So, you’ve carefully planned the correct way to execute your content campaign and you’re preparing to launch. Although it is very easy to find yourself caught up in the details of managing the campaign itself, it is crucial to ensure that you don’t completely neglect search engine optimisation (SEO).
As well as assisting with your ranking efforts, good SEO will also ensure that your campaign runs smoothly. The following SEO checklist covers some of the essential elements that you should consider when launching your next content campaign.
Page titles
Although this might sound almost too obvious to mention, you might be surprised at just how many people neglect to optimise their page titles. Page titles will be visible in Google search results and some social channels, so it is important that they are intriguing enough to encourage someone to click through to engage with your content.
If one of your primary objectives is to attract links, there is a high probability that your content might also rank for reasonable-volume keywords. As such, it is worth taking some time to conduct some brief keyword research to ensure that your titles are fully optimised. You might not necessarily have a relevant keyword to optimise for and in these situations, you should incorporate a few secondary phrases.
Meta descriptions
Although meta descriptions won’t make as much of an impact as page titles, it is still important to spend a few minutes writing an enticing and engaging meta description that accurately reflects your content. In addition to being used by social media platforms, your meta description can also have a positive impact on your click-through rate (CTR).
Internal Links
When optimising your on-page content, there are two types of internal links that should be addressed – links to key pages, and links from key pages.
If your content-based link building strategy is successful, you will acquire a variety of valuable links to your site. Filtering the equity from these links towards key pages will enhance your SEO and this can be achieved in several key ways including:
– Utilising a navigation menu
– Adding links to key pages in a page footer
– Including links within your copy
Including direct links to pages on your site that perhaps aren’t part of your central navigation or don’t host a large quantity of content will enhance their standing and ensure that link equity can flow seamlessly around your site.
Supporting visual elements
Images can greatly enhance your content by ensuring that your message is easy to digest and immediately engaging. Whether you’re using custom icons, infographics or other visual media, failing to optimise these elements correctly will negatively impact the functionality and usability of your site.
In addition to ensuring that every image has been compressed to minimise page loading times, you should also name each file appropriately and utilise ALT text to help Google to understand both its content and context.
Analytics
Tracking and measuring key data points will help you to determine how successful your content campaign has been. You should check that your chosen analytics tool has been integrated into your website properly before launching to avoid missing out on the collection of valuable data that can be used to inform future campaigns.