How to Optimize Website Content for SEO

Optimizing your website for SEO means creating considerate, helpful, and polished experienes for people— not focusing exclusively on algorithms. Why do search engines prioritize certain factors? Because human readers prioritize them. In this way, search engines are the gate keepers of visibility. They aim to deliver the highest quality match to a user’s query as quickly and easily as possible. “Highest quality” often means:

• Providing the information that target audiences seek in the most digestible format
• Avoiding anything that could create a negative, frustrating, or misleading user experience
• Reducing the number of actions and any blockers to what the audiences is looking for

To publish top-ranking content, create interesting, useful information that humans want to read.

This article provides a framework for optimizing content for search visibility, focusing primarily on Google, the most visited website in the world. You’ll learn how to target various SERP features by providing value, establishing authority and creating SEO- and AI-friendly web pages.

What is SEO optimized content?

SEO-optimized content:

• Offers value. Help readers answer their questions and solve their problems.
• Covers a topic in-depth. Provide comprehensive information that lets your expertise shine through.
• Is compelling and easy to read. Write engaging content and format it so readers can find key details quickly.
• Is well-structured. Organize content logically so information flows seamlessly.
• Matches preferred formats. Choose a content type that works well for the topic based on user preferences and what’s ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

In addition to creating audience-centric web pages, your SEO content should deliver tangible results for your brand. 

Create content that reaches the right audience and achieves your business goals by:

• Gaining insight into your target audience’s problems, interests and preferences.
• Understanding your brand’s value proposition and how your products and services meet your audience’s needs.
• Identifying your marketing goals, such as traffic and conversions, and determining how to guide users toward these actions.
• Monitoring performance metrics to gauge your success and refine your strategies.

Digital marketers often wonder if it’s worth investing resources in creating search engine optimized content. The reality is that SEO is by no means obsolete. Organic search is still the main way users find information online, even if search engines are evaluating and ranking pages differently with artificial intelligence.

Is SEO still relevant today?

The majority of people use search engines to find information online, making SEO more relevant than ever. According to HubSpot research, 88% of consumers use search engines to answer their questions, compared to 31% who use social media and 12% who choose AI chatbots like ChatGPT. 

The way search engines process and present information is changing, but Google’s mission remains the same: to organize the enormous amount of information available online and help users explore it. To accomplish this, Google looks for useful, accurate content that provides a great user experience. 

AI is influencing how search engines analyze and recommend content. Machine learning and natural language processing mean search engines can better understand meaning, making exact keyword matches less important. 

Answers are often provided directly in the SERPs as featured snippets or AI overviews (AIOs), taking attention away from organic search snippets. As we’ll discuss below, to display in prominent SERP features, you have to demonstrate experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) and structure your content to be understood by search engines. 

Keywords vs. topics

With traditional SEO, search crawlers scanned pages for keyword matches. 

Now, search engines have evolved and leverage AI to analyze patterns and context. This means that search engine algorithms are now so sophisticated that it’s less about the words and more about the underlying concepts.

These advancements enable Google in particular to take a topic-based approach, predicting what audiences might ask next to provide better search experiences. To optimize your content for SERP features such as “people also ask” and AIOs, consider subtopics, related questions and variations in the way people search. 

Simply sprinking a keyword or phrase throughout your content isn’t enough anymore. You have to truly understand the topic a word or phrase represents and explore that topic from every angle. You have to aim to cover that topic using the format and phrasings your audience prefers. 

Specific words and terms are still important to help signal relevancy and describe a target topic. However, focusing on the longer tail keywords such as Related Questions and identifying the language your particular audience is using to discuss a topic is paramount. 

The emergence of related questions, featured snippets and AIOs

Ranking #1 or as the top snippet in organic search isn’t as impactful as it once was. Other search features now display more prominently to capture audience attention. 

Related questions

Google anticipates what users want to know, providing related queries under the heading “people also ask.” 

You can click the question to reveal a short answer and source link. This feature enables audiences to refine searches without starting a new query. 

A variation of this called “People also search for” displays further down in the SERPs. This list of related keywords takes users to a new page of search results.

