Reading between the lines: 3 steps to improve the content of a web page

In SEO, reviewing content is a necessary step. To attract visitors to our page, we make sure that the hours and resources invested prove impactful and relevant over the long term. This sometimes requires going back over our work and reassessing our content to identify the parts that can be improved.

That said, if you are already doing content reviews, you know how challenging it can be: types of formats and topics, defining what “good” content is, or even identifying the key content elements to modify.

Fortunately, there are certain characteristics, such as good spelling and layout, relevant keywords…, that are commonly associated with what can be considered “relevant” content.

Through the following 3 steps, we aim to provide a framework that can be applied to almost all types of content.

Step 1: Know your audience

Knowing your audience of readers is certainly the most important step. It will allow you to identify the details that will prove to be the foundations of your content. You therefore need to get into the reader’s head to understand their intentions, the layout they will like, and the objective your content should focus on.

However, to get there, you must first answer these two questions:

What are the characteristics of my target audience?

This first includes general information: age, gender, degree, profession. The goal is to describe an ideal persona and determine what will suit them best. For example, if you are targeting stay-at-home mothers aged 35 to 40 who have at least 2 children under 5 years old, you can guess that they have a very busy schedule. As a result, a short article, easy to read between two tasks and with images between paragraphs to reduce eye strain, will be better received than a long article that requires a high degree of concentration.

Why are they reading my content?

Once you have put a “face” to your reader, the second question should help you understand what the reader is looking for by reading you, and whether the article they are reading actually meets their needs. For example, senior executives within mid-sized and large companies may want to be better informed before making an important decision, seek to deepen their expertise, understand the ins and outs of the choices available to them, or later pass on their knowledge in their field, to learn how to teach others. Other questions you might consider:

Are they reading for pleasure or for work?
Do they want to share your article on social media?
Where will they be most likely to read this? On the train? At home?
Are they comfortable with long blocks of text, or would images or diagrams be more appropriate?
Do they prefer reading snippets of information, or are they comfortable with long reports?

You can find the answers to these questions by collecting valuable data using both internal resources, for example through sales scenarios or surveys, and tools such as Google Analytics.

Step 2: Break down your content

Now that you know who your audience is, it is time to take action: evaluate your existing content. This step requires you to break apart your content to identify the components you need to keep, change, or discard. However, this can become very complicated because the performance of most components—the tone used, the layout, the continuity—cannot simply be labeled as “good” or “bad”. It is even likely that the parts to be improved lie somewhere in between. One of the most effective ways to evaluate and measure the degree of optimization is to use a simple, reusable, and easy-to-implement scoring chart that will help you examine the performance of your content.

Take a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns: Writing / Layout.

Then list the elements that are generally necessary to create good content and should be reviewed, and then assign each of them a score from 1 to 5, with 1 considered “poor” and 5 “excellent”.

For example, you list under “writing” and select a paragraph from your article: grammar, section headings, images… Then next to “grammar”: 1 point if your paragraph contains more than 4 spelling mistakes, 5 points if it contains none, and so on for the other categories you have identified.

Then repeat the process until all elements and paragraphs have been reviewed. Once you are done, go back over your notes and check your averages. Each element should obtain at least one point per category, that is 4 points if you have 4 categories. Remember to remain impartial in your assessment. A 5 must remain an exceptional score, for perfect work. A 3 or lower allows you to consider making significant changes.

Using this method, you can also use this scoring system to focus on a single element, for example “section headings” or “spelling” or “tone”.

Don’t forget keywords

The last element to check before publication is to properly prepare your keywords. You will immediately think that this should actually be the first thing to do. But you will agree that after reviewing your article, it is better to reassess your keywords.

Depending on the results of the reassessment of your target audience and the content evaluation grid, you may notice that your keywords:

1- Were not impacted by your assessment and therefore do not need to be modified,

2- Are no longer aligned with the objective of your page or the expectations of your audience and must be reconsidered.

In the second case, make sure to redo your keyword research in order to determine the terms to rank for.

Step 3: Evaluate your revisions

You should now be ready to edit your new content, while keeping in mind that content can be revised endlessly. The more you edit your content, the more it will move away from your initial strategy. And even if that is not necessarily a bad thing, you will need to continuously monitor these changes to make sure you are publishing high-performing content.

To do this, it is advisable to reassess your content as a whole before putting it online, by asking yourself a few simple questions:

Am I really targeting the needs of my audience?
Are my keywords correctly integrated?
Am I using the appropriate tone?
Is my information structured and prioritized?

If you answer yes to all these questions, then you can continue editing your content in order to publish it. On the other hand, if you have doubts about one of the questions, do not hesitate to go back over your content and make new corrections.

Conclusion:

Even though each piece of content is different, there are still common points between them. Once you have identified these similarities and therefore understand the role they play within your different channels and topics, this will allow you to create your own review process.

Finally, when you embark on a new project, you can keep in mind that: