Building a following for your blog can be a challenge as you are vying for a top spot on search engines. Many people cover the same topics which requires writers to distinguish themselves. Strategically choosing keywords, making your site mobile friendly, and embedding links in posts can all help improve your search engine optimization ranking. Here a few tips you can implement to gain more readers to build a successful blog.
Focus on One to Two Keywords
Incorporating keywords is important in driving more traffic to your site, but you will want to hone in on just one or two main terms. Search engines do not respond well to keyword stuffing. This is the practice of overusing certain words for the sake of more clicks. Keywords should be used in a seamless way in text that seems natural and unforced. Use long-tail keywords to attract the right audience. To determine which words to implement in your posts, use Google Adwords. It will help you find terms and phrases most relevant to your business that will give you the best results. Make sure to incorporate keywords in the title, headers, body and URL of your blog post.
Make Sure Posts are Mobile Friendly
More people surf the web on their mobile devices versus a desktop computer. According to the web analytics firm StatCounter, global mobile and tablet browsing made up 51.3% of searches over the desktops’ 48.7%. Google showcases sites that are optimized for mobile phones before any others. Make sure your site implements a responsive design to keep from having separate URLs for desktops and mobile devices. You want to improve your SEO rank in a centralized way to help your site move up in search engines. Shutterfly and BuzzFeed are two sites that have been designed to work well on mobile devices and desktops. This gains them more traction as they provide users with a simple online experience.
Optimize Your Images
The best websites illustrate their content with pictures, infographics and videos. Search engines are designed to find images with alt text. Alt text gives search engines a description of what the image depicts. Alt text can be added to an image tag in HTML. It gives you the opportunity to instill more keywords in your text.
Reference With Links
As you write your posts, incorporate links throughout where readers can click for more information. Internal linking is an effective SEO technique to gain more clicks. It helps search engines find additional pages on your site and provides more information to search engines about specific content. This strategy can keep users on your site for longer decreasing the bounce rate. Referencing other site links is also advisable for helping you improve your SEO ranking. Those you reference may link to your site from their page or repost your content extending your reach.
Take Advantage of Social Media
To increase your web exposure, utilize social media sites to republish blog posts. Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are great platforms to reach a larger audience. Tools such as Hootsuite are helpful for managing multiple social media sites at once. You can post and see what kind of traction you are getting on multiple sites. Use analytical tools to see where you are most successful and areas where you can improve your outreach efforts.
If you need professional help in extending your reach online, there are a number of marketing companies whose sole purpose is to help others grow their digital presence.Many have proven their efforts and showcase them in seo case studies. These studies demonstrate how progress was made after sites were revamped. The results can help guide you to a marketing professional that best fits your needs.
Strategically Choose Title of Post
You will want to place a lot of your attention on what you name the post. This is the first thing that users see when they look for a post online in search engines. Think about how relevant the title is to the post and the selection of words you choose. Incorporate keywords and phrases into the title to improve SEO ranking. Google will only show the first 55 letters of the title so be careful with word choice. Don’t write titles that are too lengthy because you want browsers to see all of the words to increase users chances of clicking on your post.
Go For More Length in Posts
Longer posts tend to perform better in terms of search engine ranking. However, do not sacrifice quality for quantity. Well written posts of substance will gain more traction. When you write a post, realize your material will be competing among a number of other posts on the same topic for attention. You want to make your post better than the rest to allow it to stand out in on search engines. Post in-depth content that references research and statistics to gain more clicks.
Keep Tabs on Load Times
Think about the last time you visited a site that took more than a thirty seconds to load. Chances are you hopped off in search of a new resource. A site’s load speed plays a big role in search engine ranking. According to kissmetrics.com, 40 percent of website visitors will leave if pages take longer than three seconds to appear. Google’s PageSpeed tool will give you insight into how your site performs in terms of load time. Use what you learn to fix aspects of your site. Many you have too much multi-media content which is prolonging loading. Adjust your site to make it more navigable and fast.