Related Questions show you exactly what target audiences are searching for and the phrasing they use to search. For this reason, they are excellent topic research tools and relevancy signalers. 

Including them in your content (especially in prominent headings) and answer them completely and concisely helps show search engines and human readers that you are a quality source of the informaiton they seek. In turn, this can help optimize your content for SEO success.

Featured snippets

In it’s effort to deliver target information as quickly and easily as possible, reducing the number of actions users have to take, Google introduced Snippets. 

Featured snippets answer a search query directly in the SERPs, displaying above organic search snippets. For example, asking “What started World War I?” generates a short response and a link to the cited page. Featured snippets may be in the form of a paragraph, list or table.

In recent years, the introduction of Snippets created a new frontier for visibility and new opportunities to bolster authority. Being cited in a Snippet often meant you were more visible than even the coveted #1 position. It also meant that your content was deemed so high quality and helpful, it deserved to be the most visible.

Artificial intelligence overviews 

Now appearing at the top of the SERPs, AIOs are the next stage in Google’s evolution provide the highest quality source as quickly and easily as possible. 

These summaries use generative AI to provide concise responses to queries with follow-up links as citations. They pull information from various sources and reformat it into the most digestible format. These sources are often recognized by search engines as the most credible, quality, and helpful providers. 

AIOs are meant to save users time — audiences don’t have to manually scan search snippets and click between web pages to answer their questions. 

How to optimize for SERP features

Landing in these coveted SERP positions boosts your visibility and impressions. Google considers websites that appear in these spots as trustworthy and valuable resources. 

To strengthen your reputation in Google’s eyes, publish quality content and build backlinks. 

Here’s how you can optimize content so it’s easily processed by AI systems:

• Use questions in headings. A question heading signals to search engines that you’re answering a specific query. 
• Answer questions directly. If you’re targeting a related question or keyword phrase, provide a concise answer that can be pulled into a SERP feature. Elaborate on the answer later in your piece. 
• Format content as lists or tables. Structuring content in a bulleted list, numbered list or table helps Google extract content and present it as a featured snippet or AIO.

Displaying rich results

Rich results are search listings formatted with images, videos and details like ratings and prices. They feature information and visual elements not found in regular snippets, drawing attention to your web page and improving click-through rate. 

To qualify for a rich result:

• Label your content with schema markup. This standardized vocabulary identifies key pieces of content so search engines can easily retrieve them. 
• Use the appropriate type of schema. There are more than 800 schema types, including HowTo schema for instructions, Product schema for goods that you sell and Review schema for customer feedback.
• Test implementation. Make sure the structured data is working correctly using Google’s Rich Results Test. 

Is there a way to tie SEO and content marketing together?

SEO and content marketing go hand-in-hand. Audiences can’t discover your content without SEO, and without quality content, you can’t rank in the SERPs and attract customers into your sales funnel. 

These strategies work in tandem by prioritizing user experience. 

To create effective SEO and marketing content:

• Write clear titles. Titles should concisely describe your content so users and search engines can decide if it’s relevant. 
• Ensure content is easy to read. Use headings, lists and short paragraphs to help readers find information quickly. Well-organized content also helps search engines process meaning.
• Be comprehensive. Provide well-researched insights and cite reliable sources to back up claims. High-quality content establishes your expertise and trustworthiness. Remember, comprehensive doesn’t necessarily mean lengthy.
• Use conversational language. Avoid complex language, dense sentences and jargon, which makes your content hard to understand.
• Satisfy search intent. Understand the purpose behind a search query and help audiences achieve their goals. 
• Optimize technical performance. Make sure your content loads quickly and is mobile-friendly. Users can get frustrated and bounce if they’re unable to access your website. This impacts engagement and search rankings. 

Focus on helpfulness and building topical authority

Topical authority is a measure of your expertise and trustworthiness. Sites with strong topical authority tend to rank better because search engines are confident the content is accurate and reliable.

You can signal topical authority by:

• Developing an inventory of helpful content that showcases your knowledge. 
• Using these pages to generate backlinks from other websites that act as endorsements of your content. 

