5 keyword and SEO essentials for blogs
While searching for content on search engines, information seekers look for a variety of keywords. Marketers and bloggers need to understand the various audience types, nature of the content to be created while keeping in mind the key messages of the brand. It is also true that if your content is relevant and exceptional, being located by users on search engines is not a herculean task. But in some cases, a blog loaded with facts and figures might still not make the cut and reach the top of SERPs.
Now the challenge is, how to rank organically high in the SERPs?
While it isn’t rocket science, it also isn’t a piece of cake. SEO experts use a variety of strategies to get their blogs to rank well. Below are some essentials to attract organic traffic to your blogs –
Capitalize on most ranked keywords
At times, you might end up incorporating a few crucial keywords in your copy without a hint that they can get you traffic. Those alone will not suffice to help you get organic traffic. Many keyword research tools equip you with the most searched keywords relevant to your topic. It saves you much time if you can learn what type of keywords are being searched for by your audiences. All you have to do is incorporate those keywords effectively and appropriately in your copy.
Populate keywords consistently
If SEO was simple, your text could’ve been a winner with repetitive keywords throughout. But that is meaningless and lacks a message, and search engines generally ding such websites. Once you have recognised keywords that can potentially make way to organic traffic, use those keywords consistently in your copy but be careful not to overuse them. Meaningfully include long-tail and short-tail keywords by attaching factual and informational value to your copy. You can play with keywords in the title, paragraphs, anchor text, meta description. Please do not engage in keyword stuffing, as some policies by Google dictate that they be adequately used.
Make your blog design-heavy
Content alone will not appeal to your audiences. Imagery, videos and graphic elements bring colour to your blog. These elements can easily keep your viewers engaged. While uploading your images on the blog, be sure to include the keywords in the name of the file. Fill the alt text with a brief description of the image. This might seem like a minuscule effort towards SEO, but it adds immensely.
Link other relevant articles
To increase traffic to your blogs, identify other prevailing blogs that are related to the subject on your blog. By doing this, you might attract the attention of a fellow blogger who has a better online presence. If you’re fortunate enough, you might even receive backlinks. Some sites might link your blog in theirs, and this will be rewarding as it helps to climb up the SERP ladder.
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Your older articles might come in handy
If you are a blogger who writes about diverse subjects, then you must also be one that writes multiple articles on the same topic, which would work to your advantage as you can link an article previously written by you to another blog on a similar subject. That way, you are generating more traffic within your blog by redirecting your audiences to other blogs on the same content bucket.
The idea behind optimizing blog content is to be discovered on leading search engines and possibly find a spot on the first page of the SERPs. Presence on second or third pages of the search results is neither visible to the audiences, or is it beneficial to you. Through keyword optimization, your blogs are likely to receive more traffic, given that SEO practices are diligently implemented.