How To Write SEO Friendly Blog Post

I think that your post should focus on what matters to your audience, not search engines. That said, there is no harm in optimizing it for search engines to help it get discovered. In fact, SEO is a great way to get your blog discovered by relevant people without spending your budget.

In this post, I would like to give you some tips on writing blog posts that are both very readable as well as SEO-friendly.

Optimize your Post Title: 

Use Google Keywords Planner to learn what people are searching for online. If there are many people who are searching for the phrase that is included in your title, and the competition for that phrase is low - you have a better chance to rank higher and have many people click into your content.

Optimize your Post Description:

Post Descriptions play a major role in search engine ranking, and description act as sales copy for your blog post. The Description has to be a short text which indicates the main topic of the page. If the meta description contains the search term people use, the exact text will be shown by Google underneath your URL in the search results.

Research long tail keywords:

Find 1-2 long tail keywords and use them a few times inside your content, preferably in the title and the first 100-200 words. Don't force it! Only use the keywords if they naturally fit the test you're writing.

Use SEO Plugin:

Use an SEO plugin, like Yoast for Wordpress, to optimize your content.

The most popular blog SEO tool for WordPress is the WordPress SEO by Yoast. Yoast has a wide variety of SEO tools for blog articles and website pages. The image shows one of the Yoast tabs for a recent blog article. The plugin analyzes the blog article for 18 different SEO factors and rates it while providing a “street light” style ranking of Red – Yellow – Green based on the articles ranking on each SEO factor.

Create Engaging Content:

Make sure your content is engaging - the longer people will spend with your content and the lower your bounce rate will be, the higher search engines are likely to rank your page.

Use and Optimize images:

Your blog posts shouldn't only contain text, you should also have images that help explain your content. But search engines don't just look for images. Rather, they look for images with alt text.

You can figure out an image's alt text by placing your cursor over an image. A small box will pop up that describes your image and, therefore, helps search engines interpret the meaning of the image. As you can see below, the alt text is "related-search." Think of alt text as an interpreter for search engines. Search engines cannot interpret what an image means without the text to explain it.

You can also use Infographics, videos, and slides which might give your reader excellent visual supplements.

Post Length:

Post Length gives search engines ample text to crawl and plenty of keywords and context clues to help them understand what the article is about. For your written posts, 1,500 words should be the minimum.

Keyword Diversity:

Use different text every time you post a link to your content. Google doesn't like duplicates, so make sure that on every forum or article you include a link to your content from, you will use the different text.

Link internally when possible:

Internal links to your content help show search engines the validity or relevancy of your content. The same goes for linking internally to other pages on your website. For instance, if you've written about a topic that's mentioned in your blog post on another blog post, ebook, or web page, you should link to that page. That will not only help retain visitors on your web site, but also demonstrate the other relevant and authoritative pages to search engines.

Internal Linking

• helps readers find what they’re looking for 
• helps your audience get to know, like, and trust you 
• helps search engines crawl every page on your site 
• helps search engines create an accurate sitemap

To find more Internal Linking, you can read more about Internal links and It's importance in SEO?

Link to External Helpful Resources:

Linking out to authoritative, trustworthy websites like Wikipedia, known thought leaders in the field, or any domain ending in .edu or .gov creates a better user experience and shows search engines you truly want to help searchers. They’ll reward you with higher rankings and more traffic.

Use Categories and Tags:

One of the best things about blogs is how organized and interconnected they can be. Taking advantage of that with categories and tags helps both readers and search engines. A few rules of thumb to keep in mind:

• Use keywords for categories and tags where possible. This strengthens the keywords in each post and builds keyword-rich tag and category pages. 
• You should have no more than 12 to 24 categories total. 
• Each post should be in 3 categories or less. 
• Tags should not be the same as categories because it confuses search engines. 
• The sweet spot for tagging blog posts appears to be 5 to 10 tags per post, but you can have as many tags total as you want.

Post Regularly:

Adding actual and functional information to your website will give the search engine the idea that your website is alive. If it’s not an active website, the search engine will crawl it less often and it might become less appealing to the search engine to include the page in the search results.

What other blog writing tips have improved your SEO? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Read How to promote your blog posts?

Beginner's Guide: Common Mistakes in Content Marketing

There are many mistakes that marketers make with content marketing. They too often equate clicks and traffic and downloads as buying signals, which they can be. But they can also turn into nothing if you haven't attracted your ideal customer with the right motivations.

