How To Optimize Website Content For SEO And Boost Conversions

Intro

It’s hard to imagine how much access to content people had before the age of the Internet. If you were a citizen of Rome at, say, the height of the Roman Empire, you probably get your news from official decrees or word-of-mouth from merchants and other travellers. And the content you get is as reliable as it could get back then – mostly exaggerated or propaganda.

With the advent of the Internet, content gained a more accessible platform to reach out to more people much faster. Low-quality content still exists, but search engines are weeding them out in favour of, as Google puts it, “helpful, reliable, people-first” content.

This major shift has enabled people to spot great content, but it also puts more pressure on businesses and organisations. Content that fails to rank high enough in search results might as well not exist. Fortunately, search engine optimisation (SEO) is your reliable ally.

Reaching the top

To understand how SEO can help rank your website content, it’s important to know how search engines are used. While capable of returning millions of results in a fraction of a second, users can’t be bothered to go through what’s essentially an endless list. If you can’t stand in a queue for hours, you likely won’t spend as much looking for the best result.

Instead, users expect the most appropriate results to show up early in their searches – namely the top three. Here’s an overview of the click-through rates (CTR) of the top ten results done by Backlinko based on four million search results.

Source: Backlinko

While actual CTRs vary by keyword, the pattern is the same in many searches. The coveted top spot receives more than a quarter of clicks, and the rates drop significantly by the 10th result. It goes without saying that your content would be lucky if it achieves a 1% CTR while ranking among the next ten results or farther.

As such, the goal of SEO is to optimise or enhance the content to give it the best possible chance of ranking in the top spot. Search rankings can be extremely erratic; a piece of content can be at the top one day and a few ranks down the next. Consistent SEO is key to maintaining favourable rankings for as long as possible.

But here’s the tricky part. You think that knowing how search engines rank website content is crucial, and you’d be right. The problem is that their developers, especially Google, have been tight-lipped about revealing all of their algorithms’ specifics. They have their reasons, such as protecting their assets and preventing cheeky spammers from gaming the system.

SEO professionals like Stream SEO know the industry can only work with what’s already been made public. For instance, Google’s algorithm uses five search signals.

Search Signal	Relevant Aspect	Purpose
Meaning	Search intent	Determine the intent or aim of using a particular search query or keyword
Relevance	Keyword relevance	Assess how close the query is to the content the user is searching for
Quality	Content quality	Evaluate the content based on Google’s content quality guidelines (i.e., E-E-A-T)
Usability	User experience	Evaluate how much all the features in the content help users fulfil their needs
Context	Local search	Identify the context of the content based on factors such as location

If that seems like a lot to process, that’s because it is. Experience has taught Google that it can’t rely on matching keywords verbatim alone when ranking website content. Otherwise, this post will just be mentioning the target keyword 90% of the time, which isn’t helpful.

On the bright side, you now have five key areas to focus your content strategy on.

Matching search intent

Every search is done for a reason (and, yes, that includes doing it for fun). A user scouring the Web for “restaurants near me” is clearly looking for a good place to eat. Meanwhile, a user searching with the query “weight loss tips” wants to read an article on the subject.

Matching search intent means providing the right type of content for a specific query. Some sources list several types of search intent, but you can’t go wrong with the four core types.

Type	Intent	Matching Content	Query Example
Informational	Facts on a subject or answers to the user’s questions	Articles, blog posts	how seo works
Navigational	Specific site or page within the target site or domain	Website, webpage	how seo works (brand name)
Commercial	Product or service, its name or reviews and insights	Articles, blog posts, product and service pages	best seo services
Transactional	Process of getting a quote or purchasing a product or service	Online forms	buy seo package

Search queries with informational intent are the most prevalent, accounting for over half of all queries. Those with transactional intent are the minority, comprising less than 1%.

That said, it pays to optimise your pieces of content for all four types. With everyone and their granny vying for dominance on the informational front, spreading your prospects on other types of intent will increase your content’s chances. Besides, people search for “what is seo” to get facts, not to know the best SEO service in town.

Conducting keyword research

Google is expected to handle more than five trillion searches a year starting in 2025 based on its internal data. It doesn’t necessarily state how many search queries are in use, but to say there are millions is an understatement.

Even after narrowing the list down to your business’s niche, you’re still left with thousands – if not millions – of queries. As tempting as it is to rank for each one, not all are relevant to the nature of your content. Also, if you plan on running paid search ads, running them on too many queries for too little return is a great way to blow your ad budget.

