Content optimization is the act of enhancing content to ensure it stands the best possible chance of meeting its desired goal. Your end goal could be ranking on the first page of the SERPs or attracting your target audience/customers.
Chima Mmeje is our guest on this Expert series episode and she covers how to Optimize content for SEO.
🔑Name: Chima Mmeje
What Chima Does: Chima is the founder of Zenith Copy.
🔑Company: Zenith Copy
Noteworthy: Chima runs the Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries. She also created The 10x Topic Authority Course for freelance writers wanting to take their professional skills to the next level.
💡Content Optimization starts from the content brief.
Before jumping into keyword research and other activities. You should check the content brief to understand the full scope of the project
💡Secondary Keywords can be used as anchor text when building backlinks
Chima shares that she uses secondary keywords very naturally in her content. She also shares that she uses them as anchor text while building backlinks and as subheadings
💡Make Meta Descriptions Actionable
Give insights on what the reader should expect if they click through the article. It should include your keyword/alternate versions of the keyword.
💡Never Stuff entities into your content
You need to ensure that your content isn’t stuffed with entities and sound robotic. You need to ensure your content sounds human. You can use text razor and content harmony to get entities
Chima Mmeje [0:07]
Yes, we’re recording now. So can everyone see my screen? Let’s start there. Yes, awesome. Okay, so this is a checklist of what we like said, yeah, the content optimization process looks like there is the before that is during the days after because content optimizations starts from the content brief, at least for me, it starts from the content brief, it starts from that content planning. That is where I start doing optimization from. So the first thing is the keyword research, which we already went into last week. So for today, we’re using the keyword of SEO content writing tools, I wanted to use something that already exist on my website, so that I can like show you what everything looks like. So once you have the primary keyword, the first thing I usually do is to take the primary keyword and then plug it into a content optimization tool. Like like, yes, like content, family, search, SEO phrase, market news, whatever it is you have access to. Alright, so I have access to content harmony, and new attics. So I’m going to show you Sorry, I have a bit of a cold what I do with both of them regarding contents, optimization. So back to that list. So we have the primary keyword, the secondary keyword, you also get the secondary keyword, when you’re doing your keyword research, if you remember last week where we did grouping. So we have the primary keyword and then anything similar, we take all of those, and then we put them where on that primary keyword that is our keyword group. So when we’re writing content, we now have the primary keyword or word SEO content writing tools. And then we have our secondary keyword that we got from doing keyword research. Now another way to like find longtail secondary keywords, you can come to Google and then you can just search the keyword as your content writing tools. And once you do that, Google can show you Yes, what are key or similar keywords, so I can see okay, as your blog writing tools, I could say free SEO content, writing tools, best content, writing tools, like these are all related keywords that you could be using. When you’re trying to create content, you want to be looking at SAP data. You also want to be using keyword tools like yeah, this is what is this tool called again? Keywords Everywhere. Yes, you can use Keywords Everywhere you can use SEMrush whatever tool you’re using, you can use that to find the main keyword now if you have access to neurotics I think yeah, I think new attacks does keyword research I want to go back to the hour I want to see if I can go back to the main page your text or calm
keywords research you new keyword report keyword SEO content writing tools create let me just copy this out because I’ll probably be using it a lot yet then it’s during the research so while that is going on. Okay, let’s hold on for a bit I want to I want to I want you to see how it’s does it’s yeah how how new are TechStars keyword research? I’m not sure I think yes market Muse also does this yes market Muse also does this you can look at keyword information like this markup is can also show you something very similar today. So this is good information because this shows you keyword volume Keyword Difficulty again, what I’m just looking for from here, I just want secondary keywords that I can add to that primary key what else I already have or I want to find is that is it possible for me to see something else that has the higher search volume, then I use that as my primary keyword and then what is my current primary keyword now becomes my secondary keyword. So I can take this information and that I put them on They will actually brief somewhere as my primary or