Nearly all market already know the reality about corporate budgeting: the promotion budget is always the first to get reduced. No one dislikes any more than you do. However, as consumers begin to spend more time online, reducing the digital marketing budget isn’t a good idea.

Regardless of the online marketing strategies, you have implemented, or you plan to, none of them will ever be complicated and multifaceted as the search engine optimization strategy. PPC (pay-per-click) might promise instant traffic and quick conversions. Social media is an excellent way of keeping your audience engaged. However, SEO lays the right foundation for an exceptional online presence.

Whether you know what is SEO or not, you need a solid SEO strategy in place to succeed in online marketing. As such, this marketing strategy is worth the investment. Here is why.

SEO is going to be around for a very long time

As long as search engines are alive, so too will SEO, regardless of how many times Google modifies its algorithm. A Post published on Moz makes it clear that SEO will never die as long as different sites continue to compete for placement in the search engines and the skilled and knowledgeable website owners enjoy the benefits of getting their sites rank better. Every site owner or digital marketer wants to enjoy the benefits of ranking high (traffic and visibility). As long as sites are ranked based on certain factors, the SEO concept will always be relevant.

It brings tangible results

There are many pages of SERPs that clearly demonstrate how much competition you are likely to face in getting your company website rank on the first results page. A study conducted by the Chitika, an online advertising network, about 95% of organic traffic is lost by the time you check page two results in SERPs. That implies that the top page offers the most visibility, and that means more users are likely to click through to your site.

Local SEO Helps Small Businesses Compete in Search

When you look at SEO as a whole, it’s a very competitive space to be in. For example, just look at the fact that there are now more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today — all of which are creating new content daily. This means it’s getting harder and harder to rank for not just generic and competitive search terms, but pretty much everything.

One area where SEO is still a small business’ friend is through local organic search rankings. A perfect example of this can be seen with any smaller contractor, service, or localized mom and pop businesses.

This useful plumber SEO guide is a perfect resource and example for the many different ways to promote and reach new audiences online with a small or localized business. By using state, city, and zip codes within your content creation and link building efforts, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to rank higher in Google, while also reaching your target market in the process.

Add some remarketing into the process, and you might just see a massive increase in ROI and traffic in no time.

It is a cost-effective marketing strategy

Though the initial cost of SEO might be high, and probably you might get a negative ROI for the first month or two, over time, the benefits of search engine optimization will outweigh the costs. A report released by SEMPO revealed that 11 percent of marketing cash is spent on SEO and about 87 percent is spent on PPC. Understanding that SEO is associated with lower CPA (cost per acquisition), as you no longer need to pay for cost acquisition, it makes sense to invest in search engine marketing.

This doesn’t mean that you should flush your PPC marketing campaign down the toilet. Both PPC and SEO are complimentary marketing strategies. SEO happens to be the most cost-effective channel you can invest in, particularly if you are looking for lasting results.

The overall number of searches is growing fast

On average, internet users in the United States conduct more than 12 billion searches monthly, according to a report from Comscore. Well, combine that number with the outstanding fact that the first five sear results on the first search page account for about 67.6 percent of all clicks (according to Moz). You will begin realizing how everything adds up, and don’t forget that these numbers are likely to continue growing. Without SEO, your customers will never find you online. Actually, you will be driving them to the doorsteps of your competitors.

…and your competition is catching up

Well, you can spend thousands or millions of dollars on email marketing and paid adverts. However, in the end, if you are not taking the right initiative to enhance your search position, you are at risk of falling miles behind your competitors. Search engine optimization is like a treadmill: the moment you stop running, you simply get flung off. That means if you stop optimizing your website for search engines, your competitors will always pursue their optimization goals and surpass you.

Wrap up

If you intend to roll up your sleeves and get dirty with SEO, first you need to understand everything that’s going on. Learn the basics of SEO and how it is likely to impact your business.

Nobody likes getting spammed, yet there are more than 14.5 billion spam emails sent every day.

That accounts for a whopping 45% of all the emails sent worldwide!

Spamming doesn’t only apply for emails, but also for websites. For example, your spam scoring determines how well you rank in search engine result pages and whether your website is seen well by Google or not.

Certain websites are considered to be spammy based on various factors and flags.

But what exactly is spam and why should you care about it?

