FULL SEO GUIDE
If you have done everything to get your SEO right and it’s still not working it means that you forgot one of the important ranking factors: which is user satisfaction. I can see many articles speak about the technical side of SEO but they don’t mention the user. Google uses all these rules and regulations just to satisfy the reader but most people try to use tricks to rank on google there are no tricks.
As I mentioned, the technical side of SEO is very important but if you fail to deliver quality content based on what the user needs and couple it with the result you want to achieve then your efforts will go to waste.
Aside from that, some small businesses and startups try to copy other brands’ SEO strategies. Copying other brands’ SEO could be dangerous for your business since you don’t know the hidden factors that led them to succeed in ranking for specific keywords, so the end result could hurt your business even if it works for others.
Many new competitors erased some businesses because they used strategies to rank on those keywords better by establishing authority, making content with the user in mind, exploring new content areas, and owning the key topics that benefit their end result.
SEO is a simple but long-term game.
In this article, I will give you a blueprint to follow. It gives you steps to follow “Before writing your content”, “while writing your content”, and “After writing your content”.
I.??????????Before Writing your SEO content
Before we get into using keyword and image size and website speed. We need to look check the following:
1.????Boring usual SEO technical stuff
Even if many people only talk about the technicalities, thinking it’s the only factor to ranking at the top of google searches. Sadly, all this hype about it, but is wrong, technical stuff can take as little as 10% but it’s very important to pay attention to and keep track of.
a.?????Am I in the google index?
By being in the google index then you can appear on the search results. It would make no sense to make content that no one would be able to reach. Right?
So in order to see if your website is indexed in the google database, you can perform a “Site: yourwebsite.com” search.
If nothing of the content you have on your website appears on the search results this could mean that your website is not indexed, and maybe for the following reasons:
·???????Your website is brand new
·???????The site’s navigation is difficult to follow.
·???????Your robots.txt file or meta tags are blocking the crawlers.
·????????It’s not linked anywhere else on the web.
???????If you do not fit the above criteria, you can check google support for more information.
b.????What is a crawler?
A crawler, it’s also called an SEO spider, helps in the process of website crawling which is basically an automated process that a bot does to fetch web pages and analyze the content inside looking for links to other pages with the main purpose of indexing website content.
There are many crawling tools that will help you analyze your website by checking for broken links and duplicates and also help you avoid page title mistakes that can affect your page ranking. One of which is called ScreamingFrog.
c.?????Why Install Analytics?
As I mentioned earlier, SEO ranking is a simple but long-term game. One of the factors that give you an idea of how you can optimize your content for the future is simply the data gathered.
By using the most popular analytical tool Google Analytics you become aware of the amount of traffic you get and where they come from, what pages they visit, the bounce rate, how they engage with your content, and more. So you can change your strategy based on the data you gathered.
2.????Before starting your content planning
This is a crucial part of the process and it must be done before you even purchase your domain name.
You must ask yourself the following questions before you even start planning for your content strategy:
a.?????What do you want to be known for?
No one can be the go-to person in all fields. People are so afraid to specialize because they think they’re going to miss out on other great content that can make them money. If do not specialize in something this is when you’re missing out on a lot of profit. If you established authority and became an expert in your niche people would give you more money and google would reward you by giving you a higher ranking.
b.????How can my blog help the reader?
Even if you used all the SEO tools that exist in the universe, you can’t and will never rank high in google searches if you DO NOT HELP THE READER. Don’t see helping the reader as something challenging and can’t be done. Some people want help with their website, and some just want to cut an onion perfectly and without crying. It doesn’t matter what you’re blog is about, you just need to make sure you help the readers and answer their questions.
c.?????What are the keywords you want to rank for?
Here I’m not talking about keywords you use on a single post. Here I’m talking about long-tail keywords that define your website. And it makes it easy to help you with what you want to be known for. And choosing keywords can be very tricky. Some people fail to rank on google because they use generic keywords like “building all types of websites” instead of being more specific and adding more authority and expert tone by saying like “Building websites for email copywriting agencies”. The last one is very specific but also more profitable. Because we know that once you become an expert in a narrow field, you can charge more.
d.????What’s the end result that you want to achieve?
Many great people say to start with the end in mind in any area of life and then build small blocks to achieve it.
What’s the end goal of your SEO strategy?
You maybe want to sell a product or service to customers or maybe connect all the communities by finding common points. It could be anything you want, just know what it is so you can base your SEO strategy on it. That’s why I said that you can’t copy other brands’ SEO because you may not have the same goals so it’ll defiantly not work for you.
3.????Research and Outline
Now you know whom you want to be known for, the purpose of your blog, keywords to identify with, and the end results you want to achieve.
That great!
The following questions you can use to help you explore new topic areas and make you stand out from the competition:
a.?????What are the main problems in my field that people want to solve?
Knowing the user’s pain points sets the foundation for great content. Find all the problems that people or businesses want to solve in your niche and put them on a file (spreadsheet, google doc….).
Then ask yourself the next question.
b.????What keywords are people typing to solve that problem?
In the same document, you stored the problem that people want to solve in your niche. Find and write the main keywords that people type to look for a solution or answer to those problems. Then you can check keyword competition to see how difficult to rank for these keywords.
c.?????How the competition is tackling this problem?
It is very important to do more research about the competition. Consider looking at their website and studying how they structure their answer to problems. Why are they ranking at the top of google searches? Is their answer satisfying to the user?
We spoke about looking for good things about their content. The next is the opposite.
d.????What is the competition missing regarding the problem?
Let’s find out what the competition did wrong or missed speaking about regarding the problem the user wants to solve. Finding those missing parts and conducting research on the keywords that the user might be typing to find these exact missing parts can change the game.
e.?????What can I do differently?
Because normally it’s not a good thing to copy-paste other people’s work. That’s why you need to ask yourself.
What can I do differently and stand out from the competition?
It can be simple for some who established their tone so they have an image that they’re known for so they know how to create content that can be the same as the competition, but they are known for the use of graphs or weird funny language to transmit the information.
PS: keep in mind that you need to keep the same voice so the user doesn’t perceive your content is been copied from other multiple different sources.
f.??????How can I add authority to my article?
You can establish your authority in a subject by having proof, that It could be a diploma or past clients and the list goes on.
Another known way to establish authority and give it credibility is by linking to other authoritative websites and by other authoritative websites linking to you.
As I said, SEO is a long-term game. So work on it until you become the authority.
g.?????How to structure my outline?
Now you’ve done your homework and you have some idea about what people want to solve, how the competition is tackling the problem, and the keywords you’re going to use.
All that is left before starting to write your content is to write an outline.
Well, you may say that you don’t need one, but I believe you’re not writing the article for yourself so you need to put a well-structured outline to guide yourself through the writing process so you can make sure you’ve created a journey for the reader to easily find his way to his specific answer.
?
II.????????While Writing SEO your Content
You’re starting to write your SEO content. Here are some things to keep in mind while writing to make it easier for the user.
1.?????Some technical boring SEO Stuff again
Sorry for interrupting the fun, but there are some technical SEO techniques you need to follow so you can allow search engines to know that you’re worthy of ranking at the top of search results:
a.?????Heading and subheading
This step should be tackled on the outline structuring. After the heading H1, all the following h2,h3,h4,h5, and h6 are called subheadings. The main objective of headings is to set you to optimize your content for ranking success. Using headings and subheadings effectively will improve readability and readers can easily scheme through to find their answer to problems they want to solve.
b.????Link building (internal, external)
Having a good set of links will allow your website to rank better.
How?
First by including Internal links on your website. Which refers to other content that you have on your website. If you’re tackling some of the issues in marketing strategies and you quoted a case study that you discussed in another article you can link to that instead of rewriting the whole thing.
For other uses for internal link building, you can feature another blog post at the end of your website?that may be interesting to the reader and under the same category.
This way your website looks harmonized and each piece of your content completes the other.
External link building’s linking to other websites. Its main purpose is to establish authority and to tell google that you’ve done your research. Especially if those links are of websites that are ranking at the top of their field. Other benefits of linking to other authoritative websites can help google define who you are and rank you for those keywords, which at the end of the day you end up being the authority.
External linking can also be other websites linking to you. Many people try to get featured on other people’s websites to drive traffic to their website which is a great strategy to build trust with Google.
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c.?????Use keywords (wisely)
I know by this time you’ve done your keyword research and you know what you want to rank for. Many people get excited about the content they create so they overuse writing keywords everywhere which backfires on them. The professional believes that your keywords should be included once every 200 words or your keyword should not conquer above 1.5% of your article.
Try to mention your keywords in your headings, but don’t force them there afraid to lose your context.
Because remember, all those rules will turn into ashes if you don’t keep the users in mind and solve their problems.
2.????Write an SEO-Friendly Content Structure
a.?????Just write, you can correct it later
The lesson I’ve learned from great writers is just to start writing. You can change everything at the end, so just put some words on the page, just get that first draft done.
By just typing words you explore your thoughts and never miss an idea.
Trying to write correct effective words from the beginning is going to dry your energy and demotivate you from getting things done.
b.????Take your time with the headline
You don’t need to work hard on the headline before writing, but you try to write a headline so you would know what is the main point of your article.
Then after you finish writing, you have to go back to the headline and tweak it until you feel satisfied with the outcome.
Why is the headline so important?
The headline is the first thing the reader sees before clicking on your website. So you need to spend a lot of time crafting a great, persuasive headline, but make sure not to clickbait the reader into something they don’t want, people hate being fooled so will not only foul the reader and get his hate, but also you will see a huge bounce which google will be punishing you for it.
c.?????You are the expert, they’re not! (Simplify)
The usage of complex jargon makes you an expert in the expert’s room. But using the same industry-insider jargon language gets you nothing but misunderstanding and confused readers, and the worse thing is NO MONEY.
If you succeed in simplifying complex ideas for your audience you’ll get what you want.
Show the reader that you care by taking some time to explain because once you get people to understand what their problem is, they’ll listen to you and you can be the go-to person they reach out to give their hard earnings to.
d.????Introduction
The introduction plays a huge role after the headline. The goal is to keep the readers’ attention. Don’t leave a question mark on the reader’s mind by not giving him/her the summary of what they’re going to be getting from your article. I prefer a reader to tell upfront if the article is going to solve his problem or not. And the user would appreciate it because no one wants to waste his time reading something that would not give them an answer to what they want.
So in the introduction, you give the reader some information about the topic then give him an overview of what they will be getting from the article.
e.?????Start broad, finish narrow
Following the reversed pyramid, your article should not be just scattered paragraphs, a well-written article must take the reader on a journey of discovery. It doesn’t matter what journey you take the reader into, it can’t be a journey to discover the right solution to a problem, hidden desires, or another issue. Guiding the reader to the promise you established in the headline and focused on in the introduction.
And you continue down the reversed pyramid while establishing authority by giving case studies, linking to other authoritative websites, and quoting the best in your field.
So that at the end of the article, you’d build a great relationship with the reader. That’s why you need to keep your favorable end result in mind.
And go back to what you want from the reader in exchange for the information you gave him/her.
f.??????Include a conclusion
The conclusion is a choice, but I do it for multiple reasons. I go briefly over the main points tackled in the article, to make sure the reader didn’t skip some important parts that could potentially help them with their problem.
Another reason why I write a conclusion is to include a CTA (call to action). Remember the end result you want to achieve., if people read through your content to the conclusion it means that they care and appreciate the content, so you can include an action for the reader to take, it doesn’t matter what it is “just make sure not to fool, fraud, spam…” You didn’t spend all this time optimizing for your content to not be optimized.
III.????????????After Writing your Content
1.?????Before publishing
a.?????Edit the draft for grammatical errors/ proofread
This can be boring for some people, but it’s a crucial step. you must know that even if you spent 6 hours writing content the reader will judge you for the small mistakes and this can be articulated as unprofessional remove the authority hat from you.
While editing you need to check for grammatical errors. And try to cut unnecessary words or even phrases, don’t write a paragraph when a phrase can do the job, and remember the important thing is to satisfy the reader and give him/ her what they need.
b.????Add visual content (including keywords in alt text)
People tend to get bored when reading plain text with no pictures, so add flavor to your content by including images, and the longer the article is the more images you need to include.
Make sure you add alt text to the images because google doesn’t know what the image is about, and when you do o you make it easy for crawlers to know the image relevancy and this will result in giving more scores to rank better on google searches.
c.?????Go back to the headline
We have talked about the headline before, and because the headline is what makes the reader want to read your content in the first place it is important to spend more –and more, and more- time writing a persuasive clickbait-free headline to increase the click-through rate.
d.????Featured image
We have spoken about the importance of visuals, and the featured image is the second thing a reader sees after the headline. Make sure it grabs attention and the content of the images matches what your blog post is about.
e.?????Meta description
The meta description is the snippet text that appears under the title tag on the search result and it impacts the click-through rate which will also impact your ranking.
The meta description complements the headline, so you can take it to your advantage and give the reader a hint about what they’ll be learning from your blog post.
f.??????URL structure
Let’s not make the URL structure difficult and write a whole blog post about it.
The URL structure is very simple:
It must contain between 50-60 characters
It must indicate what the blog post is about.
It’s simple, isn’t it?
2.?????After publishing
This is how you can promote your blog post or article after you publish it.
a.?????Teaser email
As you may know, you have an email list and you send them emails constantly, you can write some ideas about the blog post and include your new blog post link.
If you don’t have an email list, now it’s the right time to build one.
You can create a freebie as a checklist of the content you’ve written on your blog and invite the reader to subscribe for an exchange of the free checklist. Make sure it’s well-structured and provides the reader with some value.
b.????Social media campaign (repurpose your content)
The same strategy of email can be applied to social media.
On every social media platform, people tend to consume content in different ways.
How?
For example:
Instagram users prefer short digestible content such as carousels or short videos.
Facebook users can tolerate a bit longer text format including images, unlike Instagram users.
LinkedIn users tend to read longer articles.
Pinterest users prefer to learn things from images.
Tweeter users do not play games with longer texts, but you can compensate that for with a GIF.
The main objective of repurposing your blog post into social media content is to drive traffic to your website.
So it’s the same thing with keeping the reader’s attention. On social media, you need to make people hungry for more, and take them to form social media to your blog post.
c.?????Quora or other forums
Answering people’s questions, and solving their problems on platforms like Quora and Reddit, and other forums can help you get traffic and it’s a great way to promote your website.
Does it work?
Of course, it does. If you look on Reddit you’re going to find a lot of people that are desperate to get an answer that will help them solve their problem, and by giving them what they want, they will first appreciate you and stay connected with you.
Other thoughts
You can’t run out of ideas when promoting your blog post, you can go live on Facebook or Instagram for 5 minutes and promote content. There’s no wrong strategy to promote content, if it doesn’t work for somebody else it might work for you.
So always try to be creative with how you want to promote your blog posts, and being creative is a process, not a talent.
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