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SEO for Content Products

Making content findable by search engines, which overlaps almost entirely with making it good for people.

Definition

Search optimisation for content products is largely a matter of clear structure, honest metadata, fast pages and stable URLs. The techniques that conflict with user experience are also the ones search engines penalise.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

On this page
  1. Definition
  2. What matters, in rough order
  3. Sources
  4. Continue from here

What matters, in rough order

  1. 1.Content that answers the question someone actually typed.
  2. 2.Correct heading structure, which serves both screen readers and crawlers.
  3. 3.Stable, readable URLs. Changing them without redirects is the most common self-inflicted traffic loss.
  4. 4.Unique title and meta description per page, describing the specific content.
  5. 5.Fast loading and stable layout, since Core Web Vitals are a ranking input.
  6. 6.Internal linking between related content, which distributes authority and helps readers.
  7. 7.Structured data where a recognised schema applies, such as articles, FAQs and breadcrumbs.
  8. 8.Canonical URLs where the same content is reachable by several paths.

Sources

Where a source establishes something narrower than the popular reading of it, the note says so.

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Often used with

These usually appear in the same screen or the same decision.

Practical example

A worked decision where this was the deciding factor.

Check your work

Review passes that test whether this was done properly.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.