Let’s find out in this article.

Spam Scoring Explained

There are various ways you can rank a website.

You can use the Alexa ranking system, Google Page Rank, Moz rank, etc.

Spam is considered to be an unsolicited and irrelevant message used online. Certain backlinks can also be considered to be spammy if they come from websites with a bad reputation on the internet.

Spam is also used for fraudulent activities such as identity theft. It is estimated that the annual cost to productivity caused by spam is around $20 billion.

Each website is checked for various flags or signs which indicate spam content.

For example, Moz has released a ranking system for websites which contains 17 different flags for spam.

If a website has many spam flags, its spam scoring is considered to be high and vice-versa.

This metric system helps website owners keep track of their subdomains, individual pages, and backlinks. By monitoring spam on your website, you avoid getting penalized by Google or other search engines.

Site Accessibility and Mobile Viewing

In addition to a site getting flagged for spam, it can also be triggered for bad browsing capability and user navigation outside of traditional desktop usage. With mobile usage now on the rise like never before, Google is putting huge weight into this area for sites of all types. Take a quick look at some of the global mobile usage stats below.

• 71% of users visited a retailer website or used a retailer app
• 64% of users conducted a search on a search engine
• 42% visited a non-retailer website or used a non-retailer app
• 41% visited a store or other location
• 23% looked at images or photos online

To learn more about these stats and how you can improve your mobile usage and engagement, you can refer to this mobile SEO optimization guide. This resource not only dives deeper into what you need to know about mobile usage and keeping your site up to date to avoid Google penalties and spam score, but also how to improve your on-site and off-site SEO to rank above the competition.

How Web Site Spam Scoring Works

Spam scores are easy to determine. They use the Moz Index to check for flags for each subdomain.

When flags are found, they are added to the score. The spam score is cumulative, so the higher the number of flags found, the higher the spam scoring.

• For example, sites with 4 flags have a 7.5% spam probability.
• Sites with 7 flags have an approximately 30% spam probability.
• Sites with 13 or more flags have an almost 100% spam probability.

If your website triggers a few spam flags, it’s not a very big deal. You should be worried when more than 7-8 flags are detected as this can make Google label your website as spam.

It’s important to mention that spam scoring focuses on subdomains only. The root domains are not taken into account.

The spam score takes other factors into account such as external links, the location of the top-level domain, etc.

Let’s take a look at some of the flags checked by the Moz Index system.

Spam Score Flags

These flags can be divided into two categories such as link flags and on-page flags. There are other signals on top of these 17 flags that might contribute to the spam scoring of a website.

#1 – Site with multiple pages but a few links

It is not normal for a large website to have very few links pointing to it (backlinks).

This means that the site content isn’t extremely valuable and Google will eventually rank it lower in search engine result pages.

#2 – Few number of branded links

If a site has a few branded links or branded keywords in its content then it might trigger a spam flag.

Google and other search engines look for anchor text links containing branded keywords. If the total number of branded links is low, that might cause an increase in the spam score.

#3 – Low score on MozTrust and MozRank

These are independent metrics released by Moz.

If a site scores low on these two metrics, it might trigger a spam flag and have its spam scoring increased.

This usually happens for websites with poor-quality content or bad on-site SEO.

#4 – Low number of internal links

An internal link points to a page on the same website.

Internal linking is good for SEO and also helps readers find more information related to the same subject.

If a website has few internal links, this might increase the spam score.

#5 – A high number of external links

Each website must point out to other websites.

However, when Google discovers that there are simply too many external links on a website, this might result in a spam flag.

The spam signal is more evident when the ratio of external links to internal links is abnormal (too many external links compared to internal links).

#6 – Poor-quality content

Google loves websites with valuable, diversified content.

If the content of a website seems duplicated, automatically generated or looks like scraped content, this can trigger a spam flag and the site might be penalized.

#7 – Contact details are missing

All high-quality websites have their contact details prominently displayed on the front page or in a “contact” page.

This helps to build trust with the customers and make it easier to get in touch via phone or email.

Sites with no contact info displayed are considered spammy by search engines and their spam scoring will be high.

#8 – Sites with long domain names

It is not a good idea to have a website like “www.getthebestgamesonlinecheapprices.com”

This is a surefire way to have your website penalized for spam.

