Optimization has become somewhat of a buzzword in the inbound marketing industry, and 
everyone claims that their particular strategies can increase your lead generation and drive more traffic to your site. However, what does it truly mean to “optimize” your content? To answer this question, we have to start with the basics of web content.
Effective web content seeks to attract three different audiences:
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Prospective Customers
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Current Customers
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Search Engines
The first two types of audiences are attracted through a combination of interesting and insightful copy, a conversational tone and a touch of brand personality. In other words, your content must be exciting enough to hook readers in from the very start, and informative enough that they will trust your competency in your field. The third audience, however, is not human. Although optimizing your content for search engines is important, creating content for your human audiences is always top priority. However, the best web content copywriter can seamlessly blend both types of optimization together.
Optimizing Content for Current and Prospective Customers
Copywriting has changed quite a bit over the last fifty years. In the golden age of advertising, copy used simple commands and hard sells to attract new customers. In the digital age, however, you must take a different approach. Because we are bombarded by hundreds of messages each and every day, companies must be especially innovative to truly stand out from their competitors. Additionally, today’s consumers like to be involved in the process – to feel as if they are interacting with the brand. Because information and reviews are readily available, consumers can do research on products and services before making their decision.
In other words, telling someone to buy your product or use your service is not longer an effective means of converting potential customers into loyal clients. Your web content – from your blogs and homepage text to your product descriptions – must be expertly written with a clear, definitive and personable voice. It must provide customers the information they’re seeking without overwhelming them, and only an experienced and knowledgeable web content copywriter can achieve this feat.
Optimizing Content for Search Engines
Additionally, in the early days of search engines, people were able to drive their site to the top of results by using some pretty questionable tactics. For example, some companies discovered that if they stuffed one specific highly-searched keyword phrase into their content dozens of 
times, they’d come up faster in results. Because search engines like links, people also stuffed their content full of hyperlinked text. Over time, however, search engines became savvy to their ways and changed their algorithms. Instead of keyword and link heavy text, search engines began crawling for organic links and social shares.
In other words, today’s best search engine optimization tactics are not that much different than the tactics used to interest current and potential customers. The content must be interesting enough that people will be willing to share it across social media platforms (thereby earning you more links) – and it should also use various types of media. For example, while text is extremely important, so are videos, images, infographics and other unique ways of sharing information.
Choosing a Web Content Copywriter
Knowing what makes quality content is important because it allows you to tell the difference between what your company needs and what you should avoid. However, it’s even more important to have expert web content developers who also understand these differences. In other words, be sure to hire work from firms, agencies and freelance organizations that utilize only the most experienced and educated writers in the field, and avoid cheap content mills. Content optimized well will help you reach your traffic and sales objectives, but poorly optimized content will surely get you kicked out of search engine results and eventually muted to all three of your audiences.