Use the steps below to establish your brand as a leading resource in its niche. 

1. Conduct intent research

Determine the topics your audiences are interested in so you can create content that’s in demand. Search engines can then match it to relevant queries. 

2. Research FAQs and related questions

1. Plug the topics into Google to find related queries so you can cover the topic thoroughly. 
2. Use an incognito browser so your location and search history doesn’t impact results. 
3. Choose related questions relevant to audience’s interests andyour business goals. 

3. Perform a competitive analysis

Analyze the top-ranking content for the queries and note what’s covered in AIOs, featured snippets, people also ask and rich results. 

Find ways to improve these pages with additional information and expertise.

4. Create an outline

Incorporate the related questions and topics you’ve uncovered into new content. 

• Create an outline, organizing ideas into sections with headers, subtopics and key points. 
• Use important questions in headings and answer them concisely. 

5. Structure content for readability

Use bullet points, numbered lists, checklists, pull quotes, charts and other formatting tools to ensure your ideas are presented clearly.

6. Choose a content format

Decide how to best present your content. Blog posts like listicles are popular and effective. 

However, you can also create other types of content such as ebooks, videos, infographics, guides and case studies.

7. Be comprehensive

Write as much as needed to cover the topic and provide substantial insights without filler. 

If you can engage audiences and prevent them from returning to the SERPs to find answers elsewhere, you’re signaling to search engines that your content is relevant and likely to meet user needs.

8. Develop shareable resources

Create free branded assets that audiences can download and share, such as templates, guides, checklists and infographics. 

• Your content may appear in Google image and video searches. 
• You can also expand your reach and distribute content through social media and email. 

While this may be an effective lead generation tool, be sure to set the right expectations. 

• Pay walls or other forms of gating content risk creating a false expectation or a frustrating UX. 
• They may also seem more brand centric versus helpful and user centric.

Since anything that keeps people from finding the information they seek as quickly and easily as possible, this kind of tactic may not help your SEO. 

Instead of gating content, aim to make the downloadable resource readily available and brand it. When the visitor uses your helpful tool, they’ll see your logo and be reminded of the helpful experience you created.

9. Build backlinks

High-quality content is an opportunity to gain backlinks and show that other sites trust your content. Build links from reputable sites through guest posts, digital PR and outreach campaigns. 

Links from poor quality or spammy sites can negatively impact SEO, so monitor your backlink profile and disavow any toxic inbound links.

10. Maintain content relevance

Content can lose value over time, impacting your search visibility. Users may search for different topics as trends change. Information also becomes outdated. Update content regularly for accuracy and relevance, and monitor performance to detect ranking drops early. 

Optimize on-page elements

On-page SEO differs from off-page SEO, which are actions you take outside of your website to improve authority, such as backlink or reputation building. Changes to on-page elements, such as URLs, meta descriptions and images, help search engines crawl and interpret your website. 

1. URLs and slugs

Create descriptive URLs that indicate how your site is structured and what content is on a page. Search engines analyze URLs for keywords and to understand hierarchy. Users can also see where they’ll land if they click a link in the SERPs. Use a forward slash to indicate categories and subcategories and hyphens to separate words for clarity.

Here are examples of SEO-optimized URLs:

• www.example.com/products/appliances/toasters
• www.example.com/blog/how-to-optimize-content-SEO
• www.example.com/about/staff/john-smith

2. Page titles

The page title, or H1 heading, is one of the first pieces of content crawled by search engines. It should clearly reflect the topic and inspire audiences to continue reading. 

Follow these best practices for writing effective page titles:

• Use one H1 tag per page.
• Make your Meta Title the same as the H1.
• Include a primary keyword.
• Summarize the topic concisely.
• Indicate what readers will learn (“how to” or “why you should”).
• Include a keyword question if it fits naturally.

3. Meta description

The meta description summarizes the page content, helping search engines to pair content to appropriate queries. The descriptions may also display in the SERPs to help users decide whether to click a snippet. 