It’s called keyword stuffing and Google doesn’t like it anymore, so if you create a website, stick with short and sweet domain names.

#9 – Low number of pages

There must be a correlation between the age of a website and its total number of pages.

For example, a 5-year old website with just 4 pages indicates that the website hasn’t been updated in a long time.

Similarly, a very high number of pages isn’t much appreciated either, so try to be somewhere in between.

#10 – Too much anchor text

The anchor text represents the actual words which redirect you to an external link when you click on them.

It is normal for every web page to have some anchor texts. However, if the page is stuffed with links (25 or more) then this is might trigger a spam flag.

Other Signals For Spam

There are other signals used by the research team at Moz to check for spam.

These signals act as spam flags and they can increase or decrease the spam scoring. Let’s take a look at them:

#11 – A domain name with numerals

Websites such as “www.catfood123.com” are not seen well by Google. Numerals are not required in a domain name and they usually indicate a spammy website.

#12 – Not having an SSL certificate

SSL certificates are a must-have these days.

They ensure that the information entered through the site is encrypted and protected against theft.

A site with an SSL certificated begins with “https://”. A site without it begins with “http://”.

Not having an SSL certificate can be seen as a spam flag, so make sure you always have one on your website to avoid being penalized by Google.

#13 – Titles too long or too short

The title of your web page is very important.

It should convey what’s the page or blog post about and provide interesting information to entice visitors to read more.

Pages with very long titles are considered spammy. So are those with titles made from just a few words.

#14 – Not having a favicon

A favicon is also known as the browser icon of a website.

It is displayed next to the website name on each browser tab. Not having a favicon is usually seen as a spam signal. All trustworthy sites have a favicon and should your website.

#15 – Hyphens in the domain name

Websites such as “www.cheap-cat-food.com” are not seen with good eyes by Google.

Having one or more hyphens in the domain name is usually associated with spammy websites and it should be avoided at all costs.

Reasons To Check the Spam Score

Having a clean website is paramount for the success of your online business.

Checking the spam scoring regularly helps you stay on top of your spam backlinks and avoid a penalization from Google.

Here are a few reasons why you should do it:

1. Prevent bad links from dragging your website down

Each website will eventually have a few spammy backlinks pointing to it. You should run a spam check to see how much weight these bad backlinks carry and which one you should eliminate.

2. See how many spam flags are found on your website

It’s great to know if you are about to be penalized by Google or not.

By running a spam check, you can discover spam flags or signals you previously didn’t know about.

This gives you a clear picture of what to work next to improve your website.

3. Build a better relationship with your customers

Remember that everyone hates spam!

If potential clients look up your website and discover that it has a high spam scoring, they might not want to do business with you.

By keeping your spam score down and trying to optimize your website or blog, you can build a trustworthy relationship with your clients.

Conclusion

Knowing more about spam and spam scoring helps you become a better website owner. You can check your subdomains or individual pages and make tweaks to reduce your spam score.

To extend your knowledge about spam, feel free to also check out our article on eliminating spam comments on WordPress!

The average base salary for an SEO copywriter is more than $60,000.

While that’s not a bad paycheck for any career, when you consider that many copywriters work from their laptop while lounging at home or traveling the world, that number sounds even better.

But launching a career as an SEO copywriter is intimidating.

If you’re thinking about a job change, keep reading to learn the basics of what you need to know to become an SEO copywriter.

In-depth Knowledge of SEO Strategies

If you want to be an SEO copywriter, the first thing you need to do is learn everything you can about SEO strategies. And there are a lot of them!

You’ll not only want to learn the best SEO strategies for boosting your clients’ websites, but you’ll also want to learn what strategies can hurt a site’s ranking. This will help prepare you to educate your clients if they request strategies that you know could have the opposite effect you’re going for.

You’ll find an endless number of resources on the web to help you learn all things SEO. If you don’t have any prior web marketing experience, you might want to consider enrolling in a course to help you master the basics first.

Stellar Writing Skills

While SEO strategies are important, if your writing isn’t top-notch, you won’t last long as a copywriter.

Improving your writing, editing, and grammar skills are a must if you want to land clients and then keep them coming back for more.

Constantly Staying Up-to-date on Algorithm Changes

Simply learning SEO and then getting to work will only get you so far.