secondary keyword. Now what I do with the secondary keywords is that I try to walk them inside content naturally. I try to use them as unquote text to maybe existing pieces on my websites. I also use them as anchor text when I’m building backlinks, and I use them as sub headings. That is how we can use the secondary keywords. Alright, next, you have meta description. I think I’ve talked about meta description a lot on LinkedIn. And I would say the best tip for creating meta description is to make it actionable, give insights on what the article is going to talk about. So this is the meta description section. Here, somewhere down down down here. Yeah, so this covers your content writing tools to improve keyword research, topic clustering, creating content, brief and optimising content. It’s not a ranking factor. But the idea is that you want it to be, you want someone who’s going to who wants to look for information to look at your meta description and have an insight on what they can expect it to click through. So right now, Google is replacing most of the meta description with text relevant texts from the content that relates to what the user is searching for. But to yet you also have a meta description to include your keyword or an alternative version of your keyword a nice actionable. Now, once I have that meta description, I want to have suggested internal links. So what that means is that by looking at my topic, I can because every topic, in my opinion, every topic should every content piece should exist within a cluster. So this is going to exist within the cluster of SEO copywriting, and also within my SEO blog writing service page. So that means automatically, I want to link to the two service pages of SEO, copywriting service and SEO blog writing service. I also want to link to the head topic of what is SEO copywriting. I also want to link to other content pieces on my website, where I have mentioned blog writing. Again, I’m also going to look at this. Okay, this title mentions tools. Do I have any other content piece on my website? I mentioned tools? Yes, I do. I have one on 15 Seo 15 copywriting tools automatically linked to that I have a page on I think how to do keyword research. So since I mentioned keyword research tools here, definitely linked to that is just thinking about, what are all the pieces that would relate to this whole business. I’m going to cover that I want to link to now, I want to try and see if I can open the brief for this article. It is here somewhere let me say yes, your content as your content writing tools. Okay, let’s see, I hope this is it’s me, yes, this is it. Okay, so. So this is an example of what I was talking about. So you have this. These are, these are like some of the links, internal links that I added, just based on what I was saying just now. Now, there’s still another part of internal linking that comes after writing. But before I write, these are just the ones that I can think of based on the sub headings that I’m going to cover. You also have external links. For this kind of piece. Obviously, the External links are going to be to the tools dimension. But other external links would be statistics would be quotes from people that I have also mentioned in this space. For example, I think I got a quote from Tori grey, yes. So that’s a good place to get to link to externally. Again, let me refresh External links sources where you got stats from sources where you got quotes from. If you see something that is like a big deal, you want to reference the source of that thing you just said. That is what I would link to externally. Alright, next to multiple entities. Now, entities are entities like a noun, less animal, place or thing. It’s how you describe something I remember when I was when I was working in house. We went from using chi ha Hee de like, when you’re referencing someone in a paragraph, and you’ve already mentioned them once. Using a name describe that thing that is basically what an entity is, it is the description of a thing of a person, it is just a description. So instead of, if I’m talking about a school right now, entities where school would be like, table chair, chalkboard projector, if I’m talking about Microsoft’s, for example, entities would maybe be like Microsoft 365, it’d be like any of the software that Microsoft offers. Basically, anything that would help search bots to understand the context for that keyword does the entities now content optimization tools can help you extract entities, you can also use Google’s NLP, but I like to do the easy route. There are two ways to get these entities. Again, like I said, you can use tools like content, harmony, neurotics, or if the page has a, it has a Wikipedia page for that keyword, then you want to use textual. So let me say for example, now, I’m looking at, I’m writing about digital marketing. I think Wikipedia has a page for that code. So what I would do here now is I would go here, if Wikipedia has a page for whatever you’re writing on, you would copy that text from Wikipedia. And okay, where does it text and here, you will copy that text for Wikipedia, go to text ratio.com.
