Content is king, especially when it comes to ranking high on search engines. We’re in the era where digital marketing spans across MANY platforms. This means that content marketing and search engine optimization, including AI-driven search engines, cannot be overstated.

For brands, this serves as a potent strategy for bolstering their visibility and relevance in the digital landscape. 

The variety of platforms like search engines, social media, and voice search demands brands to customize their content for each one. 

But why put in the effort? 

Because this is how your brand will connect with a broader audience and engage with potential customers (aka…bring in more $$$).

In this blog, we’ll go over real ways your brand can optimize its content marketing for all search engines plus a quick n’ dirty checklist to follow! Let’s get this party started. 

SEO in the AI Era

✨Quick Definition: SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and its function is exactly that – making your website optimized for search engines so that when someone searches or asks a question, your site pops up, without paying for promoting it. The higher your website ranks in search results, the more likely potential customers will find you. 

Now, AI has changed how search engines analyze, interpret, and rank content. This led to significant changes in SEO strategies and practices like…

• Enhanced Search Algorithms: AI-powered algorithms are now capable of understanding user intent, context, and semantics more effectively than ever before. This has led to more accurate and relevant search results
• Voice Search Optimization: Tech like Siri and Alexa use SEO to optimize content for voice queries. This influences how websites are ranked for voice searches based on conversational and natural language patterns.
• Personalization: AI allows search engines to personalize search results based on user behavior, preferences, and location.
• Predictive Analysis: AI algorithms can predict trends and patterns in search behavior, allowing marketers to anticipate changes in search trends and adjust their SEO strategies.

 Now how do you exactly “optimize” your content? 

Step 1: Keyword Research

Do you even know your audience? 

Do you know what they search for, and what keywords they use? 

Only one way to find out: research and identify relevant keywords that resonate with user search intent. 

To find their intent, you must first know what their pain points are. This will help you understand their struggles and position your product or service as the solution through keywords.

This will help narrow down the best keywords to use in your content. 

There are plenty of ways to do keyword research and strategy, but the best is by using a keyword search program or working with a qualified agency that specializes in SEO. 

This will allow you to type in different keywords you believe are best and see related ones that you might also want to use. 

You can research what are the most popular searches for your industry, or brainstorm with your team what you think people would search for that would lead them to your site.

Step 2: Content Relevance

Now it’s time to tailor content to match keywords, all while maintaining contextual relevance. 

✨Quick Definition: Content relevance refers to the alignment of the content with the user’s search intent and the platform’s context, ensuring that the content is valuable, useful, and contextually appropriate across various digital environments (source).

This involves creating content that not only incorporates relevant keywords for search engines but also takes into account the specific requirements of different platforms, such as social media, mobile devices, or voice search.

If you’re not formatting your content properly for each platform, even the best ideas can fall flat. 

When optimizing content for social media platforms, it’s important to tailor the content to match the platform’s features and audience preferences. 

Are you using platform-specific language, imagery, or multimedia formats to effectively engage with your audience? (And yes, it’s way more than the sizing – we’re giving you our tips for optimizing each post type creatively!)

This is the kind of thing that works behind the scenes to make sure your content gets seen, clicked, and remembered.

Step 3: Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (Including AI)

To optimize content effectively for all search engines, it’s important to understand both traditional engines like Google,  as well as AI-driven platforms such as Google AI. 

By catering to diverse search algorithms and user behaviors across these platforms, brands can enhance their visibility and reach a wider audience.

Here’s what this looks like: 

• Check for Content Relevance: (As broken down already) Make sure to tailor your content to match the user intent and context for traditional search engines.
• Formatting and Markup: Use structured data and schema markup to enhance how content is displayed in search engine results. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a webpage’s content to search engines. Schema markup is a type of structured data vocabulary that can be added to HTML code to help search engines understand the context of the content. By implementing these,  you can provide search engines with detailed information about your content, such as product details, reviews, events, and more, which can lead to rich snippets and enhanced search results display.
• Mobile Optimization: Prioritizing mobile-friendly content to align with the increasing mobile usage trend across all search engines, including AI-powered ones. This includes touch-friendly navigations, readable text, fast loading speed, and responsive design.
• Voice Search Optimization: Integrating conversational language to address the growing influence of voice-based searches, which is particularly significant for AI-driven search engines. 

🎂Quick Hack:  You could use ChatGPT to help provide additional information, examples, or best practices when it comes to SEO for search engines and AI-driven platforms. Remember: the trick to leveraging ChatGPT authentically, creatively, and with originality is context. It’s not just about what you ask it – it’s about how you ask it. 

Your Go-To Content Optimization Checklist:

If you want to woo your audience across all platforms, optimizing your content is key. It’s a must for standing out in the crowd! Content marketing and search engine optimization strategy is so important to know that your content reaches its target audience effectively.

We got you a handy dandy checklist to guide you through optimizing your content. 

As promised, your checklist is below! 

🪩The Checklist:

• Define your audience’s pain points and needs so you can position your business as the perfect solution.

• Conduct thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords and phrases that align with your content topics and target audience.

• Content that is valuable, informative, and engaging for your target audience.

• Images and videos are high quality and relevant to your target audience.

• Images and videos are tailored to each platform’s specifications. (Language, imagery, and format.

• The content relates to the keywords chosen. 

• Use structured data and schema markup to give search engines the lowdown on your content.

• The text is legible.

• Check for design flaws.

• Check for navigation issues.

• Content uses conversational language to be used with voice-based searches.

• Used structured data and schema markup to enhance and test how content is displayed in search engine results.