Simple SEO Tips Anyone Can Use

Content marketing is a lot of work. Scratch that – mediocre content marketing is a lot of work. Great content marketing? That’s on another level.

And while there are plenty of bloggers, marketers, and independent consultants pounding the content marketing drum with Bonham-like fervor (guilty as charged), the truth is that most companies – especially those at the startup or expansion stage – simply don’t have the time or resources to execute a full-fledged content marketing attack.

Sure, smaller businesses with a two- or three-person marketing team might be able to maintain a corporate blog, publish a case study or two, and produce a few short videos. But then there’s the editing, SEO, and repurposing madness that content marketing experts like Top Rank’s Lee Odden suggest should accompany that content.

Generating that volume of content is a sizeable challenge for any company, let alone startups or expansion stage businesses. Freelancers can be a great help, but not every company is willing to shell out the fees for their services. And even if they are, quality freelancers can be difficult to find.

So where does that leave a lot of content marketing strategies?

Quite simply, it means a lot of companies get by with ragtag content marketing operations led by a handful of overworked people doing the best they can. And that’s fine. In fact, it’s better than fine. After all, you have to start somewhere and even a small content initiative can help spark long-term growth, which will inevitably fuel an improved and more substantial online marketing strategy in the future.

But for now, it’s hard to expect marketers who are already up to their ears (without a content strategy) to take the time to tirelessly optimize and backlink every post on their site. It’s just not realistic.

That being said, some SEO is better than none. And while backlinks are the hot currency of the day (see what I did there?), there are still plenty of simple on-page SEO tips that won’t burden even the busiest content marketers too much.

Here are four easy ones to focus on:

1. Place keywords at the front of the title.

A simple SEO tip if ever there was one. Whichever keyword or phrase you are targeting, try to place it as close to the beginning of the title as possible. In general, the closer the phrase is to the front, the more keyword value search engines like Google will associate with that page. And that’s not just my opinion. SEOmoz performed research to prove it.

Don’t get carried away, though. It’s important that your titles make sense and entice clicks (remember, we’re still writing for people here). One easy trick to is to use the old “category – colon” method. For example, if I were targeting the phrase “content marketing strategies,” a decent title might be: “Content Marketing Strategies: Three Tips for Better Traffic.”

2. Keep your titles short and snappy.

Google starts to truncate your titles at 70 characters, making it less likely that someone will click on your link if you go over the limit. SEO aside, this is a good general rule of measurement for title writing. If you’re over 70 characters, it’s probably too long. So if you want better clicks, think about tightening them up.

3. Include key phrases early and often.

Similar to my first tip, if you include your target phrase at the front of a title, it makes sense to include it at the top of the article as well. Even if you’re too busy to worry about things like “keyword density,” placing keywords in the first paragraph is a simple best practice for telling search engines what your page is really about.

4. Get granular.

Broad keywords have a lot of competition for ranking in search. More specific keywords don’t. It’s really that simple. When choosing your target, try to identify the phrase that is the most specific to the content on the page.

Tools like Google AdWords are great for offering keyword suggestions, while also displaying the competition you can expect to face for each one. But even if you’re too busy for that, plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast offer great long tail keyword suggestions straight from WordPress.

Of course, great SEO is more advanced than those four tips.

But this post wasn’t written for SEO experts and gurus. It’s for all of those overworked content marketers out there doing their best with minimal time and resources. We’ve all been there. So, give those four SEO tactics a try. They’re easy enough for everyone to execute – even if you think you don’t have the time.

Have any other suggestions? What are your favorite simple SEO tips?

You can find more information on content marketing and editorial practices at the OpenView Labs website. You can also follow Brendan on Twitter @BrenCournoyer and find more from the OpenView team @OpenViewVenture.