Advanced SEO Content Optimization with SE Ranking's Content Editor

Welcome, everyone. Today's lesson is on advanced content optimization using SE Ranking's enhanced Content Editor. I'm excited to guide you through the new features that can significantly improve your content creation and optimization workflow. Since the course launch, SE Ranking has introduced several powerful enhancements to the Content Editor. These features include upgraded brief settings, a built-in Plagiarism Checker, a new Content Score metric, seamless integration with Google Docs, version history check, content extraction from URLs, and a more powerful AI Writer. I encourage you to explore these new features, integrate them into your content creation workflow, and monitor how they improve your content's performance over time. To start optimizing an existing piece of content in SE Ranking, go to the Content Marketing tool using the left-hand side menu, then navigate to Content Editor. There, you’ll see a list of every content piece being worked on or already published.

By clicking on the ‘New Content’ button in the top right-hand corner, you will see a popup window that presents you with two options: Write new brief and article Optimize existing content Since we’re optimizing an existing article, let’s switch over to the second option. Here, we need to specify the existing article’s URL address and its primary keyword as well as specify the target location and language. We can either proceed to the next creation step or expand on additional settings. You can specify the article’s name since it is already published, indicate whether the article is intended to rank in desktop or mobile search, and add up to five competitors ranking outside the top 10 search results whose content you like and want to outrank. The tool analyzes the top 10 results for a target keyword by default. Click ‘Create’ when you’re finished. As you can see, our existing article’s full text and format are pulled directly into the tool, allowing us to start optimizing it.

Now, if you understand what works well in your niche or industry and you want to closely manage the optimization process, we encourage you to explore and adjust the content brief’s setup. Bear in mind, this is only relevant if you are an experienced SEO professional. So, click on the blue ‘Brief’ button in the top right-hand corner of the screen to access the detailed content brief. Here, you’ll see the list of the article’s competitors ranking among the top-10 search results, along with those added manually. Make sure to analyze the data in the table to determine whether the competitors are relevant to you. You can deactivate irrelevant competitors and use the Add more competitors from the SERP option below the table. Then we have Content parameters. This is where you need to ensure the length of your content is correct, calculated in words or characters, as well as set the number of headings, paragraphs and images to make the text more readable. After that, we have Terms to use. Go through the entire list,

analyze the table data in detail, and select the keywords you want to include in your article. Under Heading structure, you need to define the article’s outline. You can do this manually yourself, take heading ideas from competitors, or use the AI Writer to generate a comprehensive heading structure. Under Links, analyze the table data to ensure that your article includes all relevant internal and external links. This will help it pass link juice, gain more search engine authority and rank higher in search results. Under Questions, review the list of questions gathered from sources such as People Also Ask and Top-10 competitors. Ensure you are answering them in your content. This can help you rank for conversational and informational queries, among other things. Under Metadata, you can inform the copywriter who will optimize the article about the recommendations or requirements for filling in the metadata. And if you have any additional Notes, you’re welcome to leave them here for the copywriter.

Alright, back on the Content Editor page. Now, I want to draw your attention to the menu on the right. Here, we have several tabs to explore, including: Improvements Quality Outline AI Writer Let’s look at each one. The Improvements tab displays the article’s content score along with the average and maximum scores across the competition, helping you understand where your content stands and identify the improvements needed to outperform others. The new Content Score is a comprehensive metric that evaluates how well your content is likely to perform in search, looking at various factors like structure, media elements, and keyword optimization. Then we have the brief progress that lets you know if you need to expand the text by adding more words, headings, paragraphs, images, terms or links. Besides highlighting the missing paragraphs and headings in the article, you receive specific suggestions for keywords to include in the headings. You also get recommendations for

terms to sprinkle throughout the text, tips on text decorations to enhance appearance, and additional advice on images, overall text readability, and metadata usage. You can also review the optimization recommendations under the Brief Progress tab here. Under the Quality tab, content creators can ensure their content is free of grammatical or punctuation mistakes. They should verify that the text isn’t flooded with stop words, is unique as in not plagiarized, and is readable. The Outline tab allows copywriters to review the content’s heading structure, terms to use, links, questions, competitors, and notes. For example, if a heading is pulled from a competitor’s URL, copywriters can click through to that page to see what they wrote. Additionally, writers can copy text from a competitor’s web page and use our AI Rewriter to quickly add rival content ideas into their article with a unique twist. Think of it as a quick way to avoid writer’s block.

Old-school copywriters can use this method to create fully optimized articles that can rank well on search engines. However, there is one more tab we didn’t get to called AI Writer where content creators can generate different content depending on their needs. So, click on an area in the article to decide where you want to add the new text.Then click on the type of content you want to create, specify the details, and hit “Generate”. Alternatively, you can type “/” in a new paragraph to use the Ask AI feature to enter a custom prompt and get some AI-generated text. You can also use this feature to get the AI to edit existing paragraphs in your text based on a custom prompt. Besides optimizing the article yourself, you can share access to the text with a teammate, a freelancer, or a client. Plus, you can deactivate the link just by updating it. Next, it’s exporting. You can export your article in different formats to cover almost any need:

DOCX for Word, HTML for web browsers, Google Docs, you can also move the doc to the Google Docs add-on and work with the text in a familiar environment, or directly to WordPress using the API or WXR files. You can also export briefs as Excel or .TXT. It’s really simple and flexible. And to make it easier to keep track of changes made by multiple people, you can check to see the different article versions. Now, once you finish optimizing your existing article, republish it and keep track of its performance right inside SE Ranking. By clicking on a graph next to a published article with synced analytics data to SE Ranking, you’ll see a detailed chart containing the article’s number of impressions, clicks, CTR, and position. Plus, you can click ‘Add note’ right above the graph to add custom notes to your articles and easily track key metric changes after they've been published. Below, we can see an

example where FAQs were added on October 29th and new backlinks were added on November 7th. So to wrap things up, SE Ranking’s Content Editor provides powerful tools to refine and optimize your content for better rankings and audience engagement. With features like the Plagiarism Checker, Content Score, and Google Docs integration, you can create detailed, SEO-focused content that stays competitive. Use these advanced capabilities to streamline collaboration, enhance originality, and refine your optimization strategy—all while tracking performance in SE Ranking for continuous improvement.