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Investing in high-quality content is one of the best ways to draw your target audience’s attention to your brand and the solutions you offer. But no matter how hard you work to produce and distribute, you won’t achieve much unless you make it unique, exciting, and, most importantly, engaging.

One way to keep blog visitors engaged is to focus on readability. Now, if you’re not convinced that the relatively easy hack works, consider these facts:

1. The typical person’s reading level is lower than you think. According to research on literacy rates in America, only 2% of US adults read well enough to comprehend information presented in an advanced format. And the average American reads at the 7th to 8th-grade level.
2. A conversion rate benchmark report looking at landing page performance in 2021 discovered that SaaS pages with better readability scores saw higher conversion rates. According to this report, a reading ease score of 60 or above rapidly boosts conversions, causing them to jump from just under 4% to a much more impressive 8%.
3. Most businesses nowadays cater to international audiences. This means that some of your blog visitors might not be native speakers. So, try your best to produce blog content that won’t alienate, confuse, or frustrate them as they attempt to find information relevant to their needs.
4. Finally, don’t forget that even native speakers don’t like to read blog content word-for-word. Instead, they prefer to scan articles, using visual and textual cues to zoom in on relevant information. With this in mind, your blog content needs to be scannable, which you’re far more likely to achieve if you boost its readability score.

So, if you’re ready to do what it takes to keep blog visitors engaged, here’s how you can do it by boosting content readability.

Get the Basics Right

Design plays a significant part in helping your content engage readers.

But even though color, fonts, and images can turn a boring old blog post into an exciting resource on an interesting topic, do your best to get the basics right. By making a few changes you can implement directly in your content management system, you can effectively boost content readability, making it easier for web visitors to interact with it.

So, what are the basics of writing highly-readable text-based content?

Font Choice, Size, & Color

The easiest way to ensure your website visitors don’t have difficulties trying to read your articles is to choose the correct font.

Now, you already know (hopefully) that you should stay away from complex and immature typefaces (like the infamous Comic Sans). But did you know that some fonts are more suitable when aiming to boost readability than others?

Generally, when aiming for accessibility — which is the precursor for readability — you should use simple fonts like Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Georgia, Lucida Sans, or Helvetica. Times New Roman and Trebuchet MS are also acceptable to use. However, they may be slightly less legible for some users.

Once you’ve chosen the correct font, it’s time to deal with size. Generally, you should use an effective size of 16px or more.

And don’t forget about letter colors. Generally, aim to go with simple colorways that provide sufficient contrast between the text and the background. Black letters on a white background are ideal. However, if you want to mix things up a bit, use a contrast checker to achieve the recommended ratio.

Sentence & Paragraph Length

The second best way to boost readability when writing plain text is to pay attention to sentence and paragraph length.

To keep your blog posts accessible and engaging, try to aim for sentences that are shorter than 25 words. Moreover, keep the length of your paragraphs between 100 and 200 words or no more than five sentences.

Paragraph Breaks

Another easy hack you can employ to boost content readability is to use paragraph breaks.

This helps visually separate paragraphs (every one of which should cover one thought/idea). Plus, it allows you to employ the benefits of white space in text-only posts. That will help make the posts more visually pleasing and minimize the chances of readers becoming distracted or lost in a massive block of text.

Formatting

Lastly, as you attempt to cover the basics of content readability, don’t forget to use formatting to your advantage.

Something as simple as using bold letters to highlight important words or separating ideas with bullet points can make it far easier for blog visitors to consume the content, increasing their chances of remaining engaged with the text.

For an even more positive readability boost, do your best to use subheadings and format them in a way that makes them stand out. By making them visually prominent, you’ll encourage readers to use an efficient and engaging scanning pattern. Naturally, this will boost their chances of finding the information they need more quickly.

Company Blog Doing It Right: UnscrambleX

If you check out the Scrabble Word Finder page on UnscrambleX, you’ll see that it’s a text-only 1,400-word post without any images.

However, thanks to adhering to the basic rules of readability, it achieves a 78 readability score (equivalent to a 5th-grade reading level), making it a super-accessible piece of content guaranteed to keep readers engaged, regardless of their educational background or native language.

Note how the post checks all the boxes regarding font choice, size, and color, as well as how well it organizes the content into small, easily-consumed chunks that are further made accessible with the correct formatting techniques and the use of appropriate heading styles.

Source: Unscramblex.com

Use a Lot of Meaningful Imagery

Using images is a great way to boost content readability.

And that’s not just because images break up blocks of text into easily consumed chunks. More importantly, the human brain is more effective at processing visuals than words. Plus, images can boost comprehension (especially for non-native speakers) by repeating information in a new medium unlimited by language or education-related barriers. Add to this that internet users prefer beautifully-designed content over plain and simple blog posts, and it becomes evident that using imagery on your website blog is a must-do for keeping visitors engaged.

Of course, if you decide to enrich your blog posts with imagery, you have to make sure it’s meaningful.

Stay away from stock photography and choose to employ relevant visuals that will contribute to the text of your blog posts. These can be diagrams, graphs, product photos, illustrations — anything that conveys meaning to the reader and aids their understanding of the topic.

Company Blog Doing It Right: Easil

If you’re looking for an excellent example of a company blog employing visuals in a meaningful way, look no further than Easil.

Instead of writing about 2023’s Pantone color of the year in a monotonous way, this brand chose to make text and visuals work together to deliver unique value to the readers (which, naturally, results in a higher engagement rate).

