure your content hub is optimized for mobile is essential.

In 2015, Google startled website owners everywhere with a simple warning: it would begin penalizing sites that were not optimized for mobile (penalizing in search, of course). A new algorithm change introduced mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. The upcoming section will help you verify that this isn’t hurting your content site’s standing.

How to Know Whether You Are on the Right Track with Content SEO

We have reviewed various factors that play a role in search ranking, but you are probably wondering how to track your own progress to improve your own content’s position. To make implementation simpler, Table 13-5 presents a list of the types of metrics that you can use to track your progress for each of these factors. Keep in mind, though, that these metrics are suggestions and clearly subject to change.

SEO is, without a doubt, one of the most important topics you will have to tackle as a content manager. Securing strategic positions in search engines when your audience needs what you offer can turn into a strong competitive advantage. With time, and assuming you regularly update them, your top-ranking content pieces will become reliable traffic drivers. Even with all its complexities, SEO is one of the most game-changing content distribution tactics in existence today.