Steps to Optimize Your Blog Post

If you’re writing and publishing blog posts, but not putting in the few extra steps to optimize and align them with an overall keyword strategy, then you’re not leveraging the full potential of that content and you’re not making your website pages visible and highlighted for the search engines. 

Blog Optimizing: Back to the Basics

Content is a form of online currency that is crucial to any business' online marketing. With consumers relying on search engines for product research and reviews, content is key for ranking among those search results because search engines largely determine the quality and relevancy of the Internet’s countless web pages by looking at the text on those pages. 

Just having content, even great content, on your company's website isn't enough to grab the attention of search engines. Businesses must leverage this content using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. Maintaining a corporate blog is a good SEO tactic that allows for rapid content creation without the constraints of website architecture and web development teams. 

Here’s how you can optimize your blog post in eight steps.

1. Find a Compelling Subject

One method for differentiating your content from all the other writing available across the web is to offer a fresh perspective and a unique angle on a given subject matter. If you haven’t spent time working through this step, don’t bother with the rest of the optimization process. 

2. Conduct Keyword Research

This step is the perfect litmus test for determining whether your blog post topic is aligned with what people are looking for. When developing your focused keyword list around the blog post topic, make sure to do a sanity check and confirm that consumers are actually using these keywords to search for your product/service.

Save yourself time in the long run and filter out visitors who are unlikely to buy your product by ensuring your keywords align with the purchasing intent of your target audience.

3. Select Keywords

In order to rank high for a given keyword phrase, it’s important that you only designate up to two to three keywords per website page. Limit your blog post to one primary keyword, as well as two or three variations of that keyword (e.g. optimize blog post, optimize blog, blog post optimize, blog optimize).

4. Track Keyword Ranking Trends

Make sure your focus keyword is worth optimizing for. If there are only 10 searches for a given keyword per month, it might not be worth your while.

Look at how your target keyword phrase is trending, in terms of global monthly searches, how competitive the search term is, and whether any of your competitors or one of your pages are already ranking for it.

5. Optimize the Page

Page optimization is crucial for boosting the visibility of your blog post for the search engines. After you create the content, insert your keyword phrase throughout the blog post in specific locations where the search engines will be looking for information about your page (i.e. URL, title tag, H1, H2, emphasized text in the body of the post, alt tags on images).

From here on out, every time you mention this specific keyword phrase on your website, use an internal link to its corresponding blog page. There are also available SEO plugins for certain blog platforms, like WordPress’ popular  “All in One SEO Pack,” to help you control these SEO elements.  

6. Syndicate via Social Channels

Syndicate your blog post externally by sharing it across your social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, post comments with your blog post link on relevant, external articles to attract clicks through to your site.

Make sure to use the blog post’s target keywords in your syndication via tweets and Facebook status updates. Help your audience share your content as quickly and easily as possible by including social sharing buttons on your blog post pages like the tweet, Facebook Like, LinkedIn Share, and AddThis buttons.

Consider adding Facebook's new comments plugin to drive engagement and sharing. Also, make your content available via RSS feed, so subscribers can regularly view your latest content on their news reader of choice.

7. Find Top Links

Inbound links are essential for boosting the search engine rank of a website page. A handful of relevant links will help you better rank. Use a link suggestion tool to help identify and track high-quality, relevant websites that you can reach out to with your blog post and request a link back to your page. 

8. Track Keyword Performance

Monitor your blog post on a regular basis, in terms of rank, visits, and leads from its given keyword phrase over time. By checking back on your progress, you can understand what about your content is resonating with your audience and what to improve upon. Evaluate what worked and what didn’t, then repeat the successful tactics with your next piece of content. 

Summary

SEO is a gradual process, but by just setting aside an hour a week, you can make a lot of progress over time.

While many view paid search as a quick and easy way to drive traffic without a large time investment, once you switch it off, you lose that traffic. SEO, on the other hand, when done well, can have a long-lasting, sustainable impact for your website.

Search Engine Optimization and Link building.

