Hi, Corbin Faber, Brafton’s Content Marketing Strategist here, with this month’s Third Thursday Tip. Many of my clients that create blog content don’t know where articles should live on their sites to get the biggest SEO wins and drive the most clicks. Click play to watch the full video, or read more below.
Here are three tips for integrating content so its optimized for search crawlers and users:
Tip 1: Get your headlines on the home page
Some companies only think of their sites as static, but my clients see better results when they keep their homepage updated with article headlines.
Create a section for blog headlines above the fold (in view before users scroll down). If you can afford the homepage real estate, also add an image to boost visibility, as it’s good for both SEO and user experience.
When search crawlers come to your site and see that things are refreshed on the homepage, they’ll return more frequently and index your latest content, supporting search visibility. Fresh headlines are also important for first-time visitors to see that the site is regularly maintained. It’s easier to trust a site when you can tell someone is updating it often.
If you’re investing time and resource in content, it makes sense to promote it and get the most ROI. After one of my clients integrated its latest article headlines on its homepage, we saw that 45 percent of visitors were clicking through to the news content.
I understand not every company works with a CMS where it’s easy to add headlines to the homepage – and some site managers are really hesitate about giving up too much homepage space. There are alternatives, such as tickers that have a similar effect of promoting fresh content to users without taking up as much website real estate.
Tip 2: Categorize your content
The next step to set up your content for success is creating targeted categories. My client saw results when we organized articles around reader interest, and search-friendly topics.
We built categories based on the types of people visiting the site. Some were looking for pool maintenance and renovation, others wanted pool health and safety and some wanted pool industry news and tips. The news pages tend to be highly ranked because they are updated frequently and contain keywords, which makes it easier to rank for the keywords used in categories.
When you create content for those visitors, you can feature a specific call to action that appeals to those particular prospects – and that’s my next tip.
Tip 3: Create clear call-to-action buttons
Create clear call-to-action buttons for your content. It’s hard to get visitors to take next steps when you don’t give them a clear path to conversions. I suggested that my client create highly visible calls to action. They decided to use a different color than the website’s muted palette so calls to action stand out the most – and we saw great results.
During a single business quarter, 21% of all on-site conversions came from visitors who viewed Brafton content.
You can’t just create content and expect it to be read. You need to make it easy for visitors and crawlers to find if you want to get the maximum SEO value and drive on-site conversions.