In fact, it will only get you as far as the next algorithm update.

Search engines use complicated algorithms to determine where websites should rank. These algorithms are constantly being updated to help these search engines stay ahead of schemers looking to rank their poor quality sites.

The ultimate goal of each update is to deliver the best possible results for any given web search. Unfortunately for you as an SEO copywriter, the strategies you were using one day to help your clients stay in the top results could actually hurt your clients’ rankings after an algorithm change.

Staying up-to-date on algorithm changes and what SEO strategies are best at any given time is a must if you want to be successful as an SEO copywriter.

Find Copywriting Jobs

Before you can officially call yourself an SEO copywriter, you’re going to have to land your first job.

Without a lot of experience under your belt, cold calling clients aren’t likely to land you your first job.

Instead, it’s best to seek out copywriting job boards or an article writing service that can help connect you with your first client. These job boards often test your skills for eligibility, rather than relying solely on a resume.

Launching a Career as an SEO Copywriter

Launching a career as an SEO copywriter is a great opportunity to put your writing skills to work in a demanding industry. Once you’ve learned what you need to know and started building your resume, you’ll find plenty of job openings and a rewarding career that gives you the freedom you crave.

One great way to build a writing portfolio to launch your new career is to start your own blog to showcase your skills. Click here to learn everything you need to know to do just that.

Did you know that the average website gets fewer than 20 visits a month? Some of these sites were meant to be shared with a small number of clients, but many were made by aspiring bloggers that can’t get them off the ground.

We live in a generation that is fast paced and innovative. With many businesses popping up rapidly, it is important for them to stand out. And one of the best ways to do that is through following some best strategies and campaigns for SEO optimization. However, SEO is getting harder and harder every year.

According to one study from Ahrefs, 91% of all content on the Internet doesn’t get any traffic from Google.  You are going to need to have some other strategies in place to get more traffic to your website.

With the help of these strategies, you will have an idea on how to get traffic that helps you generate more revenue.

Email Marketing

One of the easiest ways to get traffic is email marketing. Some of you may think that this technique may be outdated, but it still holds a lot of impacts. Not only is it cost effective but it also has a good return on investment (ROI).

If you are a start-up, then this type of marketing is very efficient. When compared to the other types of marketing campaigns and strategies, this type of marketing has four times higher ROI.

Though it holds a lot of power, a lot of people need to know how to get a hang of it. Once you have it under control, Email marketing is one type of strategy you will not regret working on.

Social Media Marketing

More than half the population of the world is on social media. There are quite a few people who run their business with the help of these social media such as Instagram, Facebook, etc. Since almost everyone uses social media, it has become one of the most important digital marketing tools. This is mainly because all the companies will get the exposure that they require, and it also works as a great platform for studying and researching.

And if you are a start-up, then social media marketing is one of the best ways to go about improving your business. The benefits that you will have more people visiting your website, help you in getting loyal customers, increase in sales, and helps in generating new leads. Even though many people go about using social media marketing, they end up making a lot of fatal mistakes. However, these mistakes can be avoided. Such as choosing the right social media platform, and choosing a strategy. This can also be made easy by hiring a digital marketing consultant who will give you insight on how to do marketing as well as help you maintain records of your work.

Google AdWords (Pay-Per-Click Marketing)

A marketing strategy that makes use of the search engines to make people come to your website is the Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. PPC is an effectual marketing tool to produce sales-ready leads in a short span.

If you are a start-up then you should not ignore the pay-per-click marketing strategy.

It has quite a few practical advantages, such as:

• Reaching your customers with the perfect advertisement at a precise time.
• You will have a high ROI. This is because you will need to pay when an interested person clicks on the advertisement.
• You can control how much you want to spend and you do not have to wait for results.
• The insights and data will help in sharpening the other marketing strategies.

These campaigns must be expertly handled as they tend to be slightly heavy on your budget. But there is no need to worry as there are special engineers to take care of that.

Search Engine Optimization

You might think that having an impressive design means that more visitors will come to your page.  Unfortunately, this is not the case. Aesthetics play almost no role in search engine rankings.

There might be hundreds of websites in your niche alone. If you want to stand out, then you need to identify keywords that are relevant to your business and start ranking for them.