Unknown Speaker [11:37]
Try to the more
Chima Mmeje [11:40]
remove everything that is there, pasting what you’ve just taken from Wikipedia, and then click analyse. So text rays out is going to generate entities that you need to dimension in. You can also use text results to analyse the contents after you’ve written it. So this is what you want, that when you finish writing the content page and you pasted back into textures. Oh, you see, you have a core 1.0 for the tama hidden. Okay, so now, you can see all of these entities, these are things that you should be mentioning, if you want to rank if you want your content to have a highlight site salience for email marketing. Now this, this is what I use. Again, like I said, when I’m writing on a keyword, or topic that has a Wikipedia page, you can use this across as many topics as possible, as many contacts as possible, you just want to have like these entities sprinkled throughout the content. Now, if he doesn’t have a TPR page, and I’m just going to go straight to something like content harmony, I think quality harmony class, cope, market muse, these are like really great tools. I like classical because Klesko privatizers form the most important, and then flows that from there. I think that content harmony also does something similar. Let’s say yes, they also do that. So you can see the entities here on this right side of this screen. And these are like priorities to start from so you saw by priority, and then you have all of that in here. So if wasted, okay, hold on. Now, if I have this text, I can just come in here. Copy this text
Okay, copy this text, where does it end? This is really long. Okay, copy the steps, put it in here. And now it’s going to grade and show me if I’ve used the most important entities. So these are entities before writing. I’m going to copy all of that, put them somewhere and then just take some time to like read through those list of entities. The idea is that I want to memorise as many of them as possible so that I can use them naturally when writing show what now you can see that I haven’t used this entity or search engine optimization I really hate mentioned writing it out like this. It just feels unnatural. Yeah. Then surfer SEO not used enough. I used it once or twice where I didn’t really dig into them. Again, artificial intelligence. They basically just show you which entities you haven’t used so that you can go back into the article and then decide if you want to add those entities. Your text also Another good tool for that, I can just come in here, create a brief and then when I’m done writing, I can replace that brief with the content, go to topics. And then see if I have used enough topics or entities in my walk. So zero, all of this means I haven’t used these entities, and I might consider adding these entities to the text. Okay, so I hope that clears up. What entities are, where you can extract entities from when you’re writing content, the idea is to try to memorise as many of them and then use them naturally in the text when you’re writing. Okay, so, next part. You can also, I think already mentioned, it’s using keywords and entities and subheadings. Yes, you can also use the biggest entities or sub headings, you can use them inside the texts, I think the most important thing is just to use them, as long as you’re using them, and you’re using them naturally. Your grant. Okay, next paths. Yeah, check entity stallions with the content optimization tool. That’s what we just what we’ve just done with content harmony, and neurotics. Add more entities naturally, if needed. This is what you do. After you’ve written the contents, you like what I’ve just done. Now, you take that finished, walk, plug it into the tool? And then you start deciding, do I want to add this entity? Is there a way for me to add it naturally, it is not compulsory in between is, if you can’t add it to naturally then don’t put it in there. You don’t want your content to sound like a robot rotates, you want it to sound like a human being words it. So yes, very careful with the way that you use entities. goods will have helped us ranking content because it provides context, but never ever stopped them in the Alright, now add more internal links, adding more internal links, I do this again, after writing, I take that text into the backend of, of WordPress. And then there’s a tool called Liquid spa. Somewhere here, yeah, liquid spa. And what liquid but does is that is suggest internal links. Again, not all of these analytics are going to make sense. But more than enough of them will because you you’re not seeing the full picture shall if you have a big website and you start to have more contents, you’re not going to be able to see everything that you should be linking to so Liqui spa can crawl your websites, blog, and suggest pages that you should be linking to so and so desperately should be linking. So based on the text that already exists. And then again, it’s you decided, does it make sense to link to