Good content management means you pay attention to your articles after posting them. If you want to keep traffic coming into your website long-term, follow these content management best practices below.
They are actionable and practical tips that will tell Google and other search engines that you are serious about your website or blog. A good SEO content editor, like Content Polish, will implement these practices on your website so that you can focus your time in other places.
What are some content management best practices?
- Track your rankings closely
- Look for long-tail keyword opportunities
- Edit your SEO title to increase your search engine clicks
- Make sure that your article continues to match the search intent
What is Content Management?
Content management are tasks you perform after your content is posted on your website. After you develop a good topic, perform keyword research, write your article, edit it, and post it, content management is everything that comes next.
Good content management will ensure that your posts rank on search engines long term so that you continue to see traffic growth on your website.
After publishing over 2,000 articles in different niches and websites on the internet, there are four main content management best practices that I’ve learned.
Track Your Rankings Closely
Google Search Console and Google Analytics are two free SEO tools that are highly underrated. They allow you to track the trend of visitors to your website, helping you understand where they came from and what they want.
After you post some content, track your rankings closely using these tools. You will be able to see what search queries you are getting clicks from and what the search positions of your keywords are on Google. You can also use this free local rank tracker as an alternative.
Understanding your ranking changes will allow you to react quickly, which Google loves.
If you respond fast, then Google will respond equally quickly to reflect your changes. If you update your article to match changing search intent, Google will reward you with top placement.
Look for Long-Tail Keyword Opportunities
Content creation means going after a specific focus keyword or two. You will spend a lot of time writing your article to focus on this keyword.
When you post your content, everything changes.
Over time, Google will rank you for your main keyword and hundreds of other long-tail variations. And sometimes, these variations can lead to more traffic than your original keyword does.
Good content management best practices mean you must look for these opportunities and jump when the time is right. Using Google Search Console, review your pages ranking for hundreds of keywords and note any words getting high search impressions. At the very least, make sure that this exact phrase is inserted into your article somewhere.
Edit Your SEO Title
Your article title and SEO title are two different things that have different requirements. Your article title can be as many words as you need it to be, so feel free to put extra buzzwords and information into it.
On the other hand, SEO titles need to follow a strict pattern. They must be less than 60 characters and 580 pixels to fit nicely on the search engine screen. Your SEO title must be concise and clear in stating the search intent of your article.
Your SEO title should:
- Clearly explain what your article is about by showing your focus keyword
- Satisfy search intent by saying what kind of article it is (e.g., List, how-to guide, or tutorial)
- Say why your article is better than otherwise similar ones on the internet (value proposition)
- State who the article is for (audience)
An example of a google search title is: 17 Reasons Dogs Are Better Than Cats [Guide].
Make Sure Your Article Continues to Match Search Intent
You must google search your focus keyword before you begin writing your article. If you plan to write a list post and your search keyword is filled with products, brands, and store pages, it will take a lot of work to rank your article.
After you publish your post, the same thing is true.
Over time, the search intent of keywords can change, and search engines will increase and decrease the rankings of pages to match the new search intent.
For example, let’s say you have an article targeting the keyword “dog toys,” and your article lists the best dog toys you can buy. Over time, people searching for “dog toys” don’t want a list of the best anymore but want to go straight to the shop pages for popular brands on the internet.
Search engines will recognize this, rank store pages higher, and de-rank best-of lists.
You want to track your content and update search intent for something else you can rank for. Perhaps a long-tail variation such as “Underrated dog toys” will be a keyword with many lists instead.
Conclusion
The guide above explains four content management best practices, but this is only the beginning. You can perform hundreds of checks and balances on your website to rank better and get more traffic.
A good content editor will be able to identify trends and go back to update your content. This shows Google and other search engines that you are serious about keeping your website up to date. Over time, this will get you better rankings.
Too many websites ignore their content after it is live on the internet. This is not the right approach if you want long-term traffic.