25 tips to optimize your content for people and search engines

While the helpful content update didn’t create the impact many expected, it has turned our attention to reviewing and improving content.

We have determined that more steps are being taken by the search engine to serve content written for people. It is possible for both people and search engines to get better content.

Here are my top tips for improving your content.
1 It’s important to review the language.

It’s one of my biggest tips to make online content more readable.

We read and take in information online. Simple sentences are easy to digest.
The reading age in the US is 12 years old.

Guidelines in the U.K. encourage us to pitch our writing to a young child. Writing in a way that is easy to understand is recommended by the U.K. office for national statistics.

It is not easy to put this into practice.
Search engines are fond ofreadable content. Natural language processing is used to understand the relationships between words.

If these relationships are too complex, the meaning can easily be lost.

This sentence has a score of 11 on the Hemingway editor.

Sales funnel and target audience are identified as the most important entities. The purpose of this passage is to focus on internet marketing.
I will simplify it to get a good score of 7 and use the updated version of the tool to check it out.

This is easier to follow and more relevant to the topic.
2 Language should be simple, precise and succinct.

It is best to keep your language concise.

The words should be removed.

Writing things in their simplest form is the best way to keep things interesting.
Readers will be able to follow your content and search for it.
3 Referring and close variant use is recommended.

It isn’t a good idea to repeat the same words. It creates content that is hard to read and can be hard to trust.
Referring words to their equivalents is the best way to improve your content. This will make reading a lot more interesting.
It will give search engines more contextual information and help them avoid the temptation to use too many words in their searches.

A lot of different points of reference are provided by the use of synonymy. You can get more ranking opportunities.
Search Engine Land has a guide called “What is Pay Per Click?”, which ranks different types of pay per click, including paid search, search engine marketing, paid search advertising, pay-per-click search, and more.

There is data from Sistrix.

Search engines and people understand the relationships between entities in every piece of content.

People know that Buckingham Palace is a royal residence.

It’s connected to entities like London and the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Some entity relationships are obvious and others are more subtle. It is important to research entity associations and consider the connections you make in your content.
The right associations help build the larger picture and give context to your topic. It’s useful for your readers. If you wrote about Buckingham Palace but didn’t mention the Royal Family, you wouldn’t have much to say.
Entity relationships help clarify meaning as well. Context can be provided by William Shakespeare and the other related entities. A piece of content about Anne Hathaway, the modern day movie star, would likely connect entities like films, acting, Academy Awards and New York City.

The natural language demo was created using diffbot.

It improves the overall piece when you include relevant entities. It helps to give search engines wider reference points to improve their confidence in what you are talking about, and it shows your readers that you have thoroughly researched a topic.
5 It’s important to structure your content.

It’s important to make sure your content follows a logical order. It’s easier for readers to digest and for search engines to understand.
This article about how to load a dishwasher is structured in a way that is effective. The general tips on getting the best results are covered in this section.
There is a lot of tips covered in other articles. Their structure isn’t easy to follow.
An effective heading structure is important for both people and search engines.

The headings help busy readers find what they are looking for more quickly.
Accurately structured headings are important in accessibility. Good headings allow screen readers to navigate effectively and comprehend your content as intended.

Search engines love headings as well.

Search engines use clear H1, H2 and lower level headings to understand what your page is about, what each paragraph is important and how they relate to each other.
Some really interesting findings have been reported by Mordy Oberstein about how ambiguous headings can help his content get found by search engines.
I don’t know if it’s me or if it’s something happening more often these days in general, but I’ve seen more and more of my pages being crawled but not index. I changed some things. The pages are now listed on the internet.
That’s right.
This is what I found to fix my issues.

There is a person named Mordy Oberstein who is on September 13, 2022.

This shows how important headings are to success.
7 Correct use of format.

The way you format it helps convey the meaning.

A numbered list could be a step-by-step process. A list with equal importance is usually indicated by bullet points. The emphasis is given to items that have bold or italics text.
I promised you 25 tips when you read this article. To reinforce the message in the title, I labeled these 1 25.
The right format will make it easier for people to read what you have written. It will make it simpler to process. Search engines recognize these formats and their common meanings as well.
Tables mean certain relationships. Averages and ranges can be shown on charts.
Charts and tables give a better representation of the weather in London throughout the year.

Holiday weather.

The message is supported by the format here. configuration creates a better resource for people and search engines

Search marketers rely on daily newsletters.

8 You can use a contents section.

Adding a contents section with jump links to each main section can be helpful if you’re producing long form content.

Readers will be able to access the information they need easily. It makes your content easier to read.
These internal links help clarify the focus of certain passages which can boost the ranking of long-form articles.
In the 2020 article, how artificial intelligence is powered by a more helpful search engine.

It can be difficult to get the right answer in a very specific search. We have recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are able to better understand the relevancy of certain passages. We can find needle-in-a-haystack information if we understand passages in addition to relevancy of the overall page.

Search engines can identify useful passages and match them with queries, but it’s not a bad idea to point them in the right direction with a clear contents section.
9 Word count is not the best choice over usefulness.

Aim to cover what is useful to your users instead of hitting a word count.
Content that is written to hit a word count can be seen by most people. Search engines can do that as well. There is no meaning to the content.

The helpful content guidelines were asked.

Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard about it? We do not.

They have their eyes on this as well.
They will find it useful if you provide enough depth. empty words and information will be avoided just for the sake of it
10 Do your research on the topic.

Great content should always be researched. Sometimes, we think we know what our audience wants, but as content producers, we might have a different view.

Search query data can be found here. Information about what people are looking for is plentiful. It’s important to use this carefully, but shouldn’t be ignored.
It’s important to know how people search for topics we write about. Search engines will serve your content in the right context and readers will find that your content is more aligned with what they searched for.
This is an example of a piece of content in a very specialist niche that was re-posted on a new URL.

There is data from Sistrix.

In comparison to the previous version, visibility has increased and the exit rate and bounce rate are lower. It’s clear that this content is more effective for finding information.
11 The scope should be identified.

Where you start and end your content is important. Is it better to combine it with other resources? Is it better to break it down into smaller pieces?

It’s better for both people and search engines if you think about the scope. Thin content from a search perspective and lack of detail for your readers are considered thin content.

An extremely long resource may be easier to digest in parts that link. A series of more focused pieces of content could be created if it was broken down.
Search Engine Land’s guide toseo covers high-level information and includes links to more in-depth chapters about sub- topics Trying to cover everything would be too much.
12 Direct answers to questions will be given.

Provide a direct answer to the question. They don’t equivocate or waffle.

In your answer, use the expected units. Think about what you want to know.

This passage directly answers a question.

I’m a current client ofgeoSLAM.

The answer is given using the expected temperature measures.

People use search engines to get fast answers to their questions. They don’t like debating. They want to know the truth.
13 Images can be used to better understand.
Updating or increasing your images is a good way to make your content look better.
Search performance can be improved by great visuals. They can increase your click-through rate and appearance in image searches.
Make sure your imagery adds value to your content
Does it help to show something that isn’t easy to comprehend?
Is it more memorable or emotional?
It is likely to enrich your message.
Simple diagrams are helpful in understanding this technical piece.

14 The experience can be improved by adding videos.

3 billion internet users watched online video in 2020. It is expected to reach 3.5 billion by next year. If you want to support or enhance your content, you should consider videos as part of your plan.
Video content improves the experience for many people.

If you produce your own video content, you will get search benefits. Useful video content from other producers is still an option if you don’t have a lot of money.

The aim is to create a better content resource, which could result in more shares and links.
Internal links are important when you’re trying to improve content.

Is your content linked to other internal resources? Are other internal pages linked to it?

Improving internal linking makes it easier for readers to find out more about a topic. It is important for search engines to help with content discovery.
JohnMueller explained earlier this year.

It’s something where internal links are very important. I think it’s one of the most important things that you can do on a website, is to guide visitors to the pages that you think are important. It’s up to you, what’s important. You can either decide to make things important where you make the most money or you can choose to make things unimportant where you are the weakest competitor. You can focus on those directions with internal linking.

External links are a great way to improve your content.

At first, it might seem strange. Readers should be sent to another website.

If you consider this thoughtfully, there are many benefits.

