Having to optimize content is extremely important, and one that I thought I had pretty much well covered, until.. (in a moment). First, let’s get one thing out of the way. We all need great quality and properly optimized content, to ensure that we provide maximum value for our readers, while allowing search engines to know what we have to offer and rank it amongst the most relevant of results. Sound about right? Read on.
All search engines have one thing in common when it comes to returning results for users, and that is to provide the best possible information that provides value and relevant to a search query. We all know about the impact of many websites that got hit with Google’s recent changes and as it all seems, unique quality content is “King” again, or better yet, has probably always been.
Anyway, I said “until” in the beginning, because after having installed the SEOPressor WordPress plugin (aff link), I found out that there were still a lot of room for improvement, to optimize several of my posts, specially the older ones.
While I am a strong advocate for all things free, I do once in while suggest premium tools, provided they deliver more than what free tools can do, save you money in the long run, and most importantly that I (preferably) have used myself. If you are a registered contributor here on my blog, you will see that I have three SEO premium plugins installed, one of them being SEOPressor. Rather than taking this as a sales pitch, regard it as a legitimate review and ultimately make a decision on your own. Further below, I do tell you how you can try it first, so that you may have a well informed decision (more on that later).
How Should You Optimize Content?
OK, let’s do a quick run down on some things that matter most when optimizing your content for SEO. You will find many tips saying about how you should use, title tags, keyword density, sub-headings, bold, italic, alt tags, nofollow tags, deep linking structure, and all that stuff that you should by now already know. If you don’t, here is a good place to start and learn more about SEO.
The other question is, what is really behind all these technical hulahbalooh? Did you guess? Keywords, period. This is the only way that search engines will find out what you are talking about, which bring us to another question..
Why Should We Optimize Content?
You are on a search engine and what do you do? Type words. That’s the language you use to communicate with the search engines. That’s how you make a query. Then, the search engines will return results. Based on what? Based, on what you have typed, keywords. This is why you need quality and optimized content. Search engines love it because they can return relevant and quality results for users, which are ultimately the ones that will benefit from the results. Make sense?
Optimizing content for SEO has always been something that many apparently ignore, simply choose to ignore, or do not know how to do it. On-page SEO, and all things related to it, can be an intimidating stuff, but in a nutshell, it really does not have to be complicated. Most of the time it is the “do it later”, “laziness” or the “ooppss, forgot” factors that comes into play. Or, failure to take action.
Is There An Easy Way To Optimize Content?
What if, you can have a checklist of SEO “must do”, to ensure that you have properly optimized content, right within your editor of WP, telling you exactly what you are missing? That would be nice, would it not?
Enter SEOPressor. SEOPressor is like a coach right beside you, telling you what you need to do to optimize your content (not write for you, lol). You don’t have to hire anyone to write optimized content for you with this plugin. It does not get any easier to optimize content. To make it simple, I will show you how “this article” (this one that you are reading right now), develops as we go on. Note that I start with a score of 0%. So, without further ado, this is what I have done:
Step One: Wrote this article freely without any editing or worrying about the technical bits and pieces. Just got those creative juices flowing.
Step Two: Now that I’m done writing, its time for me to start editing and optimizing my content. I choose a “keyword” I am targeting for, and run SEOPressor by simply saving a draft of the post (not publish). In this example, I will be targeting for the keyword “optimize content“. Pay attention to the score and suggested changes. First run indicates poor optimized content, red flags all over the place.
Before Saving Draft
Keyword
First Run
Step Three: Made my changes as suggested. Included h1 / h2 / h3 tags, deep linked to another article, included an image (alt tags are added automatically), and included keyword on first and last phrases. Re-ran the plugin once again (saving the draft). Watch the improvements.
If need be, make additional changes and then rinse and repeat, until you see the score turning “green”. This is the indication that you have now your post properly optimized. Obviously the closer you get to 100% the better, but I will settle for anything at a minimum of 65%. There are some suggestions that you might not want to follow (adding h1 tags, nofollow, or keyword density at +/- 6% max., etc). This is really up to you. The point is that you know what needs to be done to optimize content, and always remember not to overdo anything.
Once satisfied with the score, hit publish and do the rest of the stuff you will normally do, like sharing it with your friends, and all the other link building and traffic generation techniques you know of. Rinse and repeat for your older posts that you are trying to get better results. Don’t mess too much on articles that already rank well. It is sometimes “wiser” not to change a winning team. Optimize content for older articles you have and monitor your SEO progress. In any event, even if you don’t think that now is the right time to invest on a premium plugin, I hope that at the very least, you learned something about the importance of having quality and properly optimized content.
There you have it. Convinced yet? If not, here is one way to take SEOPressor for a test drive. Register on iBlogZone and write a guest post :). Use SEOPressor and other premium SEO plugins to see how it goes. Live action on how to optimize content ;-).
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Content professor looks like a useful tool, I especially like that it shows an overall score and then you can go from there and try to increase it, until you reach a desirable level.
Hi Andreas. I like that “keyword”… content professor, lol. Yeah! I really like how this plugin does its job as I often forget a lot of things after I write a post. This way, I just write and optimize later. It works too. As an example, I have never optimized for the term “traffic generation strategies” before because I did not have any articles to back it up. A little over a month ago, due to the contest, I started to optimize the posts related to the contest with this plugin. Why don’t you Google that term and see where it’s at 🙂 The term is already on “suggest”. Thanks for stopping by.