As such, one of the first steps in any SEO campaign involves conducting keyword research. This process aims to find queries that meet two characteristics: (1) relevant to the content and (2) see enough use by the target audience. The content can be optimised for a relevant keyword, but it won’t matter if hardly anyone’s searching for it.

Keyword research involves so many metrics that it warrants its own article for the future. That said, there’s room in this guide to briefly talk about one of them: search demand.

Source: Search Engine Journal

Big numbers aren’t always better. Short-tail or generic keywords may be searched a lot, but they draw as much competition. Unless your brand is a household name in its niche, your content will be hard-pressed to rank high in search results.

On the other hand, long-tail or specific keywords don’t get used as much, but that works to your benefit. With the majority of your competitors’ attention on the more ubiquitous short-tail keywords, you’re free to assert dominance over long-tail ones. This works especially for start-ups, as they’ll struggle to compete with well-established brands in the short tail.

This doesn’t mean that you should focus your SEO efforts on ranking for long-tail keywords over the long term. Once your brand has gained enough popularity within its niche, you can start working your way up. However, your presence on the long tail should be maintained.

Adopting the E-E-A-T criteria

First introduced in 2014 as E-A-T, Google’s E-E-A-T is a four-point criteria mechanic it uses to gauge content quality. The acronym stands for the following:

• Experience – the content shows first-hand experience on the matter
• Expertise – the content’s author has the necessary expertise and skills
• Authoritativeness – the author or site is an authoritative source on the subject
• Trustworthiness – the content’s details are sourced from trusted references

Google has made it clear that E-E-A-T is NOT a search engine ranking factor. Regardless, it’s worth using for your content campaign because it serves as a benchmark for enhancing the quality of its search results. Such improvements allow high-quality content made for users to rank better than content made solely to please the algorithm.

Integrating E-E-A-T into the content creation process is important for those who often create “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) content. This kind of content tackles topics whose information can affect the health and well-being of anyone who reads and understands it. Some sectors that make YMYL content for users include finance, healthcare and legal services.

Google says a good approach to adopting E-E-A-T is to evaluate content based on three questions, simply known as the who, how, and why. In this case:

• Who created the content?
• How was the content created?
• Why was the content created?

Answers to these questions should be visible in the website content wherever possible. For example, a byline and short bio let readers know more about the author.

Making the content user-friendly

Creating helpful content is one thing, but ensuring it’s accessible and usable is another. Nothing frustrates users and wastes their time more than content that’s slow to load or doesn’t load at all. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

User experience/user interface (UX/UI) is a major ranking factor – and for good reason. It affects metrics like return visits, average session time and conversion rates. The longer a visitor stays on a website, the more likely their visit will result in a sale. Technical issues such as slow page load times and unresponsive pages can dissuade visitors.

The list of ways to improve your content’s UX/UI is long enough to warrant its own article. So, here’s a quick rundown of the most widely used approaches.

• Responsive Web Design – designing the content to be accessed and used without problems on desktop and mobile devices.
• Website Architecture – arranging the pages to flow and pass link equity seamlessly from the homepage or any landing page.
• Transport Layer Security – encrypting the website using this protocol for secure communication and data transfer.

Google maintains a set of performance metrics called the Core Web Vitals. Meeting these metrics improves your content’s chance of ranking favourably.

Harnessing local search

Search results vary by location, even if they share the exact same keyword. A user based in New York looking for “football” will most likely get results for American football. If that user travels to London and does the same, they’ll get results for Association football (or, as the rest of the world calls it, soccer).

This variation applies to rich snippets, which are search results that contain data beyond the page title and description. Displayed above the top-ranked organic search result, rich snippets receive more clicks than their organic counterparts. Google recognises over 30 forms of rich snippets, which it also calls structured data markup.

Source:Ahrefs

Rich snippets are the cornerstone of any local SEO strategy, as local searches account for almost half of all searches. Your content popping up in any of these snippets brings a world of convenience to current and potential customers. This is where queries like “restaurants near me,” as mentioned earlier, show their potential.

For content to appear as rich results, it must have the necessary lines of code. Running the page on Google’s Rich Results Test is a good way to check its code. However, It’s worth remembering that passing the test only indicates the content’s compatibility. It doesn’t guarantee appearance in the rich snippets.

Conclusion

Everything about optimising online content discussed here has only scratched the surface. The process is lengthy and complicated, and there are no guarantees that your content will rank at the top because everyone else is doing it, too. However, it’s a must in an era when accessing information is now as easy as firing up the search engine.