Note how the blog is peppered with references to social media posts, instructions on how to use the color in question, and even a few examples of color choices that work with the hue discussed. These are all simple visuals. But thanks to being meaningful and relevant in this particular context, they work splendidly to encourage readers to pay attention throughout the entire article.

Source: easil.com

Answer Questions Early

When writing for your target audience, you have to remember one key thing: people are becoming increasingly impatient these days.

Studies have shown time and again the way a long website load speed negatively impacts performance due to people’s tendency to abandon websites that are slow to respond. But have you ever considered that the way you structure written content could help you improve engagement rates on your company blog?

If you’re looking to boost content readability, one excellent strategy you could employ is to give your readers the answers they came for early in the article.

Optimize your introductory paragraph with a great hook, as well as an overview of what they can expect to learn by reading through the whole page.

Additionally, see if you can further engage readers with a clickable table of contents. That way, you can make your content valuable to a larger audience or even allow it to be engaging to people populating different stages of the buyer’s journey.

Company Blog Doing It Right: Eachnight

If you take a quick glance at the best queen-size mattresses guide on Eachnight, you’ll immediately notice how the brand aims to engage readers from the very start of the article.

Instead of wasting the reader’s time with a history of mattresses or a guide to mattress sizes (knowing that those topics are not what web visitors came to the blog to read about), the writer gets straight to the point. They outline the sections readers can expect to find in the guide. Plus, they employ the power of visual design with a highly-visible “Best Queen Size Mattress” highlight that summarizes the four products readers are most likely to end up wanting to buy after getting through the entire guide.

Source: eachnight.com

Embrace Interactivity

In some cases, boosting content readability and relevance doesn’t have to require simplification.

In fact, by developing a slightly more advanced way for your content to work, you can present your web visitors with highly-personalized content. This will boost their engagement, user experience, and satisfaction.

Plus, this particular strategy could help you generate more leads, which is one of the main goals marketers go after when producing and publishing content in the first place.

The solution we’re referring to is interactivity.

Statistical data shows that interactive content performs exceptionally well when compared to its static counterparts. It:

• helps brands stand out
• aids message retention
• maximizes user engagement
• gives web users access to information they want to consume

And best of all, it doesn’t have to involve a complicated production process. Something as simple as a 3-question quiz can help web visitors navigate to a piece of content they’ll find highly engaging, automatically increasing their chances of sticking around to read the entire article (and maybe even browse the rest of your site).

Plus, if you’re trying to educate readers on complex subjects, interactive content, like calculators, can be an excellent tool to circumvent the obstacle of having to explain complicated processes, allowing you to present your readers with an easy-to-read and understandable text instead.

Company Blog Doing It Right: ATH

A great example of interactive content used to improve blog visitor engagement and boost blog post value via improving readability comes from ATH.

This brand created a protein calculator that gives web visitors access to valuable information presented in a super-accessible way.

Note how, instead of highlighting the science behind protein intakes, ATH asks four questions. Then, it gives readers a straightforward recommendation for their daily protein intake, along with a couple of visuals to help them better integrate the macronutrient into their routine.

Source: athsport.co

Keep Distractions to a Minimum

If you’re looking for strategies that will help you keep blog visitors engaged by boosting content readability, remember that clutter is the enemy of clarity. So, instead of allowing your blog pages to become filled with distracting content, consider whether there are any elements you can remove.

For example, we all know that well-positioned CTAs and conversion boosters (such as social proof) play a crucial role in delivering a positive UX. But other webpage elements, like pop-ups, often compete for web visitors’ attention, preventing them from focusing on the article they’re trying to read.

Does this mean you have to pare your blog posts down to their basics, potentially risking lower conversion rates? Absolutely not. Instead, it simply means being intentional with where and how you present potentially intrusive elements, ensuring that they’re benefiting your users, not distracting them from the task at hand.

Company Blog Doing It Right: HubSpot

If you check out HubSpot’s blog section, you’ll see that articles often include several CTA buttons. But there’s also a non-intrusive scroll trigger pop-up.

This element encourages readers to download a relevant resource without preventing them from interacting with the content or making it impossible for them to use the website without closing the pop-up first.

Source: hubspot.com

Understand Your Audience

Finally, as you work to boost content readability to keep blog visitors engaged, don’t forget that getting the tone, complexity level, and visual design just right hugely depends on who you’re writing for.

For example, if you’re writing for the general population, you should always aim for a high readability score.

However, if your intended readership includes industry experts and professional users, you can get away with more complex language and even some industry-specific jargon.

With this in mind, don’t forget to always check in with your previously defined audience. That way, you’ll guarantee that your blog content is engaging and informative to your audience and that it provides the value your prospects expect to receive when reading your articles.

In Closing

There you have it, the best strategies for keeping blog visitors engaged by boosting content readability.

Whether you utilize one or all of the techniques discussed here is up to you. However, if you’re after the best possible results, make sure you first cover at least the basics of boosting readability. Then, continually track the performance of your blog posts to check whether you’re achieving high enough engagement rates.

Determine Your Online Marketing Goals

The next stage is to identify the objectives you want to achieve with your SEO strategy, as well as the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you track your progress toward these objectives. Defining your unique goals can aid in the development of an SEO plan that will help you achieve them and track your progress. For example, if your main goal is to raise income by a particular amount by 2021, organic traffic to your website could be a KPI for determining whether or not you met that target. As a result, increasing organic traffic will be an element of your SEO strategy.