Extreme John
This article just reminds me of how useless I have become in even making an attempt at snagging key words and phrases these days. Now I just seem to put it out there and let what happens happen, not so much by choice but more so because of time.
Great post D.
Hi John. As always good to see you here. Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s also one of the reasons why I chose to use this plugin as it makes things a lot easier 🙂 Thanks for stopping by
Jhong Medina
This is a very useful tool. I will install it right away. One question, although its a lil’ out the topic, how do you prepare in writing a post? and how much time do you consumed in making one?
Best Regards,
Jhong Medina
Hi Jhong. Good to see you drop by. Been a while, lol. Yeah this is really a great tool and is more accessible than its peers 😉 One time and lifetime upgrade, can’t beat that. As for your questio on how I write my posts, here’s a guide that I use all the time 🙂 3 Step Guide To Simple SEO Article Writing. If you need to know anything else, let me know. Thanks again for dropping by.
Jhong Medina
Cool. Been busy with my offline job. Thanks for the link. I know I need some catching up to do… hehehe. Even though I seldom comment on your post but I constantly read and learn from them from your feeds.
Hi Jhong. I understand and I know you are always “sneaking” up, specially with that camera of yours in your pic 🙂 Hope everything is doing good on your end.
Dennis Edell@ Direct Sales Marketing
I’ve begun outsourcing all SEO for DEDC. I’ll pass this along to see if she needs/wants it. Thanks!
Hi Dennis. So we are pretty much the same then. I outsource my SEO to SEOPressor, lol… just kidding. Anyway, it is good that you are able to do that. Yeah pass it along and see what she thinks about the tool. I will equally love to know what her views are. Thanks for stopping by
Dennis Edell@ Direct Sales Marketing
I’ve emailed the link, we shall see. 🙂
Sandeep
yeah, this is a pretty good plugin, If im right this is daniel Tan’s plugin…
This is no doubt a plugin that will you optimize your posts for search engines. The thing i like about it is that once you get your creative juices flowing , after that you can optimize your post
Hi Sandeep. That’s the whole idea when optimizing your content. Everyone says that you have to write for you readers and not for search engines. I think that there is a misconception about that because this is what Spammers do. Use “black hat” techniques and other tactics to manipulate results. This is to me what writing for search engines really is.
The way I do it is I just write and write until I am satisfied that the message I want to say gets across. Once that’s done, then I optimize my post by editing a few things here and there. This is when SEOPressor comes into play. A real time saver and a great “coach” 🙂
Sandeep
Yup! agree with you on that
Ileane
DiTesco, I’m using SEOPressor too and I love it. It’s pretty simplistic and I got the idea after using it when I did a guest post on Andy Bailey’s CommentLuv blog. I haven’t seen my guest bloggers using it much though. I need to encourage them to take advantage of it. Thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Ileane. You never cease to amaze me on how you are so “on top” of things. SEOPressor is really a good “content professor” like @Andreas mentioned and it is a pity why your guest bloggers and mine do not use it more often. They only not benefit from it more, they get the chance to see it in action first hand 😉 Thanks for stopping by.
Andy Bailey
SEOpressor is very good and the more you use it, the less you will need to listen to it’s advice. There are a few things I’d like to change in it though so when I get a chance I might hack it to bits!
Now if there is someone who can do that, hack it to bits and then turning hat is already good to a turbocharged “SEO a la Cantonese”, it will definitely be a winner, haha. Pity I don’t have those skills, otherwise I would enjoy doing some “trial and errors”. Anyway, you are right, after a certain period of time one may start listening less to its advice, once you get the flow. I like the idea that its there, just in case 🙂
Since, I do most of my optimization myself and I do have a checklist (in my head) I can’t express my opinion about Seopressor, but I do think that machines are those which churn the results on search engines and machines (as in code) can help you out do them, right?
Hi Alex. Yeah, in a away I think that you can view it that way. Machines can probably out do machines, or the very least they probably understand each other better as they both speak the “same language” sort of speak, lol. See my response to @francis ……..
Francis
I think you made a good in on-site SEO.
With the SEOpressor software used on optimizing the content, does it mean the content is fully optimized or after that you will do the finishing touches again?
Please is there any way to know?
Hi Francis. The objective of SEOPressor is to help you fully optimize your content. As long as your score does not the 90% – 100% level, there is always more room for optimization. In my opinion however, you should not overdo anything and stick to what the plugin recommends you to do.
Here’s something cool! Google right now the term “optimize content” and see what you got. Let me know if this post is till there on the first page. Remember this was published only 2 days ago 🙂
tonyknuckles@113tidbits
I really liked using this tool on your site as a contributor. Helped me to walk through and see my results almost instantly. I just happened to have watched the video presentation on this a few weeks ago and liked what I saw.
My next available chance, i think i’ll spend the money on a permanent license as well.
Hi Tony. Glad to know that you liked the plugin and that you were able to test it first hand here while writing your post. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience about the tool and hope that should you ever decide to get one for yourself, know where you can find it, LOL
Eric Canja
Just had my last comment blasted into the cyber-verse! Hit a wrong button and lost it all… oh well!
This post is very timely. The SEOpressor plug in is something that I’ve been considering. After having checked your “optimize content”, I am all the more convinced that this is a good investment.
Online Opportunities
It’s very important to optimize your post for search engines and it really make a huge difference in google ranking, For that reason everyone should have a tool like this and if someone don’t want to pay for that there are several free tools like that on the internet.
Stjepan T
I think that SEOPressor good thing but only for beginners and those who do not understand SEO 🙂