A lot of bloggers complain about search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines are one of the primary sources of blog traffic. Writing “SEO-optimized content” isn’t just about using keywords in the text. The above statement is true, however it is not what SEO is about.
There are two common definitions of SEO: (1) the process of Optimising a blog for search engines like Google and Bing, and (2) demonstrating search engines like Google and Bing that your blog is a relevant resource for individuals who are looking for information about your subject/industry. In order to tell search engines that your website is relevant to diverse searches, you have to first learn how to convey your website’s relevancy to search queries. Once bloggers resort to using potentially harmful techniques, their websites might be damaged.
As long as SEO exists, there will always be fresh tips for bloggers. For novice bloggers, it is even more difficult to gain a grip on the type of material they should be producing to rank better in search engines. In the short term, popular techniques appear to be the solution. But in the long term, they become detrimental.
While Google’s search algorithm has gone through several revisions over the years, SEO recommended practises have stayed rather stable. Constant use of these principles and strategies will improve your self-confidence. No one wants to be the stressed out marketer who has to worry about whether or not Google will roll out Panda or Penguin to webmasters in the middle of the night.
Here are seven practical SEO strategies that business should begin using right away:
1. Write for Your Audience
When “SEO content” became a buzzword, we started to see some pretty big drops in the quality of writing from bloggers. They were starting to write specifically for search engines (robots) instead of people. Unfortunately, some bloggers still write this way today. But luckily it has gotten a lot better, especially after the Hummingbird update and the trend toward voice searches.
The Hummingbird update was created to help Google better understand the intent of searches. For instance, if you were to Google “places to get burgers,” Google would interpret that as meaning you’re looking for local restaurants.
This impacted SEO because search engines are catering toward answering questions and semantic search, rather than just being focused on keywords. Think about it. When you use Google, Bing, YouTube or even Siri, you’re usually looking for the answer to a question. Take that concept and apply it to your blog. Your content should be written in a way that answers your target audience’s specific questions. Your blog should not just be a place to rank for a specific keyword.
Here’s a real-life example. In our recent post on how to run a Twitter audit, we walked you through the step-by-step process of performing an audit. The audience the article caters to are people who want to learn how to audit their Twitter accounts, not people who are just interested in what a Twitter audit is. The content answers questions like “what’s included in a Twitter audit?” and “how can I improve my Twitter account?”
Shift your focus away from thinking about keywords, and more toward providing content that solves the problems of your target audience. You can use Quora, forums, social media and other resources to find out what your audience’s struggles are. Then provide the solution with your blog.
2: Relationship Building Is the Best Form of Link Building
One of the most powerful ranking criteria for search engines according to the Moz Analytics team is getting other websites to link to your content. Bloggers have experimented with many strategies, from pay-to-rank directories to purchasing links from low-quality blogs in order to amass as many links as possible.
The approach to acquiring backlinks in order to outwit search engines changed, and bloggers found themselves becoming more inventive with how they earned links from other websites. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but creating links doesn’t have magical powers. Relationships have withstood the test of time because they are the best plan for long-term growth. Most people use websites they trust as references.
The first step is to create a list of influential websites, organisations, and experts in your field. Next, come up with methods you may catch their attention, which will often include providing value to them. A good example of this would be to include authority in a blog roundup piece, or talk with websites that have a large social media following.
Your site will be more likely to be linked to when you start to build a relationship with your target market. While working together on future projects, you may have an audience larger than your current one, while also gaining a backlink or two. The material’s effect isn’t lost even if you don’t obtain a backlink. The first step to increasing the reach of your content is to simply encourage your influencers to start sharing it. Being able to connect with one prominent person can provide around a 31.8% increase in social shares.
3: Nail On-Page SEO Basics
The second most important ranking element from the Moz research previously stated was on-page optimization. Using on-page SEO is a lot more hands-on and allows for a greater level of control than using off-page SEO strategies like backlinks. Many aspects are involved in on-page SEO, yet it doesn’t require a lot of technical knowledge to get started. With just the bare essentials, you’ll be well ahead of the competition.
Search Engine Optimization-friendly URLs You should make it obvious using the URL of your website what the page is about. For the sake of argument, let’s assume you wrote a blog article on the worst ugly Christmas sweaters. It is a misnomer to say that “www.yoursite.com/p=382” is more effective than “www.yoursite.com/best-ugly-christmas-sweaters.” Use your target term in a URL that has between 2 and 5 words.
Pixwords: Meta title: A keyword or phrase in the meta title can assist search engines identify the main topic of a web page. It’s what appears on your browser’s start page, and it shows up in search results as well. Target keywords should be incorporated into your meta title, but don’t use words like “buzz,” “hype,” or “trend.” We adhere to a no-keyword-stuffing policy.
An H1 tag should be assigned to every page on your site. It is the page’s headline. Using WordPress, the article title will have the H1 tag automatically assigned to it. Despite this being a wonderful feature, occasionally some themes may take precedence and override it, so it’s always worth a second look.
You should utilise header tags like h2 and h3 as well as the H1 tag to clarify your content. To help readers and search engines navigate your material, use subheadings.
Images: Multimedia increases the aesthetic attractiveness of your content. One of the most crucial steps in optimising images is creating an alt tag. Alt tags provide search engine bots the content of a picture so that they don’t have to view the visuals. Every time you add an image, be sure your alt tags accurately reflect the images you’re uploading.
Unlinking inbound links To assist search engines better comprehend your material, include relevant connections to related content. Besides that, you may establish relationships with sites you connect to. On the other hand, your content could get shared with their readership.
Internal links: The better your content collection, the easier it will be to integrate it. Links to other posts inside your own articles are helpful to search engines since they improve the site topic’s meaning and keep readers on your site longer.
Usability: Many bloggers neglect the necessity of having a functioning site. Do all of your images function? Have you found any broken links? How rapidly does your content load? All of these different aspects have an impact on the overall user experience, which is essential for on-page SEO. Tip No. 6 will show you many useful tools for testing and correcting any possible usability issues on your site.
The following simple strategies can help your on-page SEO. To ensure that search engines can grasp the subject of your material, the objective is to make it easy for them. Relevance increases the likelihood of ranking well in search engines.
4: Get Familiar With Google Webmaster Tools
Have you ever had your teachers tell you that you’re doing anything wrong, but you knew you hadn’t done anything wrong since they gave you a warning? You had an opportunity to clean up your conduct, which may lead to being disciplined, and escape that punishment. In short, Google Webmaster Tools helps you with blog-related tasks.
If you suspect that something strange is going on with your blog, you will receive notification via Google Webmaster Tools, which will provide diagnostic tools, statistics, and more to maintain your site in good condition. You may see the results of your webmaster tools search on the Webmaster Tools Search Console.
- Of the pages on your website, how many are indexed by Google?
- your website may have technical difficulties.
- your website has been compromised, your site has been breached
- how your website appears on search engines
- an extensive list of hyperlinks to your website
- if your site has been manually punished by Google, it’s possible you have a fake backlink.
Although webmaster tools will show you the errors on your site, it will also show you how to correct them. To assist you keep your blog running well, there is a wealth of information and a forum to aid you. Setting up is a piece of cake. Go to www.google.com/webmasters for assistance. Google Analytics is already installed on your site, thus linking the accounts is a piece of cake.
Regularly check your Webmaster Tools to ensure everything is up and running.
5. Build Your Authority
As is often the case with algorithms, Google utilises algorithms to decide where websites rank in search results, but it also employs human editors to critically evaluate the websites that appear in those results. Google instructs manual reviewers to evaluate a site using the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines regardless of whether or not it’s a good or terrible measure. The novel was unpublished until recently.
