Getting Started with Optimize
Optimize is our content optimization toolset, and it’s our most popular toolset. A great Positional Score in Optimize would be in the 80 to 95 range.
With Optimize, we’re trying to help you accomplish three things:
- Build content pages similar in structure to top-performing content.
- Hit or include longer-tail keywords within your content pieces.
- Identify and answer unanswered questions within your content to make that content more helpful for readers.
Note: We recently launched a Google Docs integration for Optimize.
To get started, enter the primary keyword in the top right-hand corner of Optimize, and choose the country that you want to optimize in:
Note: Your content must be in English, but you can choose a country other than the United States — for example, Australia.
Click on Build Content Report, and your Optimize report will start running:
As Optimize is building the report, it’s crawling and scraping the top-performing webpages for a given keyword. When it’s finished running, you’ll be presented with a few suggestions to get started:
The suggestions include the word count, the number of headers, and the number of images, as well as an analysis of the readability and sentiment of top-performing competitors.
You’ll also be presented with a list of longer-tail keywords to consider using within your content:
Optimize suggests a keyword only if it’s being used by at least two of the top-performing pages for the primary keyword you entered. The range on the right is the number of times that a given keyword appears on the top-performing pages. As long as you use the keyword the minimum number of times in the range, you’ll get the points for the keyword in Optimize. (But you do not need to use all of the suggested keywords.)
NLP Terms are keywords that have been extracted directly from the top-performing competitors. Related Terms are also keywords being used by top-performing competitors, but they tend to be a bit broader.
The toolset provides Unanswered Questions, too:
These Unanswered Questions can be generated both before you start creating a piece of content and after you’ve already started writing. Generating them before you start writing can help you during the outlining process. And reviewing Unanswered Questions after the fact can help you see which questions you’re answering and which ones you still might want to expand on:
As of this writing, Unanswered Questions do not impact the Optimize score.
The toolset provides SERP Headers, or the headers being used by the top SERP results:
SERP Headers do not impact the Optimize score and are meant to be used during the outlining or planning process.
Optimize bases its score on a number of variables. Word count and keyword usage are the two most significant factors. Headers, images, sentiment, and readability also affect the Optimize score, but to a lesser degree.
As you’re working in Optimize, you can save and return to your saved work using the History dropdown:
As of this writing, there is no auto-save feature, but you will be alerted to save if you try to leave without saving your work:
You also have the ability to toggle to a markdown view of your content:
In addition, there is a full WYSIWYG text editor that can be used during the drafting process:
If you’re ever working with freelance writers and you don’t want to invite them to your Positional team, you can create a shareable link to just one Optimize report, and they can work with it that way:
Optimize FAQs:
How many reports can I run?
As many as you’d like.
How long does it take for an Optimize report to finish loading?
It usually takes two to three minutes.
Do I need to wait for one report to finish loading before I run another?
No, you can run multiple reports simultaneously.
What is a great score?
Anything from 80 to 95 would be considered a fantastic score. You don’t need to try to get to 100, as that isn’t really possible.
Do I need to use all of these keyword suggestions?
Absolutely not. Do what is best for the reader. The scoring doesn’t require that you use all of the keyword recommendations.
Does pluralization matter when it comes to keyword suggestions?
We’ve gone back and forth on this. For certain keywords, optimizing for both variations may be valuable (for instance, “tool” and “tools”). But we imagine that Google is smart enough to figure it out even if you don’t check a box within Optimize.
How is readability calculated?
We are using Flesch–Kincaid readability tests.
What are the types of sentiment?
There are five different types of sentiment: Positive, Slightly Positive, Neutral, Slightly Negative, and Negative
Can I remove certain websites from being analyzed and thus influence the suggestions?
Not yet, but this is coming.
I didn’t get three websites after running Unanswered Questions. Why?
Occasionally, the toolset is blocked and may return fewer than three websites within Unanswered Questions.
Do you have integrations?
We recently released a Google Docs integration for Optimize and will soon launch integrations for WordPress and Webflow.