this? Or does it not make sense to link to that? These are like examples of what you’re suggesting for me to link to I haven’t linked yet. So this is a great tool for eternal linking. And it’s just it’s just a fantastic tool. You don’t know the biggest tools I rely on linquist spa, the free version works perfectly. I don’t even want to think of using the premium version automatically as the link to returns because I don’t want to happen and so the free version is perfect. I use that to like optimise the contents for more internal links. Okay, check for texts that could do with the stats. This again is critical thinking you’re reading through the text and then you asking yourself, okay, this thing I’m seeing here, does it need a statistic is always a good question to ask, Does this need stats? I wish my website was working out as shown you there was an article I wrote on 15 copywriting tools. And I was talking about Grammarly as a subheading so to show why it’s important to use editing tools, I talked about how I think people bounce when the content is not edited properly know when the content has a lot of grammar error. How that affects readability, how that affects bounce rate, how that affects conversion, and then I tied it into Grammarly. So that was a very good example of x in that question of is there a stat I can use here to support what I am saying. It’s always very helpful for I think, the most you don’t want to have to minister but again, the more start you can have any page the more authority that gives a page and right now when the age of eats. So I don’t mean it’s football if you Google Eat put the apostrophe there. Yes, when the age of each right now your content is more authority. And statistics can help you do that. So next, yeah, good dinner, nothing about stats, or linking to sources don’t link to Wikipedia, anybody can write on Wikipedia. And because anyone can write on the pedia it doesn’t have authors also. So it’s a good source. It’s not a good source of authority. You can use Wikipedia to do your research but the links to Wikipedia, they are tonnes of great resources like statistics and the rest of them that you can link to. Okay, add tags tags are the states where Okay, hold on.
Okay, I think
Unknown Speaker [20:55]
the they are here. Tags,
Chima Mmeje [21:00]
okay, tags are here, I can see them now because like I said, my website is down. But tags will be here. Now tags are used secondary keywords. As tags, I also use primary keyword, it just makes it easy to find the content. And again, give more context to the piece was set for search engine bots to be able to understand what the content is about to add tags here. What next, add schema if it’s not the default, so if for example, I’ve used an FAQ section on this, I can come to Yoast and they schema on the Yoast here. So if this was a service page, for example, I will use a web page schema. And this was an about us page, I’ll use about page schema. If I had a FAQ section where I was questioning a lot of my content pieces, I would use FAQ page, if this was a page for an author, I’ll probably use profile page. There’s just all of these different schema that you can use here. And then type of content is an article schema us as we schema for most of your blog posts. News article, these are the different types of articles schema. Okay, so you just didn’t use takes care of the rest. I feel like this is like the only good thing that I use those to be fair, because it’s a ship to limit opinion. Okay. Proofread your content, I just talked about how poor editing can affect your contents. So very important. I tried to proofread like three times on the day, let it slip overnight, come back the next day, read it again. And I said after sending it out to an editor to take a second look because I don’t want any errors in my work. So definitely preferred it helps it really really helps. Now, this is where it ends with the optimization itself. You want to also I think you want to make sure that the content is callable, but that sounds like something that is obvious. Now next part is waits for a warrant and then see what Google naturally picks up the key word for that basically means wait for a month and then see the keyword that the page ranks for naturally. So an example will be take this plug it into SEMrush now l Tara domain and then I want to see this is this or this is just I want to start optimising now, I can now use this to optimise. I can ask you Okay, okay, these are like these are the keywords that Google is picking up the contents for. Have I hardwired optimise the contents for this for all of these keywords? I can also use this if I know also I have also is this? The ones that are most relevant to create ad to use. I use them as anchor text, like I said, to create backlinks for this page. Okay, so very good information. Wait a moment. See what Google picks it up for and then ask yourself how do I optimise the content for this so that they rank higher? And then how do I use okay you