Since we’ve already covered the basics when we discussed the basics of SEO for ESDM businesses, we can now move on to one of the most critical SEO factors — ensuring relevant and optimised content.
Here are a few factors that influence the lion’s share of what contributes to winning content:
Understanding Search Intent
The content you create should match the searcher’s intent. This means that while keywords are still crucial, the context of your article matters a lot more. Search engine crawlers can analyse the context of your writing and identify related keywords (For techies: Search engines do this using natural language processing techniques such as latent semantic indexing).
A good thumb rule is to ensure that you are writing for the humans in your target audience first, and give a secondary priority for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
An Example
An embedded system design house that wants to show up in searches for its services may want to consider the search term “embedded systems design advisor” because it is actively being used by businesses to find design service providers. We can figure this out by looking at the results that are shown for this search.
On the other hand, a luxury travel company trying to copy this strategy by considering the search term “luxury travel design advisor” will be in for a shock. Why? Because although the search term is similar, the results here are mostly career building articles on how someone can try to become a travel design advisor for high-net worth individuals.
Sprinkle some Cherries on that Content
Make sure that your content writer or SEO expert uses the following.
Keyword-rich titles
While doing this, ensure that keywords are not stuffed into the content for the sake of SEO, as it will result in the content getting penalised or blacklisted permanently (a.k.a black hat SEO).
Meta descriptions
People see Meta-descriptions on the search engine results page. Treat these with as much care as you would an expensive advertisement. This is because audiences decide whether to visit your website or a competitor’s based on what they see in the meta title and description. Be clear and concise, and keep them below 160 characters as any character after that will be cut off by Google into an ellipsis (…).
Alt attributes
This is the alternative text used to give a textual alternative to something like an image or video. It’s a great way to help search engines understand what your image represents, and is also used as an alternative way to render your media in situations where the media itself cannot be used.
HTML Headings
HTML Headings like h1 tags or commonly used to markup heading, so that it is visually clear to the reader. It also helps break up the monotony in the wall of text. An added benefit is that search engines can see these HTML headings and pay special attention to what they convey, so the words used in these HTML headings are considered towards building the keyword cluster for your piece of article.
URLs
These come with an anchor text and call to action. Pay special attention to prevent yourself from using vague ones like “Click here”, instead use “Submit a Circuit Design Enquiry”).
Freshness
Keep updating your content to prevent it from getting outdated. It also results in a more recent date, which by itself increases the chances of people clicking through to your article.