Ways to Optimize your Content Marketing in 2020

Succeeding in content marketing today may seem like an intimidating task. Yes, the content marketing space is more competitive than ever, there are billions of blogs out there for almost every niche and ranking in the top 10 is getting tougher day by day. If you’ve found that you’re churning out great content on a daily basis but your traffic hasn’t budged, here’s what you need to do. 

There are 3 ways to look at content marketing, the first part is content creation and the second one is content promotion, and lastly content optimization. What good is content without proper optimization? After all, good content deserves to be found. 

Here are some tactics we can use to achieve exponential traffic growth.

Think About User First 

A lot of people focus on Google to rank higher by wadding in Keywords and deviant phrases. Instead of trying to fix the system, focus on providing remarkable value to your target audience. Your page should address all the possible angles they might be looking for while searching for a term, it should do so in a way that’s engaging and well researched. Content optimization works best when you are reaching out to relevant audience. Provide content to your audience that is worth sharing and liking. The more your content resonates with the audience the more chances of you ranking higher. So, make sure your content solves their problem and adds value. 

Optimize for Mobile 

 Desktop devices have lost their prominence in the last couple of years, people prefer mobile devices over desktop. As per reports, more than 50 per cent of people prefer searching for content using their mobile devices. A trend, which I see increasing in the next few years. To capitalize on these changes in device trends, companies need to make use of Google’s framework, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to optimize their web site. The AMP mark-up is mobile friendly and helps your web site load faster. You are more likely to see an increase in your mobile traffic if your pages are AMP compatible. If your website is not mobile compatible your website is more likely to have high bounce rates which send Google wrong user signals that can cost your ranking.  

Optimize for Voice Search 

Voice searches have increasingly become prominent among millennials. A lot of them regularly use Google Home and Alexa and have started using voice searches on mobile devices. Make use of Google Schema mark-up, this will help in getting your content found via voice search and get your content into rich snippets, consequently, increasing voice search traffic.  

Technical SEO Optimization 

There are a lot of factors that play a vital role in ranking in Google today. Gone are those days where content alone was the key factor to rank higher. From lowering site speed to leveraging meta tags, title tags to having Extensible Markup Language site map all these factors matter. If you’re not implementing these tactics you are less likely to get the desired results from the content you invest so heavily to create. Ensure you do regular site audits and fix all the technical factors that hamper your site ranking.

Use Google Analytics 

Every marketer uses Google Analytics (GA), but the question is how many the right goals have in place? It is always wise to keep a tab of performance metrics like bounce rates, time spent on the web site, what content themes and topics work better to give the right actionable feedback to your content team. All these data points help in fine-tuning your content marketing strategies in the long run. The last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time creating content and marketing which no one is interested in. GA can shed light on what to prioritize while optimizing your web site for better results. Use Universal Transverse Mercator tracking within GA to figure out which content works best for you.