go to other pieces on your website And then you build internal links back to this page, using the most relevant keywords that Google is picking up for that page. Let me say that again, you have the internal and the external links. You go into your websites. And then you find opportunities where you can link internally to this page that you’re working on. You want to have a variety of anchor texts, you take the most relevant here, and then you use them as anchor text. You also use that to build backlinks by also using the same text as anchor text for your backlink. So you’re using them as anchor text, both for internal links, and anchor text also for External links. Now, let’s see what we have next. Check performance after two months and updates if necessary. So you wait two months. That’s like a long time a good time to wait. And then you look at the content. After two months, where is the sunset? Do I need to build more backlinks? Do I need to add something? Do I need to remove something? Is it ranking? It is ranking on page one, I want Featured Snippets who has feature snippet right now. What texts are they using? How do I create better text to take it from there? And if nobody’s working with feature snippets, then I can do that by maybe having like an itemised list for each section. Let me explain now, I didn’t even think about this before. So for example, now I have the keyword research tools. Under this I’ll have like a bullet list. And I’ll say Keywords Everywhere. SEMrush answer the public or whatever tools I mentioned. I would itemise them. Maybe that would give me like a chance and then I’ll see okay, does this gets picked up for like SEO copywriting tools? Or does this get picked up for like keyword research shows? I just You just keep like experimenting. While you wait until on PLT on page one, before you start doing any of that. You’re not experimenting to see how you can get more set futures. You can also look at the people also. What’s that thing called? People also X? Yes, you can also look at people also x for that keyword. And then see the questions. Okay. And then ask yourself, How do I answer these questions in my contents? That’s always a good thing to do. Because if you’re on page one now the sky’s the limits. How do I answer these questions in my content so that it gets picked up for people also acts? Alright, that’s it. Does anyone have questions?
Okay, looks like we don’t have any questions. I’m going to assume. I’m going to assume that that was very useful. Again, the recording will be available. Oh, who is this? Rule? If you have questions, just use the raise your hand button. I think there’s a raise your hand button or something? rooty? You have a question, what’s your question?
Who is ready someone named Rudy says they have a question and okay disappeared. And we left outside. The recording will be available sometime in December. Our priority. Our priority right now is yes, is getting out all of our leaders content from the first cohort. So that’s our priority. Once we have all of that up. Then we will publish the one from last week, the wall from this week. And then we’re the one from next week next week. The training is going to be on using data for Global Search Console and GA for to find content ideas and to optimise content that’s what I’m really excited for. I’m doing that for selfish reasons because I want to learn how that works because the a4 is crazy. Again, I said it before he wants to ask questions. Please use the raise your hand button you become what’s your question?
YBCO what is your question? I cannot hear you I can see that your mind Is your mic your mic is on but I can’t hear anything you’re saying. Okay, I’m going to give space to someone else I’m not you have a question what’s your question? Hi. I’m fine. How to fill holes in the content? I didn’t get that What did you say
then your network is really poor. I can’t hear anything you’re saying your network is really really poor
Um, now, your network is really poor. I’m not maybe type your question type of question in the chat and I’ll look at it. Mary’s accent Okay. Entities. Richard’s question is are entities the same as Latin semantic? I don’t even know what this is LSI keywords. Let me just tell you this LSI keywords is shirts, Shi T shirts. It was never a thing. It will never be a thing. I don’t know some some white some white dude just came up with LSI keywords and everybody just started going with it. It is basically the same thing with longtail keywords. So, that means that yes, sometimes entities will also be longtail keywords because they can be secondary keywords. And then sometimes entities will just be words, nouns like I said, What is a noun? What is it now I was asked him was it now because a noun is an entity who went to primary school yeah, what is a noun somebody open carry them, I can tell me what is a noun.
A noun is a name a reversing place or a hair that is an entity entity is the number one ever best in animal place, entities a thing.
