Search Engine Optimization is a very hot topic on the World Wide Web. After all, everyone dreams of ranking higher and wants to come up on the first page of search engines especially Google so that quality traffic can be generated.
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Blogging is not just enough
There are many people who start blogging and several are running their websites for a while; the problem is that they do not actually know what SEO is and how significant this is to get better page rank.
SEO simply stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is where one constructs the web pages and implements several techniques that help him rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs).
You must be aware of the fact that the better is your site’s rank, the higher would be the number of your visitors, and greater revenues you can generate.
Blogging is not just enough until you understand why SEO is important. This is split up into two separate categories; On-Page SEO & Off-Page SEO.
On-Page SEO
It refers to everything you must do ON your website that is helpful for getting better rank. It includes setting page titles, adding internal links, meta tags and descriptions etc.
On-Page SEO Strategies
Among the so many on-page SEO tips, we have presented a checklist of the most important techniques.
Title Tag:
Title tag is the finest way to use title. Remember that the title tag should not be longer than 70 characters. Try using long phrased keyword(s) within the title tag
Description Tag:
Use it smartly. Here you are to provide description about your page content. Try to include competitive keywords in this section. The characters should not exceed the limit of 160.
Keywords Tag:
Google once clarified that this tag has no effects on the ranking of a website. Many SEOs still use this tag when it comes to rank in Yahoo and Bing like search engine. Here five competitive keywords can be targeted.
HX (Heading) Tags:
You can use HX tags with the headings of main sections. H1 is used for main heading, H2 for secondary heading, and so on. Always highlight keywords in the form of H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.
Images:
It is important to optimize each image with ALT and Title tags. For excellent results, you must optimize the image name; try using keywords smartly.
URLs should be Search Engine Friendly:
Do not use signs like &, !, and others in URLs because this is likely to appear like a spamming link. Keep the URLs short and easy to read.
Internal Links:
Keeping in mind the fact that content is kind, each post you craft should have a minimum of 500 greatly written, unique, words. Internal linking helps to engage the customers and gives you a pathway to control the bounce rate.
External Links:
Try to support your arguments or points by adding links to external sources. This is good to develop relationship with the customers by clarifying to them that you are talking what is authentic.
Off-Page SEO
It can be defined as the things that you are to do OFF your website. The purpose is to help you rank higher, and the strategy includes social media marketing, submission of articles to directories, forum posting, and others.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
Some of the finest off-page SEO tips are discussed below:
Social Networking Websites:
Social networking is a prior way to generate traffic. Sign up to the most popular social networking sites, such as; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, etc., and create professional profiles. Promote your posts via these platforms and build excellent online reputation.
Guest Blogging:
Guest blogging is often ignored by many website owners. It is an easy way to get traffic directly from the popular websites. This helps search engines to crawl your site frequently.
Blog Marketing:
Post comments on other blogs of the similar niche as yours. This greatly allows adding links in the comments section, giving an edge to your online appearance. Make sure you choose “Do-Follow” blogs only.
Forum Marketing:
There are many forums where discussions are held. Find the ones that are related to your website and get involved within multiple communities. Reply to threads and offer services.
Directory Submission:
Directory submission is a popular way to increase your traffic. Do not submit to general directories. Instead you should focus on selecting niche directories.
Social Bookmarking:
Do not forget social bookmarking to promote your website. Submit your contents and pages to bookmarking sites, like StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc.
Best practices that help to Implement SEO effectively
It is not so easy to implement SEO strategies for getting desired results. Some of the practices many bloggers and website owners forget.
If you take good care of them, you can make significant difference as how to rank pages in the Search Engine Queries. These are briefly mentioned below:
Use proper anchor text for inter-links. Avoid using “here”, “there” and similar texts in the anchor text.
Optimize the images, do not forget to create alt tags and write description in the alt tag.
Use permalinks that are search engine friendly.
Do not give any preference to ‘&’, ‘?’, ‘!’ etc. characters while creating a permalink. Try to keep the URL short and précised.
Do not use underscores (_) in URLs; you can instead use hyphens (-).
Avoid using session id in URLs. If you are a user of good hosting, then you don’t need to worry about the session id.
Use both internal and external links whenever you find appropriate. Give preference to internal links for better outcomes.
Use sticky posts and do not forget the tag clouds whenever applicable.
Always insert descriptions in categories of your blog/website.
Let the visitors subscribe to category specific RSS feed. For this you can use category specific RSS plugin which is available in WordPress.
Use rel=”nofollow” tag on low value links.
Try using sub-directories rather than sub-domains.
Research your target audience and make sure the site provides relevant content.
Last but not the least, do not forget to keeping the content up to date because visitors do not like outdated articles.