In my experience, here are the critical mistakes that content marketers makes:

No Content Marketing Strategy:

Content marketing only works if it fulfills actual business goals, whether that’s more customers, a larger email list, or more search engine traffic. What are your business goals for your marketing, and specifically, your content marketing? What’s your strategy to achieve those goals? Is your content marketing following suit?

Not Using an Editorial Calendar:

Do you take a few moments to Google how to come up with topics and wonder just how people keep their ideas together? They make an editorial calendar! Once a person as come up with topics, they can implement them into a calendar for the month, half of the year or the whole year. This can help keep a campaign on track, and make sure you are getting some awesome success from your content.

Duplicate Content Issue:

Duplicate content is a trap many beginners fall into because it is just so easy! You write up some great content, feel that it is perfect, and wham-bam, you have all you need, right? Unfortunately, no. You cannot have duplicate content if you want to rank on search engine. That is one of the biggest no-no’s, yet one of the easiest traps to fall into. Train your brain to say, “Danger, Will Robinson” when you even consider using duplicate content.

Not Using Keyword Research: 

Content marketing and search engine optimization complement each other; each technique should inform the other. Don’t get too far ahead in your content planning (or even write a headline) without pulling out your favorite keyword research tool. Confirm that what you want to create is something people actually want.

This is easier than you’d think. There’s a terrific free plugin to make your keyword research a snap: Try the free version of Inbound Writer. It includes a competitiveness measurement, too, so you can make the most of long-tail keywords.

Know about Your Audience:

You Don’t Know Who Your Audience is or are Writing for One Type of Person. Another mistake beginners make is not knowing who their audience is or only writing for one specific type of person. You need to do audience research to learn about who your clientele and readers will be. In addition, you need to make sure you write to a broader type of person to get the most reach. You will quickly lose readers if you aren’t writing for everyone as best as possible. Don’t worry, this blog will show a few ways to write for a broader audience!

Not Publishing Enough Content:

Another major pitfall for beginners is when it comes to content creation. Sometimes people will create a website and have some decent content, but they don’t publish or create enough. This makes their website stale and can drive people away. On the other side, oversaturation of created content can chase people away just as quickly because it comes across as spam and not genuine. Try to find the perfect middle spot for your business and website.

Not Deliver The Right Mix of Content:

This is a massive mistake that many beginners make. Why are multiple content formats important? Because we all will consume content in different ways when we get on a website or social channel. Some people enjoy infographics whereas others prefer in-depth articles. Others prefer memes and many enjoy seeing photos with their social media posts. Videos, podcasts, photos, blogs, and other formats are vital because they will reach different types of people and broaden your reach.

Copy Editing:

An area many beginners need help in is editing their content. Some people simply write and post without reading it. However, you might be one who goes over your copy over and over to catch mistakes. This is great, but the chances are very high that you will miss something in your proofreading. This is why having a copy editor is vital to all businesses. They can catch the small typos you look over and they are simply another set of professional eyes that can look over your piece to make sure it is the best it possibly can be.

Website Navigation:

Website Navigation is a major part of proper website design and is even important to SEO. However, another major pitfall for the newbie content marketer is not making a website easy to navigate. Create a web page that your clients can easily navigate by following a few simple steps and listening to client feedback. This will help improve the traffic to your site and could be what starts making you some incredible revenue. Know, How to Fix Common Mobile Content and Usability Issues.

Not Using Meta Tags or Writing Them Poorly:

Another mistake that can really hurt your content is not using your meta tags by leaving them blank or using them poorly. When you write these tags, it will help improve your ranking and make it a link people want to click on. Use those tags and use them well!

No Call to Action:

This is yet another way to make sure you execute your strategy. What do you want people to do after they’ve viewed your content? Buy something? Sign up for something? Share something? Decide what you want them to do, and then make it as easy as possible for them to do it.

Not Measuring Your Analytics with Google Analytics:

Analytics are a vital part of content marketing because they can show you want content is successful and what is failing at bringing people in or converting them to leads. A great way to measure your analytics is using Google Analytics, which can help you find out just how well you are ranking. It will also show you the basics that will help you improve your content. Read How To Automate Your Google Analytics Reporting.

Not Using Social Media or Using it Incorrectly:

Many businesses can get themselves set up and follow some basic guidelines for SEO and successful content. However, many of them don’t utilize a great way to get their content out there and bring in new people through social media. It is important to all businesses, brands, and individuals because it can act as a form of networking and will help bring in great clicks for your business. Make sure, when you are using social media, that you follow some basic hacks to get the most out of it! Tips to Manage Your Social Media Efforts.

