SEO is one the most popular digital marketing strategies. What about their experience once they arrive at your site? Marketers need to be able to optimize every page's web content to keep users interested. This improves user experience, makes websites more navigable and directs users to the conversion actions you want them to take.
We'll show you how to identify and optimize the most important pages on your website.
Quick Take-Aways
- The goal of website optimization is to provide a great user experience.
- The homepage, about page and blog pages are four of the most important pages in every website. Contact page is the fourth.
- Clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs), guide visitors to the relevant information on your site.
- Blogs earn backlinks and indexed pages that are exponentially higher than websites without them.
- Google's Page Experience update encourages businesses to put emphasis on UX to achieve high SERP rankings.
- Businesses can optimize their web content by performing frequent site audits.
Website optimization is not the same thing as SEO
We hear a lot from marketers about search engine optimization (SEO) and how to get search engine queries to your site. SEO is also essential as 93% of online experiences are initiated by search.
Website optimization goes beyond traditional SEO. Website optimization does not only focus on keywords, content, or links that drive traffic to your site, but also the overall user experience once they are there.
You must optimize web content by focusing on both front-end elements (such as navigation and content) and back-end performance factors like site speed and mobile friendliness. Your marketing and web development teams must work together to create a website that converts new customers.
What content is the most important on your website?
Optimizing web content requires that you identify the most important content and prioritize it in your strategy. There are four main pages on most websites.
Homepage
Your homepage is the first impression of your website. It is the equivalent to a brick-and mortar storefront. People use it to decide whether they want to see what else you have on your website. It is also your landing page, which helps them navigate to other areas of your site.
Your homepage is perhaps more important than any other page on your website in terms of design and usability. Keep in mind that people use your homepage to decide whether they want to visit your site.
Your design should be visually appealing and responsive. It should also be designed to make it easy for people to find the information they are looking for. Clear navigation menus, compelling value propositions, and clickable CTAs allow users to navigate to other pages.
It's a optimized homepage for Mint, a personal finance website and mobile app.
Image Source: Mint
Mint's homepage has many essential elements, but it doesn't feel overwhelming or confusing. Mint's value proposition is clear and prominent: “Managing Money, Made Simple.” There are compelling testimonials, CTAs to sign up and download apps from the app stores, and a competitive differentiation (#1 personal finance app). It is easy to navigate the site from the top.
Mint's page is quick and easy to interact with.
About page
Who are you? What are you doing? How do you do it?
These are the questions that users would like to be answered on your About Page. Here you can share more about your brand and build trust with your audience.
Your about page should include your history, mission, leadership bios and testimonials. It should also mention achievements and awards. Photos and other content should be included to make your brand feel authentic and relatable.
Your about page should not be confused with a product/services page. Your website visitors should have an overview of your company to see if it is relevant to their needs.
Your about page can often contain more than potential customers. It's also where people go to find out more information and apply for jobs.
It's an optimized page for RevBoss, a sales prospecting company.
Image Source RevBoss
RevBoss is a master at making customers feel like they are their own person. RevBoss speaks directly to their customers, telling them about themselves, their work, and the reasons they choose them (with supporting numbers). The best thing about this page? It has a mini navigation at its top that allows visitors to navigate through the page and find the most relevant information for them.
Scrolling through the About page will reveal information about the company's leaders, staff, mission, values, and contact options. You can access all of this information in one click.
Blog page
Blogs earn websites with 434% more pages indexed and 97% more link to their site. It's a simple task to have a blog on your website. It quickly becomes the most important place on your site.
Your company blog is a reflection of your brand's expertise and authority. It also shows your audience that you are able to provide value.
An SEO strategy is necessary to optimize the web content of your blog. It should include keyword research, topic pillars and a link-building strategy. For best results, publish content often (multiple times per day for the best performance) and adhere to blog post best practices. Smart blog design principles will highlight the most popular posts and make it easy for users to navigate.
It's a optimized blog page by Salesforce, a business software company.
Image Source: Salesforce
Salesforce has many things going right when it comes to optimizing web content for their blog. Each post is marked with a category tag that lets users know the topic it covers. Editors' picks will be highlighted to highlight their most popular posts. You'll see featured series and featured authors as you scroll through the blog. This allows you to explore content in many different ways.
Salesforce follows the best blog practices such as feature images and compelling titles. Their blog is an extremely useful resource, demonstrating how their products and solutions help customers succeed.
Contact page
When people need to contact you, they visit your contact page. You could lose leads if you don't optimize your contact page. If people find it difficult to contact you, this can impact their user experience.
Your contact page should be optimized by placing your most important information at the top of the page. Users won't need to scroll down to find it. Clear CTAs can help users find the best communication method for specific inquiries.
It's a optimized contact page for Dropbox, a file hosting provider.
Dropbox does an excellent job of directing people to the correct places on their website and the best ways to communicate with them. Users can visit the contact page to speak to sales representatives, find Dropbox partners that sell or manage solutions or chat with a representative. The contact options are easy to find and the CTAs are clearly visible.
They also direct users towards the help center where they can find a wealth of information about FAQs, troubleshooting and product how-tos. This helps users solve their problems on their own and prevents customer support from becoming overwhelmed.
Last but not the least, you will find a general contact form just above the content. This allows general inquiries to be made quickly and conveniently.
Six best practices to optimize web content for your website
Prioritize the user experience and value
When optimizing web content, the “big two” are user experience (or value) and value (or both). These are the two most important pages of your website. However, this principle applies to all pages.
You want your website to offer a high-quality experience on every page.
Pages should have a clear purpose
Whatever the site's size, every page must serve a purpose. Avoid having too many pages with different content. Pages with thin content on the same topic should be condensed.
Use compelling CTAs as a guide to users to take the next step
CTAs are often viewed as being sales-focused. To make your website easier to navigate, calls to action can be placed throughout the site. CTAs can be used to not only encourage subscriptions or free trials but also to direct people to the areas they need on your site.
Example: “Want more information about Product X?” To see demo videos and other information, visit our Product X page. Join the conversation by visiting our community resource board!
Page performance
Google's Page Experience Update was launched in 2021. It prioritizes page performance in Google's rankings algorithm. This article encourages businesses and organizations to use the web content optimization techniques discussed here to improve their websites' user experience.
To evaluate your website's performance, it also examined core web essentials such as loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity.
Image Source: Ahrefs
The Page Experience Update also includes responsive design (i.e. Its ability to maintain quality across multiple devices, minimal interstitials (pop-up pages that appear before the content) and HTTPS protocol.
Technical SEO
Search engines can crawl and index pages on your site using technical SEO techniques. This includes title tags, metadata and site structure. Technical SEO is essential to ensure that your content gets high rankings and engages target audiences.
Frequent site audits
Regular site audits will keep your site in top shape. Monitoring site performance, keeping your content up-to-date, eliminating duplicate content and maintaining the highest design standards will help you keep your site optimized. Site audits can also help you understand how visitors interact with your site, and what you can do to improve it.
More to you
High-value content is the cornerstone of every website optimized. Marketing Insider Group's SEO and writer team can provide you with customer-centric, ready to publish content every week for a year or more so you can focus on what is most important: serving customers.
To learn more, check out our SEO Blog Writing Service.
Marketing Insider Group's post How to Identify and Optimize the Most Important Content on Your Website appeared originally on Marketing Insider Group.
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By: Michael Brenner
Title: How to Identify (And Optimize) the Most Important Content on Your Website
Sourced From: marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/how-to-identify-and-optimize-the-most-important-content-on-your-website/
Published Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 10:00:16 +0000