Search engine optimization not only builds trust but it also increases the number of visitors to your website. The higher your website ranks for the keywords that your customer is searching for, the more reputed your business becomes. It will also generate a lot more traffic. An estimated 92% of all search engine traffic goes to listings on the front page. You will notice a huge jump in traffic if you start to rank higher. Hence developing a sort of trust. Following SEO practices will ensure that your company will fare well. You can also hire a good SEO company to help make this happen.

Content Marketing

Irrespective of whether you are a start-up or a full-fledged business owner, content marketing is something you definitely need in your business. This is applicable to both business to business (B2B) and business to client bloggers (B2C). Content marketing is effective because you can create a strategy that will help in dealing with the buyer’s problems. Making it understandable and easy for them. This will eventually build conversation rates and trust.

If you are a start-up you have certain advantages such as:

• You can increase your brand’s visibility.
• You can build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
• Lift your brand’s recognition and awareness, followed by credibility and authority.
• It also supports your SEO and SMO efforts by posting content that will attract people’s attention.
• One thing you should know is that the results are usually not that quick, it will take time to generate the desired response. But the impact that it will create is long lasting.

With the help of these strategies, you can make your business reach heights with an ease of mind.

Choose the Best Traffic Sources for Your Blog

Focusing on the right traffic sources can go a long way towards monetizing your blog. You will want to choose your traffic sources carefully and make sure you focus on them.

If you’ve been around digital marketing for a hot minute, you remember the day Google released their Panda update and crowned Content as the new King of online marketing.

And if you weren’t there, you have definitely heard the Content Is King phrase at least once.

However, back in 2012, when YouTubers weren’t mega-stars and YouTube itself was still a toddler, most “content” referred to written content.

Times, they are changing – and these days, studies show that more than 500 million hours of videos are watched every day (on YouTube alone!). Even more, 87% of digital marketers use video content to amplify their efforts.

Sure, there’s a lot of video content and a lot of it is watched.

But does that make video content an actual Search Engine Optimization ranking factor?

We have plunged into the topic for you – so read on if you want to find out more.

Is Video an Actual Ranking Factor?

Back in the day, ranking factors used to be more or less clear – but as soon as Google algorithm updates started to pour in, these factors also started to change. Sometimes, ranking factor differences between one update and the other are hardly noticeable. Other times, they only target specific types of sites (e.g. Google Medic targeted medicine-related websites). And other times, these ranking factors can change overnight (such as in the case of the then-dreaded Mobileggedon, in 2015).

Officially, there is no clear information to show that videos are an actual ranking factor (such as in the case of spammy links, for example, where the ranking factor has been established for years and it stuck with the algorithm throughout all the following updates).

However, this doesn’t mean you should not consider videos (or even worse, label them as useless from an SEO point of view). And here is why:

• There are industry studies showing a strong relationship between videos and content that ranks higher on the search engines. Like this study, for example.
• A video is approximately 50 (!!!) times more likely to pop in the Search Engine Results Page than a normal web page.
• A blog post that includes at least one video is more likely to be naturally shared, giving you the opportunity to build more backlinks organically, with no extra effort put into this.
• Videos can decrease the Bounce Rate because they capture your users’ attention for a larger amount of time than written content does. This might be related to the fact that most people can find some sort of emotional connection in videos, or it might simply be related to the fact that the attention span of an average internet user stops at around eight seconds.

No, videos might not be an actual, Google-confirmed ranking factor. But they can be a complete game changer for pretty much anyone doing online marketing (which, at this point in time, should be pretty much everyone).  Regardless of whether you are an educational institution or a business, including videos in your entire content marketing strategy will benefit you from at least one point of view.

How Do You make Videos that Actually Rank High?

Video marketing might not (officially or directly) affect your site’s SEO.

But it does have a huge influence (as shown in the previous part of this article).

The higher your video ranks, the more likely it is that it will have a positive impact on your site’s ranking.

But what are the ranking factors for videos and how do you “make it”, given the staggering amount of video content produced every day?

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Create genuinely qualitative video content. Tossing some photos in a slideshow with a royalty-free musical piece on the background might have semi-worked in 2008. But given how much video content is produced these days and what a high-quality it has (both from the videography and from the actual content-related point of view), it is of the utmost importance to create video content that looks great and offers excellent information.

The great news about this is that it’s also easier than ever to gain access to this kind of video content. For instance, Renderforest is an AI and machine learning-based automated video creation tool that allows anyone to create videos that are eye-catchy and entertaining. Basically, you just have to select the template you want and let the tool do its job.

2. Optimize your content for YouTube. Google and Youtube rank videos differently, so if you want to post your content on your YouTube channel (and then embed it in your written content on the site), you will first have to make sure your YouTube video is fully optimized. Some of the ranking factors include:

• • Brand your videos (not necessarily a ranking factor as a way to make sure people associate your videos with your brand – and that your videos aren’t simply stolen and re-posted as plagiarism);
  • Include a customized thumbnail;
  • Create a SEO-friendly YouTube description for each video;
  • Create an SEO-friendly title for your YouTube description;
  • Choose the right keywords and categories in YouTube;
  • Create videos that are long enough to provide information and entertainment, but not long enough to become boring (a short video should be of about 2 minutes and a long one between 7 and 10 minutes);
  • Be recurrent in your video marketing efforts (posting one video now and another one next year will not yield the results you are looking for).

3. Share your videos. Make your channel known, make your video style known. Share your video content on all of your social media channels and embed them in as many blog posts as you can (both those that go on your site and those you submit as guest posts to other sites).

4. Embed videos in your content. If you have embedded your videos in the core content of your site, make sure to create a video index and submit it to Google Webmaster. This might not help with ranking the videos higher per se, but it will help Google determine what your site is all about and rank it accordingly.

Video marketing can change everything for you and your business. Aside from the positive influence it can have on your SEO efforts, video content can also bring users closer to you. It can help you create a closer connection to your customers. It can help you understand them better – and help them understand you better as well.

Video marketing can push your business towards new heights!

Efficient SEO for blog posts can help you feature in the prized first page on Google. Here are some ways you can make that happen!

Can you guess how many blogs there are on the internet currently? Take a guess!

Let me give you an idea:

As of October, Tumblr, a microblogging website and social media platform, had more than 165.5 billion posts. And the social network just accounts for less than two percent of social media website visits in the United States. You can now imagine the total number of blogs on the internet!

If you are a blogger, life’s tough! With more and more blogs being created and published each day, you need to do something amazing each time you create a blog post if you want to be at the top of search engine results and increase traffic to your blog.

Getting on that prized first page of Google is any blogger’s dream come true. But how do you get there?

See: How To Find Early Readers For Your New Blog

This is where Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, comes in.  

SEO for Blog Posts

For Google, ‘relevance’ and ‘intent’ hold the key. When the user searches for an answer on Google, they expect it in the first few pages of the search results. These Google search results are likely to get more clicks and drive more web traffic.

As a blogger, your goal is to provide relevant answers to people’s questions. You want to help solve problems and build trust. But before all of this, you need to make sure that your blog becomes visible on the first page results with a high search engine ranking. After all, a very high-quality blog hiding on Google’s third page is of no value to anyone.    

You can boost your chances of ranking by doing effective SEO for blog posts. Here are 9 SEO tips for bloggers:   

Do Keyword Research for Every Blog Post

Before starting to write any blog, it is essential that you spend some time doing keyword research. The idea is to have insights about what your target audience is thinking about and the keyword phrases they are using to find that information.

One of the free tools for keyword research is Google’s Keyword Planner. It tells you relevant details about popular local search as well as search queries around the world. It can also inform you how often people search for specific keywords.

It is a good idea to have one primary SEO keyword and a few secondary keywords for a blog post. However, make sure that you are only naturally using your keyword. You do not want to be guilty of keyword stuffing because too much keyword density may throw off your readers. What’s more, Google uses Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) that helps it identify the content’s context and synonyms related to a particular keyword, so you don’t need to use exact keywords everytime.      

Do Not Miss to Score with Long-Tailed Keywords

Long-tailed keywords are highly specific search phrases. They have low competition and low search volume. Let me give you an example:

Say, you sell cars. A relevant keyword would be ‘Cars for Sale’. However, users sometimes do not search that way. They might type ‘Buy Maruti Suzuki Ciaz Facelift’. Now, this is very specific and shows that user has intent to buy a particular car type.

While ranking for a generally good keyword (Cars for Sale) can be very difficult, you cannot miss out on a high intent keyword (Buy Maruti Suzuki Ciaz Facelift). Searchers looking for these kinds of long-tailed keywords are more likely to read your blog and seek more information from you.  