If you back up your claims with an authoritative source, people will find them more trustworthy. They give your audience a fast route to get further information.

These need to be checked regularly to make sure they’re still being sent to the most relevant source.
Search engines value expertise in your field. They give context that helps solidify the relationship between your content and other sites that also cover it.

17 You can give examples.

Real examples are a great way to enhance your content. There are areas that could be better explained by showing how things work.
I have provided many examples to help you follow my thinking. It’s easier to apply to your own content if you see a representation of the advice in action.
Showing a representation of your idea in action makes it more useful.
18 Ask the experts what they think.

If you’ve produced thought pieces or content that answers a qualitative question, you can ask some experts in the field to upgrade it.

The E-A-T signals for search engines will be enhanced by combining expert quotes that are clearly referenced. Readers will benefit from a more balanced argument and industry expertise.
You might be able to get more social activity from the experts.
Ahrefs reached out to qualified experts to add value by writing this post on the penalties on the internet.

The recent increase in visibility is due to the recent core update.
There is data from Sistrix.

19 You can find a new angle.

Make sure you approach a topic in a different way. You’re not likely to deliver anything insightful or meaningful if you rewrite something that has been covered before.
According to the helpful content guidelines, you should avoid mainly summarizing what others have to say.

If you have some older content that you want to improve, you could approach it from a different point of view.

You could do original research, test something out, or ask an expert in the field for commentary.
20 Data should be included.

If you make claims that could be backed up with data, you should review them. Readers are more likely to trust you if you provide hard facts.

External linking opportunities may be provided by adding relevant data. Useful data can be found on authority websites.
If you include your own unique data, it’s a good bet that others will link to your resource to back up their own claims.
The study that benchmarked over 2,000 digital PR pieces gained several relevant backlink from industry websites due to the unique, useful and interesting data provided.
It’s important to keep your assets current with the ever changing content. If you carry out a regular review, you can prevent people from using outdated content.
Search engines use freshness as a ranking factor and value content that is kept up to date. This is confirmed by studies by Botify.
I noticed that “prices start from” was mentioned in the copy but the minimum price had changed when I analyzed the site. Performance came back to its previous levels after the price was corrected.
22 It needs to remain relevant.

The topic of your content needs to be relevant to you.

People reading content that isn’t related to their main topic area may find it confusing or even useless.

Search engines are trying to improve the user experience. Over the last few months, I’ve done many content audits on different websites.

One of the main findings when assessing a site’s content is that relevant content performs better than unrelated content.
There are many reasons for this. The content is likely to be better if it is created by subject matter experts. The relationships between pages are also important.

Content clustering can help you build up authority over time by showing a wide range of knowledge about a topic that interlinks. This was covered in more detail in my recent article.
23 Take it easy.

It takes a long time to consider the implications of search and users.

A large-scale study by Orbit Media shows that the time taken to write a post has increased by more than sixty percent since the beginning of the year.

The level of detail and expertise involved are only increasing. Extra time is needed to bring older content up to current standards.

Allow yourself time to develop and strengthen your content if you want to do a thorough job.
There is 24 minutes left. The results should be analyzed.

Results can be used to guide you if you want to improve your content. Information about what’s working in search and how people interact with your content will be provided by data. Both should be analyzed.
The page has performed better after being improved with data from the search engine. The total impressions and clicks have gone up.
There is data from the search console.

The average time on a page has gone up, indicating that the content refresh is bringing in more traffic and engaging readers.
25 Continue to check and check.

There are three checks: spell check, word check and fact check.

If you missed something the first time, you may have published inaccurate content. Trust with your readers will be eroded by any errors. Your search performance could be hampered by these people.

It’s important to have a proof process in place. If you haven’t written it yourself, it’s easier to spot someone else’s mistakes.
It is necessary to balance humanity and the search engine.

The right balance between enhancing content for search engines and people is more important than ever.

A good mix is a user-first approach with a good understanding of the internet.

When you’re trying to improve content, neither should be overlooked.

You don’t want your readers to be disappointed when they get to your content if you use search engines.

Search engines and your readers can work together to deliver great results.
The guest author’s opinions are not necessarily those of the search engine. There are staff authors here.