Define Main Keywords And Topics

After you’ve identified your digital marketing objectives, you’ll need to conduct keyword research to determine your primary keywords. Then, using what are known as pillar pages, you can target your important keywords.

A pillar page is a page that focuses on a single core idea or topic, and it is backed up by topic clusters, which are pages that focus on a subset of the main pillar page’s topics. A disaster restoration company, for example, would have a pillar page dedicated to “disaster restoration.” The numerous sorts of catastrophe restoration services (water damage restoration, fire damage restoration, etc.) each have their own page in the topic clusters that stem from “disaster restoration.”

You can create auxiliary clusters to support each subject cluster in addition to the topic clusters. A topic cluster page targeting “water damage restoration” might lead to secondary cluster sites targeting “basement flooding” and “sewage cleanup,” for example.

You may concentrate on having your pages rank well for all of the topics linked to your primary keywords using this method. This is more successful than concentrating on a single keyword’s ranking. You may establish a more targeted content and keyword strategy by mapping out your major keywords for your pillar pages, topic clusters, and secondary clusters.

Identify Relevant Long-Tail Keywords

There is no limit to how many clusters you can construct from a single pillar when establishing your cluster content strategy. The more cluster themes you can think on, the more depth your website will have. In some circumstances, the main pillar’s scope will dictate how many cluster topics you can generate.

Your cluster subject sites should concentrate on a certain facet of the main topic and use long-tail keywords that are relevant. Long-tail keywords are three or more words long and are more precise than core keywords. The search volumes for these keyword phrases are typically lower than the core keywords from which they expand.

So, what’s the big deal with long-tail keywords? To begin, identifying relevant long-tail keywords will assist you in identifying more in-depth topics that have piqued your interest. Returning to our earlier example, if a catastrophe repair service provider discovers “how does basement flooding occur” as a long-tail keyword within the “water damage” topic cluster, they can profit by writing and publishing a blog about basement flooding causes.

People employ long-tail keyword phrases in voice search, which is the second reason long-tail keywords are significant. In a voice search inquiry, someone is more likely to say “how does basement flooding occur” rather than just “basement flooding.” As a result, including these long-tail keywords into your content improves your website’s voice search query optimization.

The last thing to consider when producing cluster content centred on long-tail keywords is to make sure that each long-tail term is targeted separately and that there is no overlap.

Audit The Current Content Of Your Website

You should assess the existing material on your website before adding new content now that you’ve built your content, keyword, and subject cluster strategy. An audit of your existing content can assist you in identifying content that may be improved as well as content that fits into your newly designated topic clusters.

When evaluating your material, divide it into three categories: content that should be kept as is, content that should be updated to better target relevant keywords, and content that should be deleted. Duplicate content, content that is too light, or content that ranks poorly should all be removed.

Auditing your website’s current content before developing new content can save you a lot of time and effort. In many circumstances, upgrading current material to better target keywords will have a faster impact on your website than creating new content. Identifying ways to improve existing material will aid in the development of your content creation strategy.

Create Content For Pillar Pages And Topic Clusters

It’s time to start writing content for your pillar pages, cluster pages, and secondary cluster pages now that you’ve planned them out. The content of your websites is critical to your website’s overall success. You must ensure that you provide high-quality, informative material that your target audience will appreciate. The research you completed in the previous steps to discover your topic clusters and long-tail keywords will help you figure out what kind of content your website will need.

When developing content, the most crucial thing to remember is the user’s intent. To generate content that fulfils the expectations of someone searching for your chosen long-tail keywords, you must first understand what they would expect to find with their query. Check out our 2019 SEO Content Writing Checklist for more information on how to write good SEO content.

Fix On-Page SEO

Following the creation of the content for your webpages, you must ensure that each page is correctly optimised. This involves using your targeted keywords in title tags, meta descriptions, header tags (H1, H2, and H3), and the content itself. Make sure that all of your website’s internal links are working and that any that are broken are fixed.

With tools like the SEMrush On Page SEO Tracker, you can assess the efficiency of these on-page SEO aspects, and CMS platforms like WordPress will also make ideas to boost on-page SEO.

Fix Technical SEO Errors

Slow loading speeds and broken internal links are examples of technical SEO difficulties that might have an impact on your rankings. It’s critical to evaluate your website for technical SEO difficulties on a regular basis and solve any major issues that you notice. There are a number of tools that might help you spot these problems. Once a month, conduct a website audit to identify and resolve these issues before they have an influence on your results.

Work On Off-Page SEO

You should focus on establishing off-page links once your website is set up and optimised with new material based around your pillars and topic clusters. This is critical because backlinks are one of the three key elements Google considers when determining your website’s rating.

Off-site link development can take various forms, including distributing press releases on third-party websites, guest blogging, social network posting, resource page link building, and more. More strategies for developing backlinks to your website can be found in our link building strategy guide.

Track And Adjust Your SEO Strategy

You must now track your KPIs and make improvements to your SEO approach in order to achieve the greatest results. SEO is a never-ending process, and there are always methods to improve your approach and make more progress toward your objectives. To ensure that your SEO plan is on track, you should track and document the data from your KPIs on a monthly basis.

SEO Marketing Services From Stridec

You may build and implement an effective SEO plan that will help you accomplish your digital marketing goals by following the steps indicated above. Simply remember to evaluate your KPIs on a regular basis once you’ve implemented the approach to measure your progress toward your objectives and make adjustments as needed.

