To optimize your entire site for search engines, use these basic SEO tips:
1. Pick a good keyword to focus on.
The first step is to simply select the search term or phrase for which you wish the post to appear. If I’m going to write about the greatest dog toys for little dogs, I’ll want to know what people are looking for.
The simplest method is to use Google Keyword Planner, a free tool that can provide you with an estimate for any search keyword. (Although Keyword Planner is free, you may need to create an AdWords account to access it.)
For example, I discovered that the phrase “little dog toys” generates 590 monthly searches, which is more than any other related combination of words. However, I’m not quite ready to begin writing on this subject. First, I must conduct some studies.
2. Research the competition.
Now that I’ve decided on a word for which I’d like to rank, I’m going to go undercover and conduct some research!
Go to Google.com in your web browser’s “private browsing” mode (“Incognito” in Chrome, “Private” in Safari and Firefox, and “InPrivate” in Internet Explorer). (We utilize “private mode” at my firm because we don’t want Google to use our previous search history to affect what we see on the search results page.)
Examine all of the material on Google’s page one, ignoring any ad results at the top. Your competitors are the top ten (or so) results! What are they overlooking? Can you outperform me?
3. Write the best content.
Now that you know who your competitors are, it’s time to develop content that will blow them out of the water. This is the most challenging aspect, but it is also the most vital. It has to be spectacular.
I don’t care if you’re writing a blog post, setting up an eCommerce store, or constructing a sales landing page. It must be superior to the competition, or neither Google nor your target audience will take notice.
Check out “How to Become a Millionaire: The Ultimate Guide” for an example of an article I recently published with this purpose in mind. My purpose with that piece was to create excellent content on the subject. How did I fare?
4. Put the keyword in your page title.
This should go without saying, but I’ll mention it anyway: Your page title should include your keyword, but it doesn’t have to be exact (though it can be). This is the most important SEO advice for ranking your website higher in search engines.
Furthermore, the headline must be intriguing enough that people will want to click on it! A wonderful example of this is PT from PTMoney.com, who produced a fantastic piece about “earning extra money.” Instead of a dull title like “Make Extra Money,” he titled it “52 Ways to Make Extra Money.” That’s something I’d be interested in reading.
5. Put the keyword in your header.
Most web pages can be organized by placing a huge title at the top, followed by multiple sub headers around the page (like the sub-headers in this post).
This organization is useful not only for readers reading blog post articles, but it is also useful for displaying Google exactly what your blog post is about. As a result, throughout your sub-headers, make sure to employ your exact keyword phrase at least once.
6. Put the keyword in the name and alt-tag of your image.
Next, if your blog post includes photos, you may use those images to help Google understand the content of your post. There are two approaches to this:
- The image’s title
- The alt tag for a picture
Simply rename the image on your computer before submitting it to modify the name. You can rename the file “2831274.jpg” to anything like “small dog toys 1.jpg” instead of “2831274.jpg.”
After you post the photo to your website, you can change the “alt tag.” Without getting too technical, the alt tag is just the text displayed by the web browser if the image cannot be loaded for some reason. Because search engines crawl images to determine how this image is related to it, these seo tips are critical for working on it.
7. Use the keyword in the URL and in the post.
The URL is another technique for Google to figure out what your blog article is about. In other words, we’re discussing what comes after the “.com” in your URL (or .net, .org, or whatever you use). For example, which of the following URLs do you believe Google will prefer when selecting whether or not to display a certain page?
If you guessed the second one, you are correct. While the former may not entirely destroy your SEO efforts, the latter clearly shows Google what the post is about.
8. Insert internal links.
Why should anyone care if you’re not talking about your finest content? As a result, it is critical that your greatest SEO material is linked internally by other pages on your website.
Yes, you may need to go back and amend some earlier postings to include links to the new, fantastic stuff.
9. The most-important SEO tip: Get external links.
Finally, we’ve arrived to the big one: external links.
External links are links to websites that are not your own. Google largely relies on external links to judge the quality of content. And doesn’t this make sense? You can talk all day about yourself and your abilities, but no one will believe you. However, when others start raving about you, others pay the note.
While great content will garner you some links, the truth is that you will need to conduct some “link building.” This entails contacting other website owners in the industry and asking for links. I’d like to recommend stridec.com for some excellent SEO advice.
The above nine-point checklist may not cover everything there is to know about SEO, but by merely following it, you will be leagues ahead of the competition and will most likely see major SEO traffic to your posts.
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.