Both are link buildings on page or off page. The terms “on page” and “off page” are two important words to familiarize yourself with if you’re new to the art and science of search engine optimization. They are an integral part of the SEO process used to increase website traffic. Although there’s a big difference between the two, you must understand these optimization techniques if you’ll be leveraging SEO as one of your tools for online promotion of your growing business to drive more traffic for your website. On Page optimization is the foundation for your SEO process by which elements of your web site are designed in a way that it qualifies for a high ranking when specific keywords are typed. Off Page optimization, on the other hand, as the name indicates, is the work that needs to be done off the pages of your website. This is done to improve your web site’s search engine page rank and increase your web site traffic. On Page optimization by itself will not guarantee that your website gets good ranking unless performed in concert with off page optimization strategies. This means, both on page and off page optimization techniques need to work hand in hand for you to get the results that you want. On Page site optimization - Deals with Internal linking (linking pages of your site to one another), your web site coding, creation of a sitemap and good quality content. Optimizing also includes identifying the target keywords or keyword phrases that your target customers are searching for. These keywords should be included in your web site’s URL, title tags, Meta tags, headlines, subheadlines and body text. Next, internal linking is done between the pages of your web site whenever required to make it more attractive to Google. All of the major pages of your site should be linked to your homepage. The creation of a sitemap is needed so that all your web pages get listed by the search engines. In addition, good quality content is absolutely vital to get the most out of the search engines. Your site content should have compelling information that is written to appeal to your customers first and the search engines second. Lastly, ensure that your html code is error and warning free. While the above mentioned On Page factors are needed for on site optimization, the following factors should be avoided: Don’t use “black hat SEO techniques” to increase your serp (search engine result page) rankings> For example, hiding links or text by making them the same color as the background of your web pages. This is cheating as you’re trying to hide or conceal something from your viewers solely for the purpose of increasing your search engine rankings. Also, make sure that you don’t create mirror sites, or two different sites, one for the search engines and the other for your site visitors. You should have only one site. These tactics very well may cause your web site to be “banned” by the search engines. Also, avoid posting duplicate content as much as possible. This means both NO Plagiarism, unless you give a credit to the original source, as well as not posting identical information on your web site as you do on your blogs and other sites. Simply change the wording around of the content when posting it on your web site if you’re also posting it on other sites. Off Page optimization, on the other hand, are the techniques which are done off of your web pages to improve your search engine page rank as well as your web site traffic. These include: building quality links, link popularity, relevancy, directories and social bookmarking. Building quality links for link building purposes which include industry relevance, page rank and authority sites. Link popularity can be completed by using social networking sites, blog commenting, forum postings, articles, press release promotions, directory submissions, link baiting, classified ads, and back links from social bookmarking sites. The last factor of off page optimization is to have high quality, informative and organized content for visitors to which they will have easy access such as blogs and article directories. In simplest terms, on page optimization includes all the activities done on your web site while off page optimization are all the activities that take place off of your web site. Having an effective strategy that leverages both will improve your search engine rankings and drive highly targeted relevant traffic to your web site.

Increase your website Traffic Free

 Secrets To Increase Website Traffic Free Exchanging links with other websites is a good way to increase traffic to your website, but often the results are just not what we expected. Many site owners do not know the simple techniques needed to increase website traffic free. We are making this article available to you free, so you can begin optimizing your site today!

 Higher Page Rank = Higher Search Engine Positioning = More Site Traffic Fully Optimize Your Site For The Search Engines Before beginning the little known secrets to increase website traffic free, spend some time tweaking your website, using basic search engine optimization techniques.

• Using a Keyword Rich Title - This is a carefully researched term or key phrase people would search for in the search engines that would lead to your website. Generally, you would not use the name of your business unless it happens to be an effective keyword for your topic.
 • Use the Title Tag Correctly - You have seen pages scattered throughout the search engine results that have not inserted the title tags correctly. The page was picked up as, "Untitled" or "New Page."

 • Focus Your Content - Don't try to cram 10 different topics in on just one page! Concentrate on one topic per page, using your keyword rich content.

 • Use Text Links - Fancy menus look great, but usually the k.i.s.s. idea is best. (Keep it simple stupid!) If you want the search engines to find you, use text links. Add a site map to your website, along with a link to it on every page!

 • Include a Resource Page of Links - If you want people to link to your site, don't hide the links resource page. Make sure your "home" page is linked directly to it.

 Why Do I Need to Exchange Links? One determining factor for page rank with the major search engines, is link popularity.Google Information for Webmasters indicates that the number of sites linking to a particular website address is the single biggest factor in determining what sites are indexed by Google. Of course that makes link exchange with related sites absolutely vital to the success of all of our websites! Even without the search engines, exchanging links makes sense because it's bound to drive traffic to your site!

 We are confident that these statements don't come as any big surprise to you, but this is where those special techniques begin to come into play. 5 Little Known Techniques To Stronger Link Exchange Are All Inbound Links Created Equal?
• Banner / Image Links
• Plain Text Links
• Text Links Using Anchor Text
 • Adding Title Tags To Anchor Text
• Banner Or Image Link Adding Title & Alt Tag Banner / Image Links

 A picture is worth a thousand words, so banner or image links must be best, right? Actually, unless they combine it with several other techniques, this is the least favorable link exchange program. Search engine spiders are unable to "see" pictures in terms of connecting the image to some type of keyword that would lead to your site. Therefore, it’s not a very valuable link, unless someone actually clicks on it. This type of link is better than no link at all, but the traffic it actually leads to your website will be limited.

 Plain Text Links Think about this for a moment. Search engines are looking for keywords, requested by someone looking for information. The stronger the possibility that your website is the correct match to the request, the higher your site will appear in the search results for that keyword.

Naturally, the more times your carefully chosen keywords lead to your site, the higher your web traffic will be. Wow! Then plain text links to your website must be the answer, right? Well, not exactly. Consider all the times you have seen the linked text,. This results in the key phrase, "click here" being associated with your site. If someone clicks on the link, you will see traffic, but it will be unpredictable and limited. Adding Text Links Using Anchor Text Anchor text is really just a fancy way of describing linked text. Search engines appear to give more weight to this style of a link.

 You will begin seeing your Google PageRank increase, as you begin building strong incoming links. Sample Anchor Text Link More commercial motorcycle dealers and private sellers than ever, are moving toselling motorcycles on the internet. The most obvious advantages are obvious in that they reach millions of customers around the world. Notice that the anchor text is linked to a page titled, "Selling Motorcycles on the Internet." The key phrase blends into the content of the article, and now provides a relevant link for the page to which it leads. Wow! Now this is all starting to make sense, isn't it?

 Adding Title Tags to Anchor Text You can strengthen the weight of the anchor text link even more, by adding a title attribute tag, also known as a screen tip. Hold your cursor over the link, in the example above, many browsers show a little screen tip box displaying your selected text.

 Banner Or Image Link Adding Title Attribute & Alt Tag Alt tags provide alternative text for images to visually impaired individuals, who reach the net through audio-based browsers. They also provide alternative text for individuals who have disabled image loading in their browsers. Search engines do appear to "see" and use alt text as content, when indexing your site. In terms of SEO techniques, keep this fact in mind, when selecting alternative text for your images.

Do not use alt tags to "stuff" your pages with keywords. It is however, an opportunity to use applicable key phrases. If you wanted the strongest possible incoming link, combine all the techniques together, adding visual appeal, as in the example below. You don't have to spend more than a few minutes in a marketing forum, to discover that everyone seems to be looking for Strategies to Improve Writing Style that will solve their internet marketing challenges.

 If you want to receive high quality, keyword rich, incoming links, then you need to lead by example. When linking to other websites, take the time to find out which key words they are targeting and how they would like their link displayed. Remember, "You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Final Notes Use a consistent method of navigation on your website, implementing all of these techniques throughout your site. This will help insure that the search engine robots find and index all of your pages.

Best features of a good SEO company

What are some of the best features of a good SEO company? For the basics, a good SEO company fully appreciates the SEO process and what is more important can explain these in simple terms. The main aim of the SEO company is not to confuse the client, to apply strange and unheard of terminology and make the client not feel part of the delivery process. Search engine optimisation is a complex process with lots of concentration on the minutia, which, if missed, can change the clients website presence. A good SEO company will have SEO experts that can do this without fuss. A good SEO company will employ tactics to support the brand message – what a user looks for when searching for goods and services offered by the client….this is key to the client campaign and a good web marketeer should be able to discuss options with the client. This can take many forms and ranges from Website optimisation (on the webpages themselves) using specific ‘keywords’ to pages titles to images to shopping carts. Good web design incorporating good search engine friendly techniques is key a lot of the good SEO practices are available from off the shelf website design and blog based frameworks today. Your SEO company choice should deliver nothing but the best and exceed expectation. It is possible that the work that the SEO Company does is expensivebut if you lay out your base requirements with the SEO company and they are delivered in simple terms – there is a lot of pseudo science enough to hold a white-coat expo in its own right, so take a bit of time to understand the process and what is on offer. The SEO campaign follows the same paths as a standard PR / Marketing campaign where the strategy is defined and goals and milestones are staked out as part of the process. There should be no room for complacency or discrepancy and the aims should be clearly laid out. Ensure process timescales are clearly defined as these should form the main criteria for measurement of achievement. The deployed SEO company should explain some lesser aspects of the website, but equally as important i.e. that it should continue to offer new content, all pages should have the same look and feel and not have content that undermines Google’s own rules and regulations. The most important attribute of a good SEO company is to listen.