Not Promoting your Content Enough:

You can’t just build it and expect them to come… even if you invite them via email and Twitter and Facebook. Aim to spend at least (at the very least) a third as much time and money promoting your content as your spent creating it. Read More About How to promote your blog posts?

Avoid these mistakes and you will be ahead of the game. Read a lot, re-read your older stuff, rewrite, ask why, look for assumptions, question, question, question. Good luck! The world seriously could use some better content marketing.

How to Promote Your Blog Posts?

Being relatively new to the "blogosphere", I am no expert on the best methods of blog post promotion. Firstly, I do not believe that quantity is necessary strongly correlated to quality blog posts.

I think that promoting your blog post can almost take too much time away from the actual writing. So it is a personal choice on how much time you devote to writing and promotion your blog.

Nevertheless I have read plenty of articles and hope the below can help you promote your blog posts.

Ways to Promote your blog posts:

Create Great Content:

More than anything else, are you producing quality content? If you’re selling something, do you go beyond being a simple brochure with the same information that can be found on hundreds of other sites? 

Do you provide a reason for people to spend more than a few seconds reading your pages?

Get your content right, and you’ve created a solid foundation to bring traffic on your blog posts. If your posts are really good, most likely people will link to, read, comment, and share it.

Be Active in Social Media: 

The vast majority of experienced bloggers will say use Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc to share your posts. However this takes time and effort to build up a significant or valuable following. It takes time to maintain your presence across these sites. Read More about, How to Manage Your Social Media Efforts.

Submit to Blog Directories: 

Add your blog to directory sites like Best of the Web Blog Search, EatonWeb Blog Directory, and OnToplist.com. Here is a list of 23 Blog Directories To Submit Your Blog To.

Use Feeds: 

Utilise RSS feeds. RSS readers remaining a popular method of readers keeping track of news from various sources. There are some great directory lists like this one from TopRank Blog that you can submit your blog or RSS feed to.

Participate in Forums/Communities: 

Participate in online communities relevant to your blog is an highly effective strategy. Forums/Communities that are close to your market/niche and have an active community can be a great way to build traffic to your blog.

Being an active and useful member of niche related forums is a fantastic way to find targeted traffic for your site.

Use Tools: 

Use tools to Publish posts automatically to social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For example, whenever you post a blog on Wordpress, Everypost can spread the word through all your other social channels automatically! Read More about Content Creation and Marketing Tools.

SEO: 

Use your blog content to appear in search engine organic results, and avid Pay Per Click Service. This can be achieved by simply being smart about your existing content and new content. Writing a well structured and informative blog post can achieve higher search engine organic rank.

Use Analytics: 

Use analytics to work out where your most of the traffic is coming from and Know your conversion rates. You are trying to make the most of those visitors who actually visit and stay on your site for more than 2 seconds.

Use Mailing lists: 

Good old fashioned email is still massively powerful in pulling in traffic. Email marketing is a very effective method in getting your blog articles seen and clicked on. Sending a email to your list as soon as you publish a new post is the best way to get a fury of traffic to it.

Branding: 

Be sure to include your blog URL in all your messaging (email, social media, business cards).

Guest Blogging:

Guest blogging has long been an effective tactic for building a community, a way of growing visibility for both your website and your byline, a means of driving traffic, increasing the exchange of ideas and a method of building inbound links to your website.

Follow these steps to ensure your guest blogging efforts are well-received by the search engines and new audience:

1. Only Post on High Quality and Relevant Websites
2. Contribute Original, Quality Content
3. Link with Value in Mind
4. Build Engaging, Long-Term Relationships

Deliver The Right Mix of Content: 

On your blog, you need to deliver the right mix of content Regularly. Include Images, Infographics, Audio and Video in your blog posts. It helps engage your visitors to your post and encourage them to share your posts.

Bend the Rules: 

Leveraged paid advertising, mass marketing (spam) and/or guerilla marketing to build early traffic.

Offline Activity: 

Get out the building. Attend conferences, meet people face-to-face. Often people read a blog because they discovered them in the flesh.

Good Writing: 

Writing and sharing personal and real experiences is always popular.

Ignore Frequency: 

I don't believe posting regularly is important. Many of the good blogs I find are from discovering brilliant articles published years ago.

Knowing how to promote your blog posts is essential if you want to get more blog traffic and build your audience. In summary you need to spend an extensive amount of time across many methods to successfully promote your blog.