Anything used to describe that is an entity now. So that’s an entity. So again, like I said, it can be a longtail keyword. It can also be a secondary keyword, or it can just be a thing. It can just be a description. Let me let me share my screen again. And then go back to I won’t go back to this text raiser now. And then look at all of these words. These are all words that describe what that describes digital marketing. Now, social media marketing is a key word obviously. But it’s also an entity. business, technology, micro economics, these are words. But they’re also words and entity, promotion and marketing communications. That’s a longtail keyword, because it’s anything that is from three words up is a longtail keyword. So this is a longtail keyword is four words. Boy, it’s also a key word. It’s also an entity. Now, let me go to this list of entities that we have here. Now. These are just one words, right? These are just words. These are just descriptors. These are things that search bots will be looking for, ie they are crawling your content to understand that okay, this person is writing about SEO content tools. Okay, so someone who is well who is if someone if someone is writing about SEO content, then they need to mention a free version of content. So best content writing tools blog post that is mentioning all of these words, but this is also a key word search engine optimization is a key word. Artificial Intelligence. It’s a key word Google Keyword Planner is a tool. It’s a keyword. So it can be many things and it can also be an entity. I hope that helps. Whoever asked that question. Okay, I’m gonna stop sharing my screen again. And can you suffer SEO? I don’t know. What is the Matic and is revenue automatic entities. I just make a use of high SEO to extract entities the same way you can use contents harmony and all these other tools you can use of SEO to extract entities I don’t know what is the Matic entities. Okay, it will call says she doesn’t understand schema they saw and I want to I want to see if this guy is here. I want to bring him up to explain schema. Let me see Oh, yes, that’s all good stuff. All these students from the first cohorts we had from the comments cohorts. Who is doing who is in a cohort? Yeah, I can see some of you. Yeah, I want you to come up and explain. What is schema markup? Have people got in there? If not, from this cohort there? Is someone from the first cohort who is here. Who is in a cohort right now. Carry Mike and explain to us what is schema markup? This is a classroom if nobody picks on who is talking,
Unknown Speaker [35:36]
let me try. Yes, good. Okay, so chemo, my co op has to do with categorising what your content is about so that search engines can actually easily find out what your website website is about. So you could have something like recipes, and under recipes you could have what recipes, apart from talking about an emoji recipe, you’re gonna talk about the cook time. Okay, then you’re going to talk about what else again, some of that, okay, let me let me use artists, for instance, you could talk about an artist degenerate, and then the date of the music, then sometimes you also have to talk about ratings reviews in their reviews. For, for for, for that for product pages, too. But the point of that the point of schema is to segment your content in a way that there is no confusion, God who does news, okay, this is what this content is about. And you can have that four different categories of things, just like what Chima shudders on her on her on the use on her blog. So you have different you have for news you have for articles you have for writers. So it is just very easy to segment your content that way so that Google can actually see it. And you know, pick it up and understand what your content is about
Chima Mmeje 37:03
being very good. Very good. Debra, are you willing you are here you are from the first cohort, I’m actually going to mute yourself now and talk to folks about schema because we are from the first cohort, Deborah carry mike
Unknown Speaker 37:18
Thank you so much. So I want to say that my my hope is also lived in our structured data. So it’s a way of telling Google what your page is actually about. For example, now, if I have a page, let’s say I have a business. So on my home page, I can mark up my first page as an organisation so that when do is checking my website, you already know that I have an organisation. This is the name is the name of the founder, the website, if I have a logo, then also markets so that you can see the picture. And some other basic informations about my website. So maybe means about telling Google what your page or your website is about
Chima Mmeje [38:10]
that’s very good. It’s basically structured data, like she said, Now, I want you to see that there’s a relationship between schema markup and semantic entities. The relationship is that both of them are geared towards helping search engines to crawl the page more easily. Everything that we do on page optimization is to help search engines crawl the page more easily understand the contents, and then know how to rank it’s schema markup can help with that only category level. entities can help with that on a very granular level. So both of them combined together, are very powerful. I hope that answers that question. Okay, okay. I’m nice axing how to fill holes in your content. I don’t understand what that means is very vague. I’m not can you drill that question down more? What do you mean by a few holes in your contents? Okay, two people have asked about schema markup. I’ve answered that. Okay, I think I’m not if you can. If you can realise your provide more context on your question. What do you mean by filling holes? I don’t understand what that means.
Unknown Speaker [39:28]
Is I’m not here
Chima Mmeje [39:36]
okay, she’s here, but she’s not talking. Alright, cool. If Amna is not speaking, then I think we’re going to bring this to a close. Thank you to everyone who showed up next month, the recording is going to be up. I really hope this is useful. Alright. Alright, everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