Make Your Content Engaging

For visitors to keep coming to Google and not other search engines, it has to ensure that it is providing value to them. This means that it always has to rank the most relevant content – content that solves user’s problem first. It would not be wrong to say that it is in Google’s self-interest to promote good content at the top.  

This is why creating engaging, high-quality content has become all the more important. Lower bounce rate of a page helps its search engine rankings. Surely, if fewer people immediately leave or bounce off your page, it tells Google that your page is indeed providing value.

Here are some tips to help make your content more engaging:

• Writer shorter sentences,
• Break longer paragraphs into shorter ones,
• Add images and videos.

Optimize Meta Description

Meta description is the short, additional text that appears below the SERPs. It tells the reader what the link is about and whether it is the content they are looking for.

Not only should your meta description be clear, it should also contain the regular or long-tailed keyword that you are trying to rank on. This particular term will get bolded in the meta description to help users learn if the content matches the intent.

Google displays around 300 characters in the meta description field. Make sure you make the most of this space.

Optimize Images’ Alt Text

As mentioned above, you should make your blog pleasing by adding images in it. Since search engines cannot see the images the way we do, the image’s alt text helps them understand what the image is about.

Your alt text helps enhance the user experience and hence, Google is more likely to favor your blog when it has the alt text. It occurs when the image cannot display and is also very helpful for people who are using screen readers. What’s more, it’s another opportunity for you to slip through a keyword. Just take out a few minutes to add a short description in the image tag in HTML.      

Use Fast and Reliable Hosting

Since the speed of your website determines user experience, page speed or page load time is a critical SEO factor. People do care about the speed and therefore, Google does too.

To ensure good website speed, you need a fast and reliable web hosting service. Many people ignore the importance of good web hosting and choose an inexpensive one. This is surely not a good practice.

We’d suggest Cloudways as it is one of the most high performing SEO hosting services out there. Their custom designed hosting stack, called ThunderStack, ensures enhanced website performance. With faster page load times, you can enjoy higher SERP rankings. They also provide 24/7 customer support that gives you peace of mind.   

With almost no downtime, your website always remains up and running with Cloudways. Their powerful servers across different locations around the world can help you get into Google’s good books.

Make Blog Mobile-Friendly

More and more people are turning to mobile these days. In 2018, mobile phones generated around 52 percent of all of world’s website traffic. This means that more people are searching from mobile phones than from their PCs. When optimizing for search, it would be naive to ignore mobile.  

Not just that, Google also prefers mobile-friendly websites. Use ‘responsive designs’ to ensure that your blog runs on both types of devices with the same URL. Having one URL is also great for SEO purposes as any inbound links will not have to be divided into separate URLs.   

Use Guest Blogging

Link building is a very crucial part of SEO. Links are a virtual currency of trust. The more links from high authority websites your blog gets, the better it will be for the SEO.

This is where guest blogging can help. Many bloggers think that just producing high-quality content for their own website is enough. It’s not!

Creating valuable content for other relevant websites not only helps you get links, it also allows you to build relationships with key players in your industry.

Research blog websites in your niche that accept blogs. Take some time to study the kind of content on these websites. After that, pitch your idea and tell them how it would be useful for their readers.

There will be many rejections along the way, but when your blog gets published, it will all be worth it.

Employ Google’s Search Console

Google’s Search Console is a collection of tools and reports to help measure your website’s search traffic and performance.

In the ‘Search Analytics Report’ section, you can analyze clicks from Google search and which keywords people are typing to discover your blog content.

With these and more insights from the report, you can optimize your future blogs more efficiently.  

Final Words

As a blog writer, you want your blog to be read by as many people as possible. If it’s hidden on Google’s 10th page, your efforts might not have been worth it. This is why you need to optimize your blog posts for search.  

SEO for blog posts is tough and takes a lot of time. You need to ensure that you are making consistent efforts, even after you have published the blog.

From determining the right keywords to target to choosing the right host, there is a lot that goes into successful search engine optimization. Follow all the above SEO tips and get incredible results over time to increase your blogs market reach.

Hope you liked my SEO tips for bloggers! Let me know your thoughts in the comments’ section below.