The world of Internet marketing has experienced numerous changes over the last 2 decades. One thing has remained the same though—content is king. The quality of your content is what gets visitors lingering longer and eventually converting. Nevertheless, having stellar content is not enough. If people cannot find your page, then all effort you have put into making the best work out there, would be pointless.

Great content must therefore be supported by robust search engine optimization (SEO). SEO-friendly content is content that is highly visible to search engines. It ensures search engines can better find, interpret and contextualize your page. What is considered acceptable SEO practice by major search engines as Google has evolved over the years? Stuffing keywords no longer cuts it. But there are a number of ways you can make your content SEO-friendly.

1. Choose Keywords Carefully

Some website owners will immediately start writing their content based on what would seem like the most logical topics to cover. SEO considerations are an afterthought that’s incorporated shortly before an article goes live. The result is keywords are forced into the article as opposed to being part of the article idea from the get-go.

The right approach is to identify the keywords to use before you start creating content. The keywords could be off the top of your head. Add to those the ones you come up via tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Anchor text optimization strategy guide for 2020, or Ahrefs. Look for keywords that are relevant to your industry and you have a good shot at ranking for.

2. Use Sub-Headers

Sub-headers and headlines play several roles for SEO. First, they make content readable and skimmable. Visitors to your page are more likely to share it with their social circle if it’s easy to read.

Second, the search engine bots crawling your website will be checking for how readable your text is. Is it separated by sub-headers that show what different sections of the page are about? That ensures the page appears in the appropriate search queries.

Third, sub-headers give you room to marginally increase keyword density without violating Google’s SEO rules.

3. Link to Prior Content

Backlinks are one of the three most important signals search engines look at when ranking content. Good content will almost effortlessly attract a flurry of backlinks. If you want to improve your content’s search ranking and grow visitor traffic, you should link to your previous content on your newer posts.

Search bots navigate and inventory these backlinks to identify the relevance of different articles. Also, linking to reputable, high-quality third-party websites grows the credibility of your own content and shows it’s well-researched.

4. Get Content-Length Right

A decade or so ago, web articles would usually be in the 500-word range. At the time, the more articles you published, the more valuable search bots considered your content to be and the higher your page would appear in search results. As Google sought to clamp down on content mills and shallow articles, short pages have fallen out of favor.

Nowadays, articles that will capture a search bot’s attention are those that are at least 1000 words but preferably 2,000 words or more. The rationale is that Google believes you are unlikely to cover any topic in meaningful detail within 500 words. In its goal to provide the best results to search users, Google is prioritizing content that will provide the most exhaustive answer to a query.

5. Optimize Images

Images are a powerful tool for communicating a message without going into a wordy explanation. They also make content captivating and shareable. Your website is more likely to have a large number of conversions if it includes catchy, quality images.

Optimize your images by adding ALT tags and keywords to the files. Use compressed image formats that don’t diminish picture quality. Adjust the dimensions to reduce file size. A large picture will slow your site speed thereby deteriorating the SEO score. Basic image apps such as Microsoft Paint can help you compress and resize your pictures.

6. Craft Quality Content

As indicated at the start, content is king. All the technical considerations we’ve covered above are all put in place by search engines to ensure the best content appears first. You could of course write mediocre content that ticks all the right technical boxes. But any SERP success from such low-quality content will only be temporary.

Google looks at how long people linger on your page. If a critical mass of visitors is leaving almost immediately they arrive, they’re perhaps not getting what they were looking for. Your page will start falling down search rankings.

Equally important is that ultimately, content is for your visitors. Create pages that engage and convert readers.

Creating SEO-friendly content takes time, effort, and resources. But the payoff is well worth your while.