Call our SEO experts at Stridec if you don’t have the resources in-house to build, implement, and track an SEO strategy. Our SEO professionals will work directly with you to establish your online marketing objectives and develop an SEO strategy that will help you achieve them. We’ll also maintain track of your SEO strategy’s development and provide you regular reports to keep you informed.

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.

Similar to how fashion trends change on a regular basis, search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly changing. If a company wants to stay at the top of the search results, it must constantly improve its SEO approach. Learn about the ideal local SEO approach for the year 2021.

If a company wants to stay on top and relevant in the market, it must devote time and undertake rigorous research. Every year, new competitors enter the local market, making it more crucial for businesses to be easily searchable.

Customers from the surrounding area are attracted via word-of-mouth and local ads. An online search, on the other hand, is crucial.

According to a research by Social Media Today, 97 percent of search engine users were looking for a local business online, and the majority of those searches were done on mobile devices. As a result, it is critical for a company to concentrate on its local SEO strategy in order to expand its business and make a name for itself.

If a company does not appear high in local search results, it will lose out on good traffic and clients.

Simply said, local SEO can aid in the growth of a company and its continued relevance in the marketplace. Before we go into how to boost your website’s local SEO, let’s define what local SEO is.

What is Local SEO?

Increased search presence for businesses that service local customers offline is the goal of local SEO (in person).

Local SEO is beneficial to local and small businesses that are located in specific locations, such as a medical shop or a hair salon, as well as service-provider firms that cover a specified geographic area, such as a house cleaning company or a pest control services company.

When clients search for a specific location or an area near them, local SEO methods are used to boost the visibility of the business on search engines like Google.

When someone searches for ‘pizza Singapore’ or ‘pizza near me,’ for example, local SEO methods can help a business appear on Google Maps or in search results.

Simply said, local SEO methods can help a firm increase sales by establishing a strong online presence and increasing visibility. A seasoned local SEO firm can assist you in determining the finest local SEO techniques for your organisation.

7 local SEO tactics for 2021

A few local SEO methods that a local SEO services firm can use to get the greatest outcomes are listed below.

1. Claim and Optimize Google My Business listing

The most crucial component of a local SEO plan is Google My Business (GMB). Free business listings can be created on GMB.

When creating a listing, a business must include key contact information such as the store or office address, exact location on a map, business category, phone number, and website address. Read these Google My Business Secrets for Business Success and Growth.

The listing must be validated after it has gone online. Following verification, the company can improve Google My Business by:

• Uploading pictures of their store or office and their products or services.
• Mentioning the business operation hours.
• Mention additional categories which are relevant to the business.
• Share business updates and fresh content on a regular basis.

2. Add Location details on the Website

Crawlers are sent to websites by search engines to locate the most similar matches to a search request and present them on the search engine results page.

It is advisable to establish a distinct landing page for each business location or store if a company has many locations or stores.

Having a landing page for each business location makes it easier for crawlers to find your website and display it in search results when a user searches for a specific place.

On the webpage, include the whole address, including street name, city, zip code, and so on. Ensure that the contact information listed on the website matches the information updated on the various listings and social media sites.

3. Ensure NAP Consistency

Maintaining NAP consistency is critical for search engines to crawl your websites and listings and present your business in search engine results. The acronym NAP stands for “name, address, and phone number.”

It’s critical to be consistent with all of the information available on the internet. The name, address, and phone number must all be the same, and if the company name includes co. or Inc., it must be added everywhere.

Make sure there are no spelling errors or inconsistencies in the information provided, and if there are, fix them right once to boost your local SEO.

4. Garner plenty of customer reviews

Customer reviews are critical in establishing a positive company image and credibility. Google uses reviews as a ranking element for local SEO, and they can help your listing stand out.

It might work wonders if you can wow your consumers with your products or services and persuade them to leave a positive review on Google. It’s one of the most powerful local SEO strategies.

The reviews help the business rank higher, and there’s a good chance Google will include your business in its local pack. When customers search for a specific product or service and see a business with five stars next to it, they know it has been highly recommended by other users.

Customer reviews aid in the management of three key conversion factors: ranking, click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate optimization (CRO).

5. Focus on Local Link Building

Link building is extremely vital for a company’s promotion. Domain authority and quantity are two of the most important elements that influence search engine rankings in local searches.

Link building, like standard SEO, plays a crucial part in enhancing the link profile in local SEO. The linking domains in local SEO should be more relevant to the target locality.

Establish a relationship with local websites connected to your industry to optimise the links. Earning links from local websites with a high domain authority can assist increase your rankings.

6. Develop Local Content

Creating niche-specific content will help you rank higher in local search results. We’re all aware that content reigns supreme. You can win clients by creating distinctive, informative content.

Local SEO may be improved by creating and posting relevant and original content that includes vital keywords. For local SEO, use keywords and material that include the name of the location or city.

Creating niche-specific content will help you rank higher in local search results. We’re all aware that content reigns supreme. You can win clients by creating distinctive, informative content.

Local SEO may be improved by creating and posting relevant and original content that includes vital keywords. For local SEO, use keywords and material that include the name of the location or city.

7. Utilize Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms are a fantastic method to stay in front of your audience’s eyes and minds. Crawlers from Google can access search results from your various social media networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

When it comes to ranking for local SEO, having social media profiles linking to your location and business is really beneficial.

Aside from that, you should continue to speed up your website. A website that loads quickly has a lower bounce rate and is more likely to convert a potential consumer.

Implementing a Local SEO Strategy

Every year, the online business world flourishes and expands. It is tough for a firm to survive due to fierce competition. It is critical for your business to get noticed in order to stand apart.