To write an effective meta description:

• Accurately summarize the content.
• Include a target keyword naturally.
• Use an action verb to encourage readers to click (“discover,” “compare,” “shop”).
• Limit descriptions to less than 140 characters so they display in full.
• Preview your meta title and description using a SERP simulator tool.

4. Images and image metadata

Search engines can’t crawl images, but you can provide context to help with indexing.  

To optimize images:

• Use descriptive image file names, including a keyword if possible.
• Add informative alt-text, which also ensures images are accessible by visually impaired users.
• Use captions to describe charts or graphs.
• Compress images for faster page loading times.
• Ensure images automatically resize for mobile.

5. Schema markup

Use schema markup to tell search engines what specific pieces of content mean. This helps Google gather information about your business in its knowledge graph and improves the chances of your snippet displaying as a rich result.

Important types of schema markup include:

• Organization schema provides details about your name, address, purpose and founders.
• LocalBusiness schema is used for a company or branch with a physical location, including opening hours and area served.
• FoodEstablishment, HealthAndBeautyBusiness and Store are a few LocalBusiness subtypes. 
• Product schema supplies information about product names, descriptions, colors, sizes, prices and availability.
• VideoObject schema and ImageObject schema are essential as search engines can’t crawl visual elements.

6. Internal linking

Internal links help search engines and users navigate and discover your content. 

Interlinking helps you to:

• Convey how pages are related and demonstrate your topical authority
• Anticipate user needs and guide them to additional content they may be interested in
• Keep each page focused by referring users to related resources instead of expanding on ideas directly on the page
• Encourage audience engagement and time spent on site

Here are best practices for adding internal links:

• Link to pages that are genuinely helpful. Audiences may get frustrated if they’re sent to pages that don’t enhance their experience. Irrelevant links can also confuse search engines as to the purpose of your page.
• Use links to showcase topic clusters. Linking from a main pillar page to subtopics guides users from general to detailed content. It also highlights your site’s hierarchy to search engines.
• Use descriptive anchor text to tell users where a link leads. “KPMG data on brand loyalty” is more helpful as anchor text than “See the report here.”
• Streamline navigation. Structure your site so users can find the information they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible.
• Regularly update links: Add links as you publish new content to help with discovery. Audit and fix broken links.

Create a flawless UX

Google’s algorithms reward web pages users can interact with effortlessly. Slow websites and poor mobile experiences impact your visibility because they can cause friction and lead to bounces.

Implement technical SEO to ensure your content is accessible and responsive by:

• Improving site speed. Compress images, minify files and use content delivery networks to improve site speed. 
• Monitoring page load times. Check the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console to find areas where your site lags.
• Ensuring your site is mobile friendly: Users should be able to tap links, fill in forms and read text seamlessly across devices.
• Fixing broken links and page errors. Users may abandon your site if they run into problems.

Constantly measure performance

Traditional metrics, such as organic traffic, impressions and bounce rate, provide insight into audience engagement with your site. When it comes to search visibility and relevance, however, authority is increasingly important. When you rank in featured snippets, related questions and AIOs, you know search engines view your content as reliable and trustworthy. 

Monitor the SERP features you rank for as part of your SEO analytics. Increased visibility means you’re successfully creating trusted content that resonates with audiences and satisfies their search intent. This lays the groundwork for meaningful interactions with your brand and eventual conversions. 

Content optimization best practices

Search engines continue to be an essential platform for reaching online audiences. As Google focuses less on keyword matching and more on meeting user needs, marketers need to shift their approach, too. 

If you can provide a superior audience experience and demonstrate your authority, you’re well positioned to rank well in SERP components such as featured snippets, AIOs and related questions. 

Here are the key points to keep in mind when optimizing content for SEO:

1. Determine what your audiences want to know.
2. Focus on comprehensive topical coverage instead of keywords.
3. Align content with your business goals.
4. Create well-researched content.
5. Format content for readability.
6. Structure content for featured snippets, people also ask, rich results and AIOs.
7. Implement on-page SEO to help search engines understand the content.
8. Build backlinks to boost authority.
9. Ensure your site is fast-loading and mobile-friendly.
10. Monitor search performance and adjust strategies as needed.