Communicating and emoting with readers can be described as the number one goal for most content writers. With the ongoing changes and upgrades to search engine algorithms, blog writers are finding it harder to climb higher in search rankings to reach a larger audience. Newer search engines like “Bing” and newer social media trends have pressured bloggers to begin learning and employing SEO strategies to increase their presence. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO strategies help drive more traffic from search engine websites to your blog. Although it can seem challenging to learn, there are simple tips and tricks that can help gain a larger audience for your blog posts.
1. The Keyword Research
Keyword research is an old field for SEO, yet with every algorithm change the process of the research evolves or changes. With the latest Hummingbird changes from Google outlining that natural speech searching is where Google wants search to go, keyword research has become even more important. Since Google’s encryption of searches it is even more difficult to achieve natural keyword research. Since keywords from searches are not being passed to website owners and conversational searches are being done with more prevalence, targeting new types of keyword research tactics are required. Yet the tricks of the past are quickly becoming irrelevant for the process of the future. Instead of thinking about trending keywords, it is better to target the major ‘themes’ and ‘topics’ you want to pursue and start keyword research around those 2-3 topics. This should often include ‘long-tail’ keywords such as those that people tend to search for in a conversational style, such as “finding a great mover in New York City”, instead of just “movers”. By turning your long-tail keyword research into topics more effective SEO organic results will occur. Another option is to start interviewing your customers about what terms they are using when searching for your particular topic.
Visit your blog archive and try to find an post which is getting mediocre traffic to see if you can improve on the keywords for it.
2. The Post Length
The instant death knell for most content on the web is still considered the abhorrent ‘wall of text’. Anything over 5000 words should be considered for an e-book publication. Yet, varying your post lengths from 250 up to 5000 words is a great way to entice readers from basic writings, linking into more complex documents, or simply giving variety to your audience. By ensuring varying lengths, it ensures readers and search spiders are becoming bored with your content or medium.
For longer posts consider doing small improvements such as making a sub heading bold or italic which can also liven up the content on a web page. Website crawlers are beginning to view web pages as a human would, so the more interesting the better. Bullet points are another grammatical tool in SEO that can help to highlight the important topics without going into too much detail. Bullet points should only state facts or supporting evidence so the material is presented easily and quickly. Attributes such as these help accentuate your post usefulness, which will increase search engine traffic.
Do you see a high bounce rate for an article which is too short. Can you elaborate it, if you can just add more value to it for your user.
3. URLs are important
The future of SEO lies in establishing why your voice matters and supporting your cause with a concrete source. Adding a URL link to another helpful or widely known website reference will help establish authority on your website. Establishing authority gives your audience a reason to listen to you, and will help boost search rankings. Including alternative references that support or add meaning to your argument will increase your visibility by confirming your content as valid and authenticated. Google has advised that making URL link titles short are less suspicious for its web crawler bots and will decrease the chance of your post being confused with spam. Choose your URL’s wisely and make sure they are consistent with the point you are trying to make.
Can you find content where your point is not clarified enough? Add other references or urls to prove your point.
4. A Picture is worth a 1,000 words
The old adage is true with the increasing expansion of the Internet. Peer exchange websites such as “Youtube” and “vimeo” have allowed streaming video to become a part of most blog posts. Using a video or any multimedia content to further support a point will add dynamic interest to a blog post. Making a website more attractive using simplified media such as the new infographic tools, increases a websites visibility and ranking on most search engines. Infographic’s are predicted to be the trend of the 2014, offering concise information with bright colorful displays that are easy to read. Continuing with keeping it short and sweet, pictures can explain easily to readers what words can’t convey. Utilize pictures sparingly and tastefully to enhance your blog post voice and unique brand.
A picture in a blog post is not only thousand words but also few keywords for you and so if you have a post like this one without image, try adding one.
5. The Meta Tag / Data
Adding a simple line of code to a blog post can help increase visibility on some search engines. Yahoo for instance still utilizes the meta tag to help identify the type of content to be found on a website. Although Google insist meta tags will not help improve rankings on their search site, some blog posters may find this a useful tip for creating SEO friendly posts. Most search engines can generate the specific line of code to paste in your html source page that will be invisible to the public. Directly telling search robots what to do with your page will boost rankings immediately and count as organic ad text. Proper encoding techniques should be followed when tagging video or multimedia content to your page. Ensuring that the correct tags are associated with matching descriptions and titles further validates your content and livens the blog post.
Wasting too much time on Meta tags is not advisable but the articles that drive traffic from search engines can always be given few extra minutes to add meta keywords and description.
Final Thoughts
Current market trend experts are pointing to the future of increasing visibility. They say it lies in social media programs and strategies. Paying attention to expanding your audience through social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, combined with standardized SEO techniques will help increase visibility on search engine websites and provide higher rankings for years to come. While these techniques are new and unorthodox, they will ensure your voice not only will be heard, but also respected.