If you wrote your website’s copy without SEO in mind, don’t panic! You can easily retrofit content to perform well in search and with SEO standards. The update won’t take weeks, so leave any worry behind of missing out on major traffic. With just a bit of time spent planning and executing, your site can feature fresh SEO copy to help you rank.
You likely have some great content on your site already. In that case, the goal is to just tweak it slightly so that your target audience can find it. It pays to take a good look at your content and ask yourself if it speaks to your buyer persona (and if it presents your brand well grammatically).
If a objective assessment reveals that you should revamp quite a bit of your copy (or all of it), that’s something you need to put on your to-do list. A content marketing agency like Galileo can help you if this task proves too time consuming. This can often be the case for an in-house team juggling multiple priorities. For for a basic SEO update, however, you can get away with actioning on these tips to retrofit web copy.
1. Integrate Keywords Naturally Into Existing Content
First, take some time to do keyword research to uncover which words and phrases your target buyers are typing into search bars. Their queries (the ones relevant to your business) are the keywords you need to incorporate into your web copy. Naturally. If you don’t know how to conduct keyword research, you can follow these pointers that we shared with In-House Agency Forum blog post readers.
Long gone are the days when keyword stuffing (which lead to a horrible user experience) would get you ranked on page 1 of Google search. Today, the search engines reward websites that integrate keywords conversationally. As in the way real people talk in person. This is known as semantic search and, along with RankBrain, it’s creating a better web. There’s a balance to be had between keeping your copy’s organic tone and making it search engine friendly, though.
2. Prioritize Optimization of Title Tags and then Meta Descriptions
Optimizing your web copy (including headlines and subheads) is important, but you can bump up your SEO by also focusing on your pages’ title tags and meta descriptions. These elements effectively tell search crawlers (and, consequently, humans) what your page is about.
Give priority to your title tags as a best practice, as common thought within the world of SEO says Google gives them priority. Include one or two of your researched keywords into your title tag, and also into your meta description, paying attention to natural language. Be clear and concise. Think of title tags and meta descriptions as your elevator pitches. Title tags cut off after roughly 60 characters and meta descriptions at around 165 characters.
There are other simple ways to boost your site’s SEO. You can guest post on blogs that relate to your offerings. This is a super way to get current inbound links to tell Google you’re a reputable website. Consider also updating some of your old blog posts with fresh and relevant content, and then republishing them on your blog or social media channels.
This is certainly not it, but it’s a start and it will greatly improve your SEO rankings. For more tips to retrofit your content to meet SEO standards, contact Galileo Tech Media.