A Step-By-Step Guide Straight From the Experts
Search Engine Optimization
What is SEO and do you need it? Believe it or not, Search Engine Optimization is more important and necessary than ever in the year 2019. If you have a website and want it to work in your favor when it comes to brand exposure and lead generation, you’ll need to understand the actual meaning of SEO and all of the potential it can unlock for your business. Let’s quickly summarize the basic meaning first. SEO is the set of rules that you should follow to improve your website’s rankings on popular search engines.
SEO depends on many factors that increase your business’ domain authority and website quality by making it easy-to-navigate, faster, and most importantly, user-friendly. These days, SEO is more important than ever because the market is very competitive with businesses across all industries and scopes developing digital marketing strategies that streamline their online presence for online purchases.
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In the age of smartphone technology, search engines provide instant answers to billions of curious users, who turn to these algorithms for answers and solutions to any problem they are facing. Imagine, someone is looking for a recommendation or a place to buy a service or products that your business offers. You will only be able to help the user with a solution when they’re given the opportunity to visit your website via local or sponsored search results. This is where SEO comes in. With a solid SEO strategy, your website will show up on the first page of a search results page pertaining to specific keywords, and the chances of a user clicking your website and choosing your service/product will increase tenfold!
Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why Search Engine Optimization is important for your business:
1. The majority of internet users typically click on the first 5 suggestions that appear on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). With a proper SEO strategy, your website will be among the top 5 search results, increasing your business’ click-through and conversion rates.
2. Developing an SEO strategy over time helps build trust among your audience. The majority of internet users trust search engines like Google because they’re industry leaders. When your business’ website ranks high for the right keywords, a user will automatically trust your web page(s) over others that rank lower.
3. Although a great deal of SEO involves ranking for keywords and written content, another factor you shouldn’t forget about isi improving the usability and user-experience of your website. This means having clear page URLs, easy navigation, and appropriate metadata to appeal to search bots.
SEO + Blogging
Creating a blog that is optimized for both users and search engines is a tactic your business will need to adopt in order to stay ahead of the curve. Your business’ marketing team will need to understand the ever-changing rules and requirements pertaining to SEO over time, so that your brand’s online presence remains relevant as digital trends shift. However, despite what many people assume, SEO strategy is not a difficult process. As a business, there are many simple steps you can take to ensure the content you publish on a blog or website is SEO-friendly!
The details you ought to consider for your business’ blog content include the following: the click-ability of your post’s headline or title, the actual structure of blog content, subheadings, paragraph lengths, multimedia, and overall formatting. These elements play an important role in how your blog content will rank on Google and other search engines.
Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Content
The following are 10 steps your business ought to follow in order to ensure that all of your blog content is SEO-friendly. Let’s have a look!
1. Strategize Before Writing
When you spend some time thinking about blog topics to focus on and researching the questions your audience needs answers to, you’ll not only create more relevant and engaging content but also save time when it comes to the actual writing process!
Start off by reading and researching blogs and articles related to your industry, niche, and/or competitors. Make notes on what tactics and approaches work and which don’t. If possible, study the analytics of previous content your business has published that increased web traffic and engagement. Then, decide on topics you want to cover on your blog and set publishing deadlines in your calendar. Maintaining a consistent stream of content will boost your business’ SEO strategy and overall domain authority if kept up over time.
That’s why you’ll want your marketing team to create a publishing schedule at the beginning of each month–to plan your blog content accordingly. When it comes to sitting down andwriting content, make sure that the subject matter has been analyzed and keywords researched thoroughly. This will guarantee that your blog post receives higher ranking status, more web page visitors, and overall response and engagement-benefiting both your business and your audience.
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2. Plan The Blog Post’s Structure
Outlining your blog post’s structure is the second step. When you have a structure in place, you will be able to develop strategic call-to-actions and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The organization is key for on-page SEO as well as increasing lead conversions–or even just moving potential customers through the sales funnel at the early stages. When you split your blog post into multiple sections, the writing itself also becomes more manageable and efficient for you and/or your marketing team. Be sure to include many sub-sections, so readers aren’t intimidated by a wall of text!
3. Craft The Headline
The title or headline of your blog is more important than you think. Many bloggers consider it to be the first step. However, when you think about it, it’s easier to come up with a great headline only if you have a clear idea about your subject matter and intention. Creating a thumb-stopping, catchy headline is important for driving click-throughs and web traffic as part of your overall SEO strategy.
When crafting a clever, clickable title, keep in mind that your headline should never exceed the maximum length of 60 characters, and it should also include your blog’s primary keyword. Furthermore, blog title ought to offer a clear idea about the topic and make it sound intriguing to users.
4. Break-Up Paragraphs With Visuals Or Infographics
As mentioned before, you’ll need to make sure that your blog’s paragraphs are not too long, as it makes the reading process tasteless and boring. Keep in mind that a very large number of users read and browse on their mobile phones. Therefore, reading long paragraphs could be a strain on a smaller screen. Incorporating various visuals and design elements will also make your blog content more dynamic and fun to interact with!
5. Add Relevant Internal Links
Whenever you are writing a blog post, always try to associate it with another piece of published content. Internal linking is very effective and simple for boosting your overall SEO because they help search engines discover your website’s new pages. While crawling, search engine bots (also referred to as spiders) follow internal links and add them to their index if it doesn’t already exist. In addition to that, internal links also give search engines a better idea about page’s subject matter. When embed relevant internal links within your content, you can also decrease your website’s bounce rate by leading users to another web page, which only makes them stay on your site longer.
6. Use Relevant Keywords But Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Including the right keyword(s) in your blog will ensure that it’s relevant to readers and search engines alike. However, try to avoid overusing keywords, as search algorithms will recognize this and penalize your website’s ranking.
7. Optimize The Length Of Your Blog Post
It’s true that long-form content performs well according to Google’s latest SEO guidelines. This is because longer blog posts tend to offer more detailed answers that offer more expertise to readers. However, that doesn’t mean shorter blog posts won’t do well! When it comes to blog content, keep in mind that quality is always important than the quantity. If you develop blog content with your audience in mind, optimize it with keywords and internal links, and promote each new published post, your business will be sure to grow its blog’s reach online.
8. Develop Meta Titles And Descriptions
When it’s time to publish your blog(s), be sure to include appropriate metadata. Similar to the headline, the meta title should summarize the subject matter of the web page in 70 characters or less. Then be sure to apply a meta description to the blog’s URL. This is a summary of a web page that shows up on a SERP, giving users an idea about a particular search result without exceeding the maximum limit of 158 character. Google will prioritize your blog post if its meta description follows the character count and remains informative and interesting to engage search engine users.
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9. Optimize Other Media Elements
Images, infographics, statistics, videos, graphs, and etc. make blog posts more interactive and interesting. These media elements enhance content quality and boost SEO. However, Google has clearly stated that it’s hard to understand the actual context of a video or image while crawling pages. Therefore, you should use human-friendly alt text and optimized image file names, so algorithms can recognize this content and give it priority to search engines.
10. Keep Your Blog Posts Updated
The digital world remains fast-paced, so facts and statistics can change quite rapidly after new studies or data becomes available. A blog post will obviously remain on your website unless you remove it, so there’s a possibility that your blog post may show up in search results 2 or 3 years after it’s been published. However, if a user clicks on the link to your blog, the content should still make sense and stay relevant. Therefore, as part of your blog strategy, your business ought to make it a practice to update past blog content with new information and statistics.
In the year 2019, developing and maintaining a blog platform will be crucial to your business’ ongoing SEO success. Do you have any additional questions about how to create SEO-friendly blog content? Don’t hesitate to contact our team of professionals at GoMarketing to answer any and all questions concerning your digital marketing strategy: 805-413-7893!
