7 Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers

By Maurice Ondoy

As a writer and a beginner to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you have to comprehend that there is no magic approach to rank your site in Google, Bing or Yahoo’s primary page. These search engines are represented by complex algorithms and it requires a considerable measure of push to “persuade” them that your blog page or website merits one of the top spots. By and by, there are sure guidelines you can take after to optimize your website and give the bots the essential signals. Here are the top 7 tips for professional SEO article writers.

Tip Number 1. Keyword Research on, please. In case you’re going to post content on your site at any rate, you should take an ideal opportunity to ensure that search engines such as Google pays “appreciates” your effort. Discover different people’s way of searching phrases as well as keywords, and create a spreadsheet. Monitor how frequently you use the keywords in your web content, and utilize the right devices to track where you rank for the keywords you are targeting.

Tip Number 2. Let the keywords work. It’s insufficient to simply utilize the keywords in approximately 2- 3% of the web copy. In the title of the web content/article, you have to put the essential keyword and likewise in the first and last sentence. The keywords stand out to the search engine crawlers and in the readers’ eyes by doing this. Keep in mind that the people who are utilizing search engines are looking up specific phrases since they need to know more about the particular product or service before purchasing it, so it bodes well to give them what they’re searching for. The results? You’ll get more clicks — it’s one of the subtle strategies for expert SEO article authors.

Tip Number 3. Write article content that people will care about. No one is more knowledgeable of your business than you, so what sort of expert tips and advice do you have that you can share to your audience? If none, you can still talk about news that’s related to your business. If all else fails, take a gander at your SEO keyword list and see what sort of link bait, in-depth posts or lists you can work those keywords into. Try not to be reluctant to meeting a few number of experts, either. In the event that you cite them and highlight their proficiency in your posts, they are likely to share your written output through their social channels. By opening up these sorts of networking channels you can influence bigger systems and build the size of your own.

Want to learn more tips? Check out the next article.

13 Tips to Improve Search Engine Rankings

By Maurice Ondoy

Search engines are looking for the right combination of qualifications in order to give them first page rankings and we’re here to show to how to achieve that.

Tip 1.

What’s most important is that you write your posts specifically for the audience that you are targeting. While doing this it’s important to be mindful that you don’t compromise what the search engine algorithms need in order to find your content. What’s the point of having great SEO rankings if the content that you are writing doesn’t convert, right?

Tip 2.

Previously, keyword density had been a major factor that dictated whether your content would be able to reach the first page of search engines. Now, search engines such as Google, Bing  or Yahoo favor a specific density that differ from each other. Yes, it is significant to utilize keywords that are relevant to what your content is all about, however, keep in mind that you have to use those keywords naturally. Putting excessive keywords into sentences or paragraphs where they do not really belong is no good. It harms content entirely actually. Thus, in order for you to perfectly use this strategy, use the keywords and forget about the detailed predefined ratio.

Tip 3.

Utilize grammatical variations, synonyms as well as related keywords. Search engines such as Google use LSI or Latex Semantic Indexing to match the intentions of the individual doing the search from its search results. Using these three will give your content more relevance without using excess keywords. Moreover, this is also a very effective strategy to target different search queries.

Tip 4.

Write content that is top-quality, in-depth as well as long. Usually, results that are on the first ranking page of Google contain 2,000 words on average. Also, articles that get shared frequently are ones that are in-depth , so, write content that will provide real insight. Do not write longer content for the sake of just writing a long post, because it won’t help. Write longer because you have have expertise in the given subject and are able to go in depth while still keeping things concise.

Tip 5.

Utilize Long Tail strategy. Ranking “fat” and “big” keywords in search engines requires huge effort. Thus, long tail phrases have smaller search volumes and will also result in higher quality traffic to your website because the visitors are more motivated.

Tip 6.

Answer your prospects questions. Prospects will type questions into search engines if they want to know more about your products and services. Providing answers to all of their possible questions ahead of time will give your content more credibility, and in return, generate more visits to your site. Providing your prospects with better answers will help you win the competition, meaning they will buy from you. Also, answering questions is one great way of taking advantage of the long tail.

Tip 7.

Make sure that your content get noticed and they’re shared. Traffic and links are what you get when your content gets shared, and the more traffic you get, the more popular and relevant it will seem to search engines such as Google. Make an effort to get your content noticed — – via relevant blogs, forums, newsletters, influencers and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn among others.

Tip 8.

Set up your Google + profile, add your authorship markup, form your content ownership, build AuthorRank, be active. Following these steps will help boost the authority of the content that you produce — – regardless of where they get posted.

Tip 9.

Do not forget title tags and snippets. In categorizing individual web pages, Google looks at the title tag. Furthermore, in the SERPs, “snippet” (Meta description) and title tag combination is what your prospects will be going to see. Including keywords and making natural tag and snippet combinations will motivate your prospects to click. CTR, or Click-through Rate, is definitely a ranking factor and the more clicks that you get from the SERPs, the better the outcome.

Tip 10.

Never engage in Keyword Stuffing. Use keywords where they might appear natural. As mentioned above, keyword stuffing does more damage than help when it comes to helping you rank up on Google. Make your content appear natural as much as possible.

Tip 11.

Link text over optimization is a no-no. This used to be an effective technique in improving rankings, but Google has become aware of these “link schemes” and they will penalize you if you do this. Keep it natural with naked URLs, long tail phrases and branded URLs.

Tip 12.

Keep in mind the ALT text in your images. Today, images seem to play a bigger role in helping your content or website in general rank up on search engines. A great idea is to use original but relevant images, and include keywords in its ALT text. Use the copy from the title tag as your image’s ALT text. For Google to be able to “read” it, keep it snappy and short. Furthermore, including a keyword that is relevant to the image is also a good idea.

Tip 13.

For inspiration purposes, utilize Google Suggest and ubersuggest.com to find and combine additional keywords, and Google trends to see changes in the search behavior as well as its seasonal spikes.

10 Social Media SEO Tips for Small Businesses

SEO Part 2 of 2

SEO

6. Make content shareable

When you create content that people like to share, you are building more inbound links. This content is not just your blog posts. It can also be Facebook status updates, tweets, photos, videos, infographics and everything in between. The more people are engaging with your content, the more authority you are going to create within your social platforms. Quality content brings more shares as well as more links, as a result, increasing your SEO value.

7. Optimize images

Add compelling images to your article. These images surely sell your content, making people read and share your content as well. Just ensure that your images are relevant and it shouldn’t have copyright issues. Some of the best websites where you can get beautiful images include Pixabay, Google Advanced Image Search, and Shutterstock. For optimal results, do not forget to include keywords in the image alt URL, tags, as well as in anchor text to make it easier for search engines.

8. Build Google Author Rank

Google allows the content author to associate his or her content with their Google+ profiles. This ensures that their Google+ profiles and account are linked in search engine results, which is vital for establishing credibility for your content. Not only does it drive recognition, it also builds trust with your audience.

9. Improve engagement in Twitter and Facebook

 Use hashtags to be able to increase engagement level

 Engage with your fans as well as followers

 Respond to comments, questions and compliments regularly

 Keep your content fresh and interesting

 Avoid bombarding your social page with advertisements

10. Create Google+ Local listing

Most consumers do search for local businesses online. It would be your loss if people cannot find you online, so it is very much of a need that you optimize your list in Google+ Local. You just have to make sure to keep all your information as well as the details about your business updated, such as your address, contact number, email, working hours, etc.

Bottom line

When we are going to discuss contents that are SEO-friendly, we mean these are the contents that can be effortlessly grasped via search engines. The more they can grasp about your page, the greater chances of accomplishing better rankings in their indexed lists. Now, the question is, are you interested in boosting your social media SEO?

The Keys to the SEO Kingdom

SEO

There are many factors that matter when boosting SEO on your site, but as always, some are more important than others.

 

Search Engine Optimization or SEO in short is a term that encapsulates everything you need to do to improve your web site’s ranking position in the various search engines. This includes configuration settings you have to apply on the website (that’s on page SEO) and techniques you can use outside the boundaries of the website (that’s off page SEO).

Is on-page SEO more important than off-page SEO?

To achieve maximum exposure in the search engines and keep your users happy you need both off-page SEO and on-page SEO. In my opinion on page SEO is more important and I will explain below why.

1) ‘Speak’ the search engines language: It makes more sense to start with on-page SEO and get it right rather than trying to convince search engines to give you better ranking with off page SEO. Search engines are computer programs (software) and they understand a particular language. With SEO and especially on page SEO you ‘speak’ their language and your goal is to help them understand what you website is about. In other words the more signals you can give them, the more are your chances of achieving better rankings.

2) On Page SEO is about the user as well: Never forget that your primary target is to keep your users happy. Off Page SEO may bring traffic to the website but if it is not setup correctly, if it is not user friendly the results will be disappointing.

3) Many websites get it wrong: It’s amazing but it is true that the majority of websites today are not optimized for search engines. Despite the plethora of information about SEO many website owners believe that it does not worth to even do SEO and they quit before starting. For those cases on-page SEO has a lot to offer both in terms of usability but in terms of traffic as well.

4) On Page SEO is sometimes all you need: If you are running a website for a small business and you need to get local customers searching for various terms on Google then on page SEO is all you need to do.

5) Off page SEO comes after on page SEO: In order to start thinking on how you can promote your website you need to be sure that the website is optimized and in good condition. So the first step is to work with on-site SEO first and then go off-site.

5 on page SEO techniques for better rankings

Now that the theory about SEO and importance of on-page SEO is justified, let’s move on to the practical part.

There are many on page SEO techniques and not only 5, but for the purpose of this post I will explain below what I think are the absolute settings you have to apply on your website today.  I strongly suggest that you also read (links will open in a new window):

1. Content comes first

A website with brilliant content can do great with or without SEO, a website with bad content will not survive with or without SEO, a website with good content can become even better with SEO!

So, what is considered good content?

Original Content (articles, text, images, videos, presentations, infographics, comments etc.) – No copies or re-writes of existing articles

Content published on your website first – Even if it’s your own content, if you have already published it on another website then it’s not good for your site.

Content that includes text as well – Try to have text to accompany your non-text content. For example if you post videos on your website try to add a text description as well. If you add images try to describe in words what the image is all about.

Content that is useful – Don’t publish content for the sake of publishing. Before hitting the publish button make sure that what goes live adds value to your website.

Content that is well researched – Users don’t want to read quickly prepared posts and neither does search engines. If you are writing about a certain topic or answering a question make sure that what you write is justified and covers both sites of a story. Long articles are proven to rank better than short articles.

Posting frequency – 2 things are important when it comes to posting frequency. First is to have fresh content on your website and second to establish a publishing strategyand stick to it.

2. Page titles, description and formatting

This is SEO 101 but very important as well. When search engines are reading your pages among the things they check includes the page title, the description of the page, the major headings and images. They do so because they need to understand what the page is all about and then based on other factors as well (off page SEO, domain authority, competition etc.), they will place your page in a position in their index.

Page titles – Each page must have a unique title that will help both search engines and users understand what the page is about. A page with title “On Page SEO Tips” is better than a page with title “index.html”.

Descriptions – The page description is what the searcher will see in the search engine results page. So it has to be descriptive, up to 150 characters and unique for each page. It’s your opportunity to advertise your page and convince the searcher to click your link and visit your website rather than selecting one of the other links.

Formatting – A page needs to be properly formatted. Think of it like a report which needs to have a heading (h1) and sub headings (h2). Important parts of the report are highlighted with bold, underline or italics.

Do not just throw text on the page but make sure that it is readable as well. Besides the formatting practices explained above you also need to use a good size font (at least 12px) and split the text into small paragraphs (max 4-5 lines).

Images – Images are important but these should not increase the loading time of the website. Best practices for using images:

1) Use original images. If you need to use an existing image from the web you need to reference the source.

2) Optimise the size of the images – the smaller the size (in bytes) of the image the better. Use yahoo smush it to reduce the size of an image without sacrificing the quality.

3) Use ALT tag to describe the image – This helps search engines understand what the image is about.

4) Use descriptive filenames – Don’t just name your image ‘image1.jpg’ but try to use descriptive filenames, for example ‘Man doing push-ups’.

5) Use a Content Delivery Network – If you have a lot of images in a single page you can use a CDN service (from Amazon or Google) that will make your page load faster. In simple terms your images will be hosted and served by a number of servers and this speeds up the loading process.

You can also read my seo tips for beginners article for more examples of optimized titles and descriptions and for best practices about the use of images.

3. URL Structure

The URL structure is an important part of on-page SEO. Whenever I talk about URL structure, I prefer to split it into 4 major parts:

1) Permanent links – Permanent links are the URL’s of each page. Good URLs should be less than 255 characters and use hyphens to ‘-‘separate the different parts.

2) Categories – Group your pages into categories to help users and search engines find what they want faster. It’s like having a warehouse with lots of uncategorised items versus a warehouse with all the items assigned to a dedicated category. You can have sub-categories as well but my advice is not to go over one level. For example a good category structure is:

Reliablesoft > Social Media > Facebook and not Reliablesoft > Social Media > Facebook > Tips

3) Breadcrumb – A breadcrumb is also important for all your pages because it allows users to navigate your website in a structured way since they always know where they are and how deep below the home page.

4) User Sitemap – One of your options in the main menu should be the User Sitemap. This is an html file that represents the structure of your website.

4. Internal linking

Linking to pages within your website is very important for SEO because:

1) It’s like building your own web: If you watch the nice tutorial by Google on how search works, you will see that the first step a search engine spider will do is follow the links they find. So when they arrive at your page, if you don’t have any other links within the text they will read your page and go but if you have links pointing to other pages within your website they will take those into account as well.

2) It’s a way to let search engines know about your other pages: As explained above when search engines find a page with links, they will go and read those pages as well so you can use this technique to tell search engines about pages of your website they have not yet discovered.

3) It’s a way to tell search engines which are your most important pages: Every website has some pages that are more important than others. Internal linking is one of the ways to pin-point the most important pages by sending them more internal links.

4) It’s a way to increase time on site – A user that is reading your post is more likely to click on a link to read more about a certain subject and thus increase both the time spend on your website and the number of pages per visit.

Best practices for internal linking:

1) Don’t use keywords only for your internal links

2) Add internal links when they are useful for your reader

3) No more than 7-8 internal links per page (this is my opinion and not based on any research or studies)

4) If applicable you can also use ‘related posts’ at the end of each post for internal linking

5. Speed and authorship

Last but not least, 2 SEO techniques that are becoming more and more important especially after the release of penguin 2.0 (or 4.0 as some people like to say it): Speed and authorship.

Speed: Google is investing a huge amount of money to make the web faster. In every Google I/O someone will talk about the importance of speed and their desire to include the fastest websites in their index. In order to ‘force’ web site owners to take speed into account they have officially added speed as one of the ranking factors.

So, we know for sure that web site speed does matter when it comes to SEO and ranking. As a webmaster your job is to make sure that your website loads as fast as possible by taking into account Google’s recommendations.

Google authorship: Google is preparing for the next generation of Search and their effort is to rank higher webpages written by people who have authority on the particular subject. One of the ways to establish authority is by correlating the content you publish on the web with your Google+ profile. Then depending on how many followers you have and who follows you, your ranking may change.

Google authorship is still at its early stages but it’s gaining ground fast so you have to create a Google+ profile and bind the profile with your content.