SEO: 11 Things You’re Forgetting To Do — People First Content
Don’t hit that publish button just yet!
We know you spent quite some time writing your blog but the work is not done. While proofreading is definitely an important part of the editing process, there is another component that is just as vital — SEO. Search engine optimization is the practice of improving your webpage in order to get a higher rank on search engines. It matters because you want to drive as much traffic to your article as you can.
Oftentimes, we’re so focused on getting the blog done that we forget to enhance our SEO, which can hurt the article’s overall performance. But where do we start?
11 SEO Things You’re Forgetting
The realm of SEO is quite broad and complex. But we’ve narrowed down the top eleven things to help you rank high and drive more traffic.
Write a compelling meta description
People often neglect writing meta descriptions. These are brief summaries of your page that appear as snippets on the search engine results page (SERP). They’re a way of giving people a preview of what to expect from the site.
While meta descriptions don’t have as much impact on search rankings today as they did years ago, they still have an influence on click-through rates. Remember, they act as a teaser that gets people interested in reading the rest of the article. If it doesn’t grab their attention, they’re less likely to visit the link. So spend time writing a couple lines of copy that will get them to click.
Fix broken links
Ever clicked a link and an “Error 404” or “Page Not Found” message pops up? Oh yeah, that means they’re broken. Broken links are pages that can’t be found or accessed for whatever reason and they are bad for SEO.
First, they ruin the user experience by sending them to a page that they can’t view. This leaves a negative impression on you and will quickly exit your site to find a link that works — resulting in a higher bounce rate.
Second, it affects your Google search rankings. To them, broken links indicate that you’re neglecting and not updating your site. Google doesn’t want to send users to pages that don’t work.
So it’s always a good idea to do a website audit and ensure all your links work. You can use tools such as Google Console and Ahrefs to help you find them faster.
Have an appropriate keyword density
Nothing drives content writers mad than seeing someone use keyword stuffing. It’s a practice where writers fill a site with keywords in the hopes of improving their search rankings. Not only does it kill your SEO but it also makes for a terrible user experience.
The thing about keyword stuffing is that both people AND search engines know it when they see it. I mean it’s hard to ignore reading the same word four times in five sentences.
That’s why it’s important to maintain an appropriate keyword density. This indicates how many times a keyword has been used in a blog or webpage. To calculate it:
While there’s no definitive answer to how much is appropriate, you want to aim for a keyword density of 2%. A good tip to avoid stuffing is to use synonyms and widen your vocabulary.
Add alt text to images
Also known as alt attributes or alt tags, alt text is written information used to describe an image. Having them benefits your brand in multiple ways. One is for accessibility purposes. It helps people who cannot see the image, whether the viewer is visually-impaired or the picture fails to load, to consume all of the content on your page.
Most importantly, search engines use the alt text, along with the content around it, to better understand the subject matter of the image. That way they can properly index it and increase your chances of showing up in image results.
Before you publish your blog, give your images a proper title tag and alt text to improve your SEO.
Include internal links
You want to keep the user on your website for as long as possible. So it’s essential that your blog includes internal links that lead to other pages on your site. They’re beneficial to your SEO because it lets Google know that the page is high-value or important.
As you’re editing your blog, be sure to include internal links throughout the text. While quantity is good here, quality is better. You don’t want to just drop links onto random words. You should embed them within words that have a connection with the page you’re linking to.
For example, if we wanted to direct the reader to an article titled, “4 Tips for Guest Blogging,” we would insert a link in the text, “ Guest Blogging .” These hyperlinked words are also known as anchor texts.
Cater to search intent
Search intent is the reason, the why, behind an online search. They’re important because Google wants to provide the most relevant results for every search query. So if your content matches exactly what someone is looking for, then you have a high chance of being in the top results.
There are four types of search intent: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial. Before you start writing your blog, you need to think of what your target audience is looking for. Do they want to learn something? Do they want to make a purchase?
To help, do a quick Google search of your target keyword and observe the structure of each title. You can usually tell right away what the intent is for that specific topic.
Use header tags properly
Also known as H tags, they’re used to tell Google how to differentiate headings and subheadings. They go from H1 to H6, with H1 being the most important.
Here are several tips on using them correctly. First, there should only be ONE H1 tag — that’s usually the title. Second, remember to maintain a hierarchy. For example, subheadings should use H2, and then subtopics under that should be H3 and so on. Third, don’t add links in any of the tags.
Make URLs SEO friendly
Which is easier to type:
“www.web.com/37814443dfad283”
or
“www.web.com/11-seo-things-youre-forgetting”?
Yeah, we thought so.
Having an SEO-friendly URL not only benefits user experience but also boosts your rankings. Google takes the URL, along with other components, into account when determining what the content of the webpage is all about.
So before your blog goes live, make the link easy to read and type. It can be as simple as integrating the title of your article into the URL.
Update old content
Give your blogs a new life by updating your old content. When you go back to your past blogs and make revisions to them, it makes them fresh and new again — which can lead to higher click-through rates.
Think about it. If you wanted to learn about the latest blogging trends, which one do you read — the one published in 2022 or the one from 2010? Most likely, you’ll visit the most recent link because you know that will have the most up-to-date information.
So what does updating content look like? You can improve your headlines, replace old data with new data, and even link to new resources. But don’t go and refresh EVERY page. Take a look at what sites have potential for growth and start from there.
Remove things that slow down your site
Did you know that page speed is one of the most important factors that affect your Google ranking? It makes sense, right? If a website takes too long to load, how likely are you to leave it? It’s not just an SEO issue but a functional one as well.
So if you want to improve your position in search results, you should look into ways of speeding up your site. One thing you can do is compress or reduce your image file size so that there’s less data. A second thing is to upgrade your hosting service to one that can handle the content on your page.
Add visuals
Content is becoming more and more visual. It always helps to decorate your webpage with images, videos, or infographics. Besides the fact that images give you another place to include keywords, they also act as a way of keeping people on your page — resulting in lower bounce rates and longer dwell time.
In addition, it helps break up your blog into chunks and keep the reader engaged. So after you’re done writing your content, add any pictures and videos related to your topic so that you can give the reader another way to understand your ideas.
Conclusion
All of these things are proven to get your blog in front of many people as possible. Any advantage to improve your search rankings will help your website in the long run.
Need more help? People First Content can write optimized blogs for your website so you have one less thing to worry about. Contact us to get started.
Originally published at https://www.peoplefirstcontent.com on April 5, 2022.
