Help your users find the content they need when they need it!
- Robin Japar
- May 31, 2022
- 2 min read
JD Power reports that one of the top issues users have with enterprise digital experiences is navigation and way finding. Simply put, users cannot find the content they need when they need it. Wait! How can that be? Our marketing and UX teams create some great content, right? It is because we do not structure and organize our content in such a way that optimizes search and recommendation engines, so they can understand the content and deliver recommendations in context.
Why do users feel they can’t find relevant content?
Search engines use algorithms to identify the patterns in not only what users are searching for, but also how they are searching for it. Search engines utilize crawlers that find, qualify, and rank content in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Optimizing your content for SEO not only increases the chance to be discovered by qualified traffic (users with intent), it also aids machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) by identifying and learning content relevance and the inter-dependencies between content elements. Because the relationship between the pieces of content is understood, it gives recommendations the ability to serve relevant content to customers.
Recommendation engines rely on machine algorithms that search, map, and provide users with relevant content. They are self-learning and self-optimizing, utilizing AI to break personalization out of the rules-based engines automating the delivery of user experiences at the one-to-one level. Much like in SEO, recommendation relies on both keywords to describe the content, and hyperlinks to understand the relationships between the content elements in order to determine the best content match for the user. Recommendation works by using hybrid methods of collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Because the relationship between the pieces of content is understood, recommendations gain the ability to serve relevant baseline experiences to customers. If we don't optimize the way we organize and manage our content, then we weaken the value of our recommendation system significantly.
How to optimize your content
Navigation
You want users to articulate exactly what your site offers simply by looking at the navigation menu. Don’t hide relevant content topics under categories such as “shop” or “services”. Display them proudly in your navigation.
Leverage topic clusters to structure your site navigation and architecture.
Your navigation menu should use keywords! Each navigation link should be a relevant keyword phrase that leads to the content for that topic or solution. Each overarching subject (generally focused around a broad keyword with high search volume).
Relational sub-topics, focus on more specific keywords with smaller (attainable) search volumes.
Sub-topics should anchor back to the overarching topic content using both inbound and internal links.
Overall better user experience aids ML and AI in identifying and learning content relevance and the inter-dependencies between content.
Title
The content within your HTML <title> tag is one of the primary indicators that search engines use to determine the subject of the page. By putting the target keyword(s) within the page's <title> tag, you are telling the search engines that this page is relevant to the target keyword(s). Pages have a much higher likelihood of ranking for a keyword if the keyword is found in the page title.
The page title is the text found within the HTML <title> tag. Typically, the HTML <title> tag can be found near the top of the HTML page in the subsequent lines following the HTML <head> tag.
All pages must have a title
There should only be one <title> tag per page.
You should use your targeted keywords at the beginning of the page title, the earlier the better
Character count before truncation: +60
Heading tags
The content within your HTML <h1> tag is one of the primary indicators that search engines use to determine the subject of the page. Although it is generally agreed within the SEO community that optimizing a <h1> tag does not have as much value as optimizing the <title> or URL, it is still an important factor that can be easily optimized.
Your header tags provide structure and context for your page. Each header should give the reader an idea of the information they can glean from the paragraph text that follows below. <h1-h6> page headings are generally found within the HTML <body> tags.
A helpful way to think of header tags is by comparing them to a table of contents for a book:
Your H1 introduces the topic of your page, just as a title tells a reader what a book is all about.
The H2s are akin to book chapters, describing the main topics you’ll cover in sections of the page.
Subsequent headers, H3s to H6s, serve as additional sub-topics within each section, just as a book chapter may be split up by multiple sub-topics.
Use at least one targeted keyword in any given h tag.
Character count before truncation: +150
Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are types of meta tags in the HTML source code of a webpage. They describe the content of a website shortly and concisely; therefore, important indicators of a website's content to search engines. Although keywords no longer impact Google SEO ranking, they are still used for:
Indexing: Search engines crawl a website and store a copy of the entire content in their databases. This includes any meta data. Meta keywords are definitely indexed by Google and Co, but they are not necessarily used for the search results hierarchy.
Information retrieval: Matching documents are found for each search phrase. Google mainly uses the content which is listed in the body of a website. The meta keywords aren’t important to the extraction of information; however, Bing and Yahoo use meta keywords to match the content of a website to search queries.
Ranking: All documents matching a search query are placed into a certain order. Algorithms differ from search engine to search engine. If no content can be found that match a search query, meta keywords are used as a ranking signal. Your meta keywords are found within the HTML <head> tag.
Written in lower case, and separated with a comma
Leveraged in page title
Leveraged in page headings
As a general rule, ≤ 10 meta keywords should be used per page. Less is more.
The main keyword for a webpage should be the focus. Although synonyms and long-tail keywords can be listed, it would be more advisable to use these in text visible to users and concentrate on the content. Avoid using keywords that are considered spam, such as “credit”, “download”, "reward", etc.
Meta Description
Meta description is commonly used by search engines on SERPs to display content preview snippets for a given page. A compelling description will help give users a clear idea of your page's content and encourage visitors to click on your page. Although it is generally agreed within the SEO community that optimizing the meta description tag does not have as much value as optimizing the <title> or URL, it is still a potential factor that can be easily optimized.
Your meta description is found within the HTML <head> tag. Meta descriptions, when used correctly, provide concise explanations of the contents of the web page.
Meta description should include targeted keywords
Character count before truncation: +150
Alt text
The content within the alt text for images is one of the indicators that search engines use to determine the subject of the page. Although it is generally agreed within the SEO community that optimizing an alt text does not have as much value as optimizing the <title> or URL, it is still a meaningful optimization.
<img> tags are typically placed within the body of your HTML in order to display images for the page. The alt attribute may or may not be used within the <img> tag on your page. If alt="[some text]" does not appear within your <img> tags, you should add them to your <img> tags.
Include at least one targeted keyword in the alt text for images
Character count before truncation: +125
Schema markup
Schema aids in ML’s ability to detect and understand the inter-dependencies between pieces of content. It identifies content elements and data entities, defining the relationships between those entities. Adding schema empowers search engines to crawl better and recommendations engines to search, map, and provide users with relevant content.
Use schema markup for:
Creative works, such as books, movies, music recordings, recipes, TV series
Embedded non-text objects, such as audio objects, image objects, video objects
Events, such as concerts, lectures, festivals, theatrical performances
Internal links
Search engines have refined the way they view links, using algorithms to evaluate sites and pages based on the links they find.
HTML hyperlinks that connect internal pages of the same domain to show relevance and relationship between the pages.
Use relative, natural anchor text
Should use linking only in context; relevance is key
Inbound links (AKA backlinks, external links) and
Links on the Internet form a relationship between pages and sites that are hugely important to search engines that use links to:
Crawl the web
Discover new pages, and calculate the popularity of those pages
Determine the relevancy of the search results
Give your content authority
<href> tags are found in the body of your HTML in order to display your content as a clickable hyperlink
E-A-T — an acronym for expert, authoritative, and trustworthy
Links should send qualified traffic to the page
Links should come from and send to quality sites
Page size
Smaller pages take up less space, which makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your page. Pages with large sizes take a longer time to download especially for users who use basic computer systems or do not have advanced internet connection speed. Pages that are large in size may affect download time and create an undesirable user experience. A smaller page size helps to create a friendly environment for search engine crawlers and improve page performance.
Reduce the page size to no more than 500 KB
Use CSS page layouts instead of table-based layouts
Put CSS and javascript into external files
Remove unnecessary tags
Use special effects sparingly and only when necessary
Keep the JSON files clean of stale or expired content/meta-content
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