Developing SEO strategies that drive immense amount of traffic to your site is the need of the time.
Good news is that some of the ways are out there to help you target the right type of audience.
Here is how I do it.
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Target easy to rank long-tail keywords
Write blog posts having easy to rank long-tail keywords. Remember that blogs always benefit your business. Some of the popular long tail keywords should be a part of your title, description and content body. These positively affect the performance of your website.
Blog posts rank on their own on the basis of relevance to search engines, so take advantage of low competition keywords that are great to generate organic traffic in just a few weeks.
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Target 3 -5 keywords for each site’s pages
Create your pages and articles in a way that these have 2-3 keywords. This is a smart move since your site would begin drawing more relevant traffic along the process.
Doing this is very simple, you just need to combine a number of keywords in your post’s title, and article body.
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Do follow links
Comment on blogs and forums that provide do-follow links. This effectively promotes your site and improves the keywords’ search ranking.
Since this technique has many advantages, you can build relationship with not only visitors but also other bloggers of your niche.
Networking with other bloggers is highly suitable especially when their website is ranked better than yours. You can enjoy opportunities of guest posting. If not, then just request them to allow you leaving a comment along with your site’s URL.
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Article submission and link building
Link building is of great importance. This is a proven way to generate consistent traffic and highly relevant links boost your search rankings.
Submit your articles to directory such as Ezinearticles, Articlesbase, Goarticles, Amazines, and others as it enhances your chances to get noticed.
But this should not be taken as a traditional article marketing strategy since the competition among the bloggers and businesses is very high.
Convert your articles to PDF, podcasts, slide/powerpoint presentation and videos, and then submit them to respective directories for maximum exposure.
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Pay Attention to HTML Elements That Affect SEO
Pay utmost attention to HTML elements that affect SEO.
Keep in mind to use versions of your main key-phrase in the opening or introductory paragraph. This may make no sense but the overall impact on search engines would be great.
Separate sections of the article with heading tags. Always include images with the content. Don’t forget that the filename and alt text of the image have to be appropriate.
Include links within the article, whether internal or external; these just have to be informative.
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Make Contents Scannable With Info Packed Headlines
There are many individuals who just scan articles rather than creating something outstanding. It is okay if you are doing the same, but do not only scan the contents but these should be packed with information and great headlines.
Having really good headlines makes the scanning process simple. A headline always stands out since it defines the next block of contents, providing readers with something valuable to read.
You can use either short or long headline, but this has to be sweet and attractive. Provide many white spaces with elements such as images and video clips.
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Hone Your Website’s URL Structure
Websites with streamlined URL structure are often ranked better as compared to the sites with confusing or messy structures of URLs. These act like the building blocks of your site, so make sure they look consistent and are consistent and search-engine-friendly.
Dynamic URLs are the ones that are ending in strings of characters like id=13579&color=4&size=2&session=754839.
It looks very long with no particular keywords so there are high chances that such URLs will get low click-through rate from search-engines because searchers find them hard to understand.
With the above in mind, it is highly recommended that you use static URLs that fix many of your click-related problems.
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Use press releases wisely
You can develop strong relationship with media covering your industry. Press releases are an outstanding source of exposure. Always include links from trusted media websites, and include your site’s URLs whenever you publish a guest post.
Distribution of press releases is also important as this opens the door for exposure in news search sites.
One thing which you need to remember is that whenever an issue is released, cover it immediately as you cannot afford to waste time especially when your website is news-based.
See Beyond Personalized Search Results — Conclusion
Because of the extremely tough competition to get better rank in Google search results, you just need to continue working hard.
Try to frequently track location-specific rankings that may be biased by your IP address and the location set under Google Search Tools. This is a part of SEO strategy.
Choose any of the tools like Rank Tracker that can automatically return de-personalized, unbiased results, allowing to set location factors so you get no problem while dealing with your web pages’ rank.
Most of the strategies described here are common sense and you must already be aware of them.
This is time to think out of box because all these tactics require time and efforts. If you handle them with care and pay maximum attention, you will certainly get excellent outcomes.
Hopefully the above easy-to-remember tactics can superbly help you to get the results you always dreamt of! What do you think of it?
3 Responses
“Guest blogging is often ignored by many website owners. It is an easy way to get traffic directly from the popular websites. This helps search engines to crawl your site frequently.”
I agree with these, guest posting on websites with high domain authority will give you high-quality links and drive great traffic to your website. We should just need a high-quality article that a webmaster will love to post on their website and that is useful to their audience.
True that Tristan,Thanks for the kind words, I totally agree with you:) Glad you found it helpful. 🙂
Great post .Very useful SEO strategies.
Thanks for sharing.