By enhancing your search engine rating, you can increase visitors to your website. Local SEO tactics aid in the growth and visibility of a company’s online presence.

SEO companies, will assist you in establishing a strong online presence for your company and increasing website traffic. We will provide you with a free examination of your company’s internet listing.

We feel that investing in frequent and local SEO services is critical for a business’s long-term success.

Contact us immediately if you want to improve your existing internet marketing plan. We can assist you in developing a local SEO strategy that will benefit your company greatly.

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.

SEO makes it simple for potential customers to find your business on search engines. This implies there’s a potential your firm will see a rise in organic traffic, leads, and revenues. Traditional advertising, on the other hand, will reach a large number of people over a predetermined period of time. Stridec will assist your business in reaching out to potential customers while they seek for what they require.

If you decide to utilise a specific term in your material, for example, the piece will always be available for everyone to read. As a result, there’s a potential that they’ll become frequent consumers in the long run.

Because SEO is so effective, internet marketers must devise effective tactics to attract the proper customers. Because SEO is a long-term process, time has no bearing on the long-term results. The online industry is becoming increasingly competitive, and most webmasters are paying thousands of dollars to achieve top search engine rankings.

The nice part about SEO is that you can communicate with your customers at any moment. As you manage your business, leads will come in. You are not required to handle your own SEO campaign. Customers will be wondering about your business during the holidays.

However, the majority of business owners will have no idea which SEO technique is the most effective. Here’s everything you need to know.

Understanding How SEO Strategies Can Improve Your Company

If you’re still not convinced, this article will show you how SEO methods may help your business prosper.

The nice part of SEO is that it will boost your site’s SERP rating. Sites that are well optimised and contain the keywords that consumers are looking for will be ranked higher by Google. If you don’t use SEO, there’s a chance your website won’t rank well and customers won’t find you. If you don’t have time to manage your online marketing initiatives, it’s a good idea to hire an SEO agency.

Because you will be at the top of the SERPs, SEO may assist you in reaching potential clients. Not only will people find your company, but you may also receive powerful leads that result in conversions. However, it is important to note that the results will not appear immediately. If you want to achieve great outcomes, you’ll need to employ a variety of tactics. Some tactics complement one other nicely.

Understanding the Number of SEO Strategies You Could Use

When it comes to SEO, there is no set number of tactics that you must employ. Every industry is unique, and organisations will handle their SEO operations in a variety of ways.

That being said, if your site is already performing well for specific keywords and you want to boost your ranks, you may need to employ alternative tactics. SEO techniques will be determined by the company’s goals, budget, and current campaign performance.

Content Creation

SEO considers content marketing to be a critical component. If you want to see great results with SEO, you need to have a lot of it.

Images, text, videos, and infographics are all examples of content that can be published on the site. Writing a blog post, for example, is content. Video, photos, and other items are all in the same boat.

When it comes to content, you should be aware that different sorts are designed to achieve distinct goals.

Blog posts

Articles about the business, what’s going on in the industry, and relevant news make up blog postings. Additionally, publishing blog postings is one of the most effective ways to keep your website’s content fresh.

As a result, the majority of business owners will construct a content calendar. With a content calendar, you can show users what your organisation has to offer while also signalling to search engines that your site is authoritative.

Everything will look to be fair in terms of blog posts. This includes things like corporate decisions, trends, and company events, among other things.

If a blog contains 1000 words, it will be influential. However, you must incorporate photos and videos to make them more engaging. This will break up the material and make it more interesting for readers. Other businesses may opt to employ solely text, although this can be unappealing.

Images and videos will bring colour and personality to the site, keeping visitors interested. Some articles will persuade readers to become frequent consumers.

As SEO evolves year after year, content marketing will continue to be one of the most effective SEO techniques. You will not solely rely on keywords and extensive meta titles. You’ll need to generate distinctive content to help you stand out from the competition if you want to rank high on the SERPs. The top SEO tools will help you create an effective approach.

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.

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t what it used to be, according to a cliché among digital marketers.

Here’s something you don’t hear very often: in 2021, your SEO approach shouldn’t be focused on keywords.

Most organisations nowadays are aware of the fundamentals of SEO and why it is so essential.

When it comes to building and implementing a solid SEO plan for your company, however, just generating content for the keywords your consumers are searching for is both time-consuming and ineffective.

We’ll discuss what an SEO strategy is and how to develop one to assist you achieve your content marketing goals in this piece.

What is an SEO strategy?

The practise of arranging a website’s material by subject in order to enhance the chance of showing in search results is known as SEO. In a nutshell, it’s the method you use to increase the amount of organic traffic you get from search engines.

It’s crucial to have an SEO plan in place since it keeps you on target while generating content. Rather of generating content based on your assumptions about what people want, your approach will ensure that you provide material that people are seeking for.

An SEO plan is a crucial component of content marketing since it determines how your material will be discovered in the first place, particularly on search engine result pages (SERPs). Search engine bots will have a tougher difficulty indexing your site, recognising your area of authority, and ranking your site pages if your material is disorganised and unstructured.

Mobile SEO Strategy

When developing your overall strategy, mobile SEO is a crucial consideration. Mobile optimization is making sure that your site and its content are available and accessible to users on mobile devices, so that they can have the same experience and benefit as desktop browsers.

Because Google has a mobile-first indexing strategy, mobile optimization is critical. This implies that instead of crawling a desktop site, the algorithm will index and rank pages for SERPs using the mobile version of your site. Furthermore, mobile devices account for 61% of Google search inquiries in the United States. In the end, your SEO strategy would be useless if mobile optimization was not prioritised.

While mobile SEO isn’t a completely unique process, it does have its own set of concerns, such as page speed monitoring, adaptable site design, local SEO, and generating high-quality content that can be seen on any device.

What is an SEO?

SEOs are persons that improve websites to help them rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and acquire more organic traffic. In essence, an SEO is a highly trained content strategist that assists a company in identifying chances to answer concerns that consumers have about their businesses.

An SEO strategist can concentrate on one of three forms of SEO:

On-page SEO is concerned with the material that appears on site pages and how to optimise it in order to improve the website’s ranking for certain keywords.

Off-page SEO is concerned with links pointing to the website from other websites. The amount of backlinks a site has from credible sources helps search engines trust it.

Technical SEO is concerned with the backend infrastructure of a website, such as the site code. Because Google values technical setup equally as much as content, this position is critical for rankings.

Keep in mind that every business has distinct goals, so it’s up to an SEO to research their sector, figure out what their target audiences care about, and design a plan that provides them with what they want.

We’ll go through some actions you can take to guarantee that your SEO strategy is successful.

• Content Strategy for SEO
• Make a list of potential subjects.
• Make a list of long-tail keywords that are related to these subjects.
• Make a page for each subject.
• Create a blog.
• Make a regular blogging routine.
• Make a link-building strategy.
• Before adding media files to your site, compress them.
• Keep up with the latest SEO trends and best practises.
• Measure and measure the success of your content.

1. Make a list of topics.

Although keywords are still important in SEO, they are no longer the initial step toward organic development. Instead, establish a list of subjects you’d like your content to address as the first stage.

To begin, make a list of around 10 words and keywords that are related to your product or service. To study these terms, determine their search traffic, and come up with variants that make sense for your business, use an SEO tool (Google’s Keyword Tool, Ahrefs, SEMRush, or GrowthBar, to name a few).

You’re connecting these subjects with popular short-tail keywords in this way, but you’re not devoting specific blog articles to these terms. Let’s look at an illustration of this procedure using the image below.

Assume a swimming pool company is attempting to rank for the term “fibreglass pools,” which generates 110,000 monthly searches. This short-tail keyword can serve as the material’s main theme, but the company will also need to pick a number of related keywords to add in their content. They might, for example, utilise the keywords “fibreglass pool pricing” or “fibreglass pool cost” to boost their ranks for the general term “fibreglass pools.”

You may build a list of 10-15 short-tail keywords that are related to your business and are being searched for by your target audiences based on search volume and competition. Then, depending on monthly search traffic, rank this list.

Each of the keywords you’ve discovered is referred to as a pillar, and it serves as the major support for a broader group of long-tail keywords that we’ll go over later.

2. Make a list of long-tail keywords based on these topics.

You’ll start optimising your pages for certain keywords in this stage. Use your keyword tool to find five to ten long-tail keywords that go deeper into the original theme keyword for each pillar you’ve discovered.

For example, we frequently publish articles on SEO, yet ranking high on Google for such a prominent topic with just this acronym is tough. By generating several sites that all target the same keyword — and perhaps the same SERPs — we also risk competing with our own content. As a result, we provide articles on keyword research, image optimization for search engines, SEO strategy creation (which you’re reading right now), and other subtopics within the SEO umbrella.

This assists firms in attracting individuals with diverse interests and issues, resulting in more entrance points for those interested in what you have to offer.

Create blog articles or web pages using your long-tail keywords to explain the specific subjects inside the pillars you’ve chosen. All of your long-tail keywords come together to form a cluster around a pillar issue. The relationships between clusters are used by search engine algorithms to link consumers with the information they seek.

Here’s a little movie on the subject:

Consider this: the more precise your content is, the more particular your audience’s demands may be, and the more likely you are to convert traffic into leads. This is how Google determines the worth of the websites it crawls: pages that go deep into the inner workings of a broad topic are deemed the greatest answer to a user’s query, and therefore rank higher.

3. Build pages for each topic.

When it comes to websites and search engine rankings, getting a single page to rank for a few keywords can be nearly difficult. However, this is where the rubber hits the road.

Utilizing the long-tail keywords you came up with for each cluster in step two, develop a page or post that offers a high-level summary of the issue using the pillar themes you came up with. These pillar pages can basically serve as a table of contents, with a description of the primary topic and briefings on subtopics that will be covered in subsequent entries.

Finally, the number of pillar pages you build should correspond to your company demands, such as the amount of items and services you offer. This will make it lot simpler for potential consumers and clients to discover you in search engines, regardless of the terms they choose.

4. Set up a blog.

• Blogging is a fantastic strategy to rank for keywords while also engaging your website’s visitors. After all, each blog post is a new web page and a fresh chance to rank in the SERPs. Consider starting a blog for your company if you don’t currently have one.
• You should do three things when you create each blog article and expand on your clusters:
• Because Google no longer considers precise keyword matches as often as it used to, don’t utilise your long-tail term more than three or four times across the page. In fact, having too many repetitions of your term might signal to search engines that you’re keyword stuffing to boost your ranks, and they’ll punish you.
• Second, always provide a link to the pillar page you made for each of your themes. This may be done using tags in your content management system (CMS) or simple anchor text in the article body.
• When you’ve finished writing each blog post, include a link to it on the parent pillar page that supports the subtopic. You’re showing Google that there’s a link between the long-tail term and the broader topic you’re seeking to rank for by linking both the pillar and the cluster in this way.