You can't simply publish and hope for the best and only sharing with your email list and social media profiles is NOT enough as they are limited in numbers.

You have to reach out to authorities in your niche, syndicate your content, share with others and put in some work to get links, shares and new readers.

When you spend more time promoting you get rewarded with a more engaged community who in turn tell others about your site causing a snowball effect.

Following steps above is a good start but if you're looking for more advanced methods that can bring more visitors to your blog.

How to Optimize your Facebook posts to Maximize Engagement?

Whether you are a small business, a large agency, or even a top retailer like Walmart and Target, Maximizing engagement on Facebook is all about content.

Here are 7 Best Types of Content for Facebook Marketing:

1. Create useful content 
2. Visuals visuals, and more visuals 
3. Infographics 
4. Current events 
5. Humor 
6. Statistics 
7. Quotes

1. Create useful content. 

Lend a hand to your audience. Share articles that your customers will find helpful and relevant to their business. Make most of your content about the customers as opposed to promoting your products. Useful content should predominantly be shared on blogs such as WordPress or your website. Valuable content includes (but is not limited to) tricks of the trade, tips, how-to guides, ebooks, webinars, etc. Save short, helpful blurbs for Twitter. You can also tweet useful links to your followers. Rely mainly on images for Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Why you ask? Take a look at the next point.

2. Visuals visuals, and more visuals. 

According to Facebook, photos and videos posted to Facebook create anywhere from 100% – 180% more engagement than the average post. That’s a whole lot! On ecommerce sites, 67% of consumers say that quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product. It’s an easy way to quickly grab the attention of current customers and possible leads. Photos entertain with minimal effort. Visual content is very effective in grabbing the attention of your viewers.

3. Infographics. 

Are a different type of visual. Infographics are visually appealing, while containing information, data or humor They provide complex information that can be easily interpreted in a short period of time. A diverse assortment of infographics are a great asset to your blog, Pinterest or Facebook. Also try adding links to your infographics on Twitter to see how your audience engages with that type of tweet. 

4. Current events. 

Topics that are freshly surfacing the web are prime because people are currently thinking about them. Contributing to holiday buzz is also great content. Get your Facebook fans to send in pictures of their Halloween costumes or their carved pumpkins. Make sure you find a way to comfortably relate it to your business. You can keep on track with newsworthy topics by subscribing to your industry’s emails, RSS feeds, Facebook Page, put them in your circles on Google+ and following them on Twitter. 

5. Humor. 

Laughter is a great way to connect people to your business. People are more likely to share your content if they find it comical because they become emotionally attached to a certain extent. Sharing humor that relates to your target market is a priority on Facebook. It’s refreshing for both yourself and your audience to see some hilarity once or twice a day. The trick is to relate to your audience without offending or disrespecting anyone. Take a look at The Worst Types of Content to Post on Social Networks for guidelines. 

6. Statistics. 

Statistics are perfect for Twitter. Short, informative pieces of data are useful and easy to process. Those facts may entice readers to think and perhaps research more into the data. In turn, your fans are learning from you and they will appreciate it. It’s a great idea to credit the association or person that was responsible for the statistic (internet etiquette).

7. Quotes. 

Are perfect for Twitter, just like statistics. They’re also a quick go-to if you’re short on time. They can provide inspiration, sentiment or knowledge in a matter of seconds. Provoking emotion is a huge part of marketing. Having the reader feel something about your content causes them to associate a positive feeling with your brand or business. Quotes are also great content for Pinterest, especially atop a photo or in the caption of a pin.

Internal links and It's importance in SEO?

What are internal links?

Internal links are links between pages on the same site. For example, a link from the home page to a category page or links from a product page to similar product pages.

In short, internal links are links within the site and not pointing outside of the domain.

Why are internal links important?

Internal links are important for three main reasons.

• Crawl
• Relevance
• Priority

Here's a brief explanation of each.

Crawl 

Internal links provide navigation for users and search engines. A solid internal link structure ensures a site is maximizing crawl efficiency, which is the building block of SEO.

Relevance 

Proper internal linking provides relevance though linking related pages together and doing so with descriptive anchor text. A good internal linking structure creates 'neighborhoods' of content on the same subject or theme.

Priority 

Internal links provide a signal about what pages are most important on a site, generally measured by how many times you're linking to that page. Essentially, if you think a page is important, you link to it more often.

Internal links are links within your own website and are important in creating proper navigation and crawl paths, enforcing relevance and signaling priority.