There are almost 150 pages in the book, and there’s a lot of fantastic material included inside. One of the guide’s major conclusions was Google’s regard for authority. The acronym E-A-T, which translates to Expertise-Authority-Trustworthiness, appears many times throughout the text.
Your website material should demonstrate that you and/or others contributing to your blog have a certain level of competence with respect to the themes you cover.
The type of authoritative content is not limited to well-known authors. A resource that is useful on the topic would qualify as a piece of material that is the finest in its field. In other words, you might have written a detailed guide on how to instal a graphics card in a computer, and this would still be more authoritative material than a guide on a more popular website.
As you continue to produce excellent material and grow your online presence, your blog will begin to be shared around the Internet, which will further establish your authority.
6. Invest in SEO Tools
When it comes to SEO, you can utilise tools, but it’s more efficient to do it manually. While there are hundreds of SEO tools that can assist with various areas of optimization, I don’t personally use any. These will help you get started:
researching keyword opportunities One of the most crucial elements of SEO is keyword research. If you want to ensure you’re producing content on subjects your target audience is looking for, you must conduct keyword research before you create any content. To optimise the keyword research process, you may utilise these additional tools:
- Google Keyword Planner
- KeywordTool.io
Rank Tracking: Because of customised search results, keyword rankings no longer necessarily indicate where in the search results your content appears. However, rank monitoring tools can tell you roughly where your content appears for your target keywords. Selecting an option will provide the following possibilities:
- Advanced Web Ranking
- Searchmetrics
On-Page SEO: Manually trying to ensure that you hit everything on the on-page optimization list we mentioned earlier can be tedious. Luckily, these tools can handle the dirty work for you.
- Yoast (for WordPress users)
- Screaming Frog
Link Building: As we explained, one of the most important search engine ranking criteria is getting other websites to link to you. The only thing you should NOT utilise with these automatic link building tools is the programme itself. Instead, it will make it easier to identify fresh chances to generate authentic backlinks.
- Ahrefs
- BuzzStream
- Majestic
Content Creation: You must also write about issues that your target audience finds interesting. With these tools, coming up with fresh ideas for content is much easier.
- BuzzSumo
- Scoop.it
All-in-one Tools: Other SEO-related activities that this software may undertake include keyword research, keyword analysis, and backlink analysis.
- Moz Pro
- SEMrush
7. Create Linkable Assets
Linkable assets are pieces of material that are distinctive and really beneficial, making people want to connect to them. It’s like going to a great restaurant instead of an average one. You’ll do all in your power to recommend a great restaurant, but if someone asks whether you’ve been, you’ll just say it was “so-so.”
The Pro Blogger job board is a wonderful linkable asset. Freelance bloggers who are seeking compensated writing assignments will find this a valuable resource. Since this page is frequently referred to in blog articles about how to start making money as a blogger or as a freelancer, it may be said that it promotes the promotion of these other opportunities. Why? Because it’s uniquely precious and one-of-a-kind.
For your blog, here are some materials you may link to:
- A free tool or app
- Ultimate guide posts
- Mega lists
- Infographics
- Online guide
- Influencer round-ups
- Quizzes
- Case studies
- Industry research or surveys
Before you create your linkable asset, search the web for information that has high search engine rankings for your topic. To do this, you’re going to work on making it even better. The next step is to spread the word about your linkable asset. Here are five ways to start getting the word out about your new asset.
SEO Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated
If you applied these SEO strategies, then perhaps you have gained a fresh perspective on how to use search engines to get visitors for your blog. Even if you have no knowledge in programming or in search engine optimization, you can improve your site. Concentrate on producing great content (which has good on-page SEO) while building up your personal network.
Remember these SEO principles next time you’re creating a blog article. Changes may catch you off guard.
Need help with getting your business found online? Stridec is a top SEO agency in Singapore that can help you achieve your objectives with a structured and effective SEO programme that will get your more customers and sales. Contact us for a discussion now.