5. Create a consistent blogging schedule.

You don’t have to include a subject cluster in every blog post or web page you write. Writing on tangential subjects that your clients care about can also help you gain authority with Google’s algorithms.

Make it a point to blog at least once a week with this in mind. Remember that you’re writing for your readers, not search engines, so research your target market and write about topics that they care about.

To stay consistent and focused on your goals, you might want to develop a content strategy.

6. Create a link-building plan.

Although the topic cluster approach is the way to go in SEO, it isn’t the only technique to get your website content to rank higher once it’s been generated.

While we focused on on-page SEO in the first five phases, link-building is the primary goal of off-page SEO. The practise of drawing inbound links (also known as backlinks) to your website from other websites is known as link-building. Sites with more authority that link back to your material have a greater influence on your results in general.

Spend some time thinking about all the many methods you may get inbound connections. Perhaps you’ll begin by exchanging links with local companies in exchange for connections to your site, or you’ll produce a few blog articles and distribute them across other social media platforms. You may also contact other sites for guest posting opportunities, which will allow you to connect back to your own.

7. Compress media files before uploading them to your site.

This is a minor but crucial stage in the SEO process, particularly when it comes to mobile optimization.

You’ll definitely have more photos, videos, and associated media to complement your content as your blog or website expands. These visual elements keep your visitors’ interest, but it’s easy to overlook the fact that they might be rather huge. Because page speed is such an essential ranking element, you should keep an eye on the size of the media assets you upload to your site.

The larger the file, the more difficult it is for a web browser to render your site. It’s also more difficult for mobile browsers to load these pictures because their bandwidth is much lower. As a result, the smaller the file size, the more quickly your website will load. But how can you reduce photos while maintaining their quality?

Before uploading pictures, movies, or gifs, think about using a compression tool to minimise file sizes. Images may be compressed in bulk using sites like TinyPNG, and picture files can be shrunk to tiny proportions using Google’s Squoosh. Keeping files around the kilobytes (KB) range, regardless of how you compress your material, is a solid rule of thumb.

8. Stay up-to-date on SEO news and best practices.

• The search engine environment, like marketing, is always changing. Keeping up with current trends and best practises is a crucial approach, and there are several internet tools available to assist you. Here are a few websites to look into:
• Search Engine Roundtable with Moz SEOBook
• Diggity Marketing on Search Engine Land
• This Website!

9. Measure and track your content’s success.

Because SEO takes a lot of time and effort, you’ll want to know if your approach is effective. It’s critical to keep track of your metrics in order to assess the overall performance of your process and discover potential areas for improvement.

You may use your favourite web analytics tool to track organic traffic or Excel or Google Sheets to construct your own dashboard. Tracking indexed pages, conversions, ROI, and SERP rankings may also help you acknowledge your successes and spot areas for improvement.

SEO Process

You should also develop a procedure to continuously optimising for new keywords and changing search intent once you’ve created your SEO plan. Here are a few things you can do to help.

1. Historically optimize your content. 

To stay on top of the SERPs, set aside some time each month to update old blog entries with fresh and up-to-date material. You may also take use of this opportunity to fix any SEO best-practices that were not handled previously, such as missing picture alt text.

2. Look out for changing keywords and new search intent.

Track how your blog entries are doing and which keywords they’re ranking for after a few months. This can help you tweak subheadings and text to capitalise on fresh search intent that your target audience might be interested in.

3. Add more editorial value to your old content.

You could come upon a post that is entirely out of date. In this case, you should go above and beyond the standard historical SEO update and give it a complete overhaul. This may be accomplished by updating out-of-date material and statistics, adding new sections for increased depth, and using quotations or original data to increase referral traffic to the article.

4. Create a monthly content plan.

Creating and refining a monthly content plan might help you stay on top of your SEO approach. You may enter it into a spreadsheet, and your teams will be able to keep track of it. The list below is an example of a monthly content strategy that incorporates the aforementioned phases.

You may develop and implement an effective SEO strategy using a monthly SEO plan like the one above, as well as a tracking document like a search insights report. You may also find and use low-hanging-fruit themes to talk about in your business.

Create A Strategy That Supports Your Business Goals

It might be tough to get a high ranking on search results pages. While it may appear appealing to generate content around high-traffic keywords, this technique may not help you achieve your company objectives.

Instead, for higher marketing success, develop an SEO plan that helps you meet your specific business objectives, such as improving client acquisition. Check out our Ultimate Guide to SEO to learn more about SEO.

Speed is very important for a website. It’s so important that Google has made it an actual ranking factor. Over time, Google has taken action to improve the loading speed of websites by providing a set of tools for developers and webmasters. One of these tools is Google Lighthouse.

But how does this PageSpeed Insights Tool from Google actually work? And, more importantly, does page speed affect SEO? You’ll find everything you need to know in this article.

he PageSpeed Insights Tool didn’t use to be very good in the past. Most of the information there could be found relatively easy elsewhere and it didn’t quite indicate speed itself. However, Google has recently updated the tool and it’s a lot better. Unfortunately, it’s also a lot harder to understand.

However, this tool has became popular among SEOs through PageSpeed Insights, which is, in fact, powered by Lighthouse, but provides the information in an easy to follow format, on a web page.

What Is Google PageSpeed Insights?

PageSpeed Insights is an online tool provided by Google which is used to identify web performance issues on sites. Although mostly related to technical SEO issues, the tools also analyze the site from a User Experience and accessibility point of view.

You can enter the URL there and after a few seconds the tool will return a page with some results regarding your website’s performance. At the top, there will be a general score, which is an average of multiple factors. Below you will see detailed information about what actually affects your speed.

However, it isn’t the only PageSpeed tool provided by Google. There also is mod_pagespeed, a server module used to solve these speed issues, and the full fledged Lighthouse (the site analysis tool that powers everything), available in Chrome itself. There are also a number of Chrome Extensions related to Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

We will discuss briefly about all of them throughout this article, but we will focus mainly on PageSpeed Insights as it seems to be the handiest tool most SEOs use when checking a website.

Mobile vs. Desktop

When you insert a page to test it, Google will give two scores: one for the mobile version and one for the desktop version.

Initially, the PageSpeed Tool only gave one score, for the Desktop version. But recently, mobile usage has became more and more popular. As of 2018, more than 50% of search engine users search on mobile devices. As Google moved to a mobile first index, it also made sense for them to test mobile versions for speed first.

However, if you have a responsive design, you might think that these versions are mostly identical.

If so, why do they have different scores?

Mobile: When you use the PageSpeed Insights tool, the first result you’ll get is for mobile speed. This means that your website has been tested on a mobile connection, probably with a 4G connection, as it seems to be the most common speed around the US at least.

However, keep in mind that many mobile users around the world still get only 3G signal and, although they have a slower connection speed, they still expect the website to load really fast.

And here’s the problem. It’s not always about your site, it’s more about the connection’s speed. It might seem like your site is slow when, in reality, the connection speed is slow.

Desktop: On desktop, the score is higher because the connection speed is higher. That’s just the thing with light and fiber optics. Unless you live in the UK, of course, and still have cups and string internet.

So the website goes through the same testing, but it’s mostly the connection speed that differs.

That’s why mobile comes first, as mobile devices usually have slower connections. Things might change with 5G but, until then, make sure you focus on improving your site speed for mobile devices.

What exactly is Page Speed?

OK, so we know what the tool does: it gives a score based on how fast it thinks your site is. But what exactly is page speed?

But speed is relative. It depends on so many factors such as the website’s performance, the server’s performance, the particular web page you’re on, the connection type, the user’s internet service provider, the internet package, the device’s processing power, the Browser, what the user is doing at that point, how many apps are running and so on.

However, we can only work with what we can work, which is our website and our server. We don’t really have control over the rest.

That’s why Google PageSpeed Insights wasn’t so good in the past. It didn’t quite give you information about how fast your website is actually loading. Just scores.

And that’s why this new version is just so good. It tells you everything you need to know about actual loading speed while also keeping the good stuff from the old version.

There are, of course, different points of interest in the loading time. For example, you may want to run some scripts towards the end because they don’t need to be used initially.

They might take a lot to finish loading, so the total loading time could be higher. But if the site is usable until then, it isn’t such a big problem.

For example, let’s say you want to run an exit intent pop-up script. That script takes a hypothetical 5-10 seconds to load. However, you want to show it to the user only after about 20-30 seconds.

If you start running your script immediately, you might postpone loading other important elements, such as the first thing the user should see: the above the fold content. This would be very bad, especially since you’re not going to use that script until about 20-30 seconds in the future.

So you can postpone loading the script after everything else that is vital loads in order to give the user a better experience.

However, if you have a script that makes the menu work or something vital to the usability of the website, you might not want to load it towards the end. This would ruin the experience as the user would not be able to access that function before everything else is loaded.

Does Page Speed Affect SEO? Is 100/100 Insights Score Essential?

The simple answer is that page speed does affect SEO. Page speed is a direct ranking factor, a fact known even better since Google’s Algorithm Speed Update. However, speed can also affect rankings indirectly, by increasing the bounce rate and reducing dwell time. 

At Google, users come first. Studies by Google show that average 3G loading speed is very slow. They also show that users leave the site after about 3 seconds. This means that their experience is bad and Google doesn’t like ranking sites which provide bad user experience.

What you must remember is that speed is measured in seconds, not in points from 0 to 100. While PageSpeed Insights is a tool that helps you improve speed, the score there doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the real world.

There are also disadvantages, of course. You’re limited from every direction, although things are getting better and better every day. Also, your site’s design has to suffer and will pretty much look like any other site that uses AMP. Bummer.

The URL isn’t yours either, because Google loads a cached version of your site, on their URLs. However, Google developers have promised to bring native URLs into AMP.

On WordPress and other CMS, you can add AMP to your website through a plugin. For custom websites, you’ll need to get in touch with your developer and give them this link.

Conclusion

Improving your site speed is important for better search rankings. PageSpeed Insights provides a set of best practices and possible improvements, prioritized by their impact on your site’s speed.

While the score itself shouldn’t concern you too much, it’s a good idea to try and get it at least over 50. However, focus on load time, which is measured in seconds. A good website should load in about 3 seconds. A really, really fast one should load in about 1.

Having a good server, compressing images and keeping things clean and simple in your code will benefit you the most when it comes to website speed. While smaller sites will benefit most from a shared server, if you are a larger business, hosting your site on a custom tower servers would be a recommended choice. Allowing the businesses to edit and maintain their site, a private server would offer flexibility and reliability when they need it most.  

What’s your PageSpeed Insights Score? Have you seen better rankings after improving the loading speed of your website? Share your experience with us in the comments section below!