Janice, the businessman criticized, you donât have enough SEO articles on your site.
Too true, IÂ admitted, but he did not stop there.
He actually offered to rectify the situation by having his boss, the director of an Internet marketing agency, author an SEO article just for MostlyBloggingâs readers.
When I saw these 5 SEO tips were going to double your blog traffic, it was icing on the cake. He had me at SEO.
5 SEO Tips To Double Your Blog Traffic
The Value of SEO
An on-site blog does wonders for SEO if it is properly executed.
- Active blogs add relevant, fresh content to your website, something Google loves.
- It allows you to optimize for keywords not covered on your main website.
- If the blog is executed and marketed properly, it drives tons of relevant traffic to your blog and main site, which not only boosts rankings for individual pages and the domain, but also generates more leads.
Here are five important SEO tips for making your blog perform as just described:
1. On-Blog Optimization
Your blog must be properly configured for SEO. Some blogging platforms are better than others on this score; I like WordPress. Items to pay special attention to include:
- URL structure. It should be the post title with hyphens separating words. No weird symbols or meaningless strings of numbers.
- Title tag should default to the blog post title (H1 tag); this way, title tag, post title and URL are consistent, maximizing user experience.
- The post editor should have places to add Meta descriptions** and tags; and allow for modifications to the title tag.
- The platform should allow for a category structure.
You can use the Google Search Console to identify SEO issues with your blog.
2. Topic Selection
To attract relevant traffic, you need topics of interest to your relevant audience. How do you find relevant topics?
- Ask your [readers]! SEO nerds often overlook this very simple technique. People who talk to customers and prospects all day know what their burning issues are, and they also speak the language of the customer, which helps immensely with the title.
- Review your FAQs and those of competitors.
- Track hot topics through social media to see what conversations are trending in your niche. Many online buzz monitoring tools are available to do this.
- Email an online survey to current customers and prospects asking them what topics theyâd like you to cover on your blog. Give them several prompts so they donât have to think too much, but also give them room to make suggestions.
If you pick topics prospects are interested in, they will read your blog if it is properly marketed â a topic Iâll get to shortly.
3. Keyword Selection
Presumably, product and service pages of your website cover strategically important SEO keywords.
Use your blog to optimize additional keywords, in particular long-tail keywords* that are relatively specific and have a high probability of conversion.
Over time, your blog posts will appear more and more prominently for more and more types of search queries. Â What does this add up to? More traffic, and more opportunities to close sales (admin bloggerâs commentary: if you are monetizing your blog).
4. Title and Post Composition
Title composition is crucial for attracting readers, so they should be interesting as well as incorporate keywords. In fact, upon publication, the former is more important than the latter.
The Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer is an excellent tool for tweaking headlines to make them captivating. Down the road, post titles and title tags can be rewritten, blander but with better keyword insertion, which is good for long-term SEO. Just make sure you donât change the URL when rewriting.
For post composition, the key for SEO is quality: thatâs what Google looks for ⊠as well as your human readers. Quality means engaging, informative and useful. Word count matters: some posts should be lengthy, detailed, researched and extremely valuable. This âevergreen contentâ will generate social shares and links from relevant blogs, both of which, particularly the links, are important for SEO.
5. Blog Marketing
Lots of great blog content is overlooked, so actively and intelligently marketing your posts is essential for attracting traffic.
A lot of bloggers go through the motions of mechanically sharing their posts on their social media pages. This alone is usually not enough.
A better approach is to connect with influential bloggers in your niche and related niches, develop relationships with them, and seek their help in publicizing your content.
This takes time and requires a âgive-to-getâ mentality where you go out of your way to help other bloggers do the same thing youâre trying to do: build relevant traffic. It still works, and thatâs what is truly great about blogging!
Author Bio
Brad Shorr is the B2B Marketing Director at Straight North, an Internet marketing agency that works with businesses across the United States to increase their online visibility by building and executing inbound marketing campaigns. With years of writing experience, some of Bradâs work has been featured on Forbes, Smashing Magazine and Moz.
Admin Bloggerâs Commentary: We thank Brad for coming here today (with his representative Briâan) to expose us to information about how SEO can help build blog traffic.
When I have asked other bloggers what is their Number 1 traffic referrer, most admit search engines lead the most traffic to their blogs. These SEO tips work!
Readers, please share, so other bloggers know that SEO still matters as we head into 2016.
Do you know any other SEO tips you can share in the comments section? I look forward to your views.
Glossary:
*Long-tail keywords: According to SEOPressor, Long tail keywords are more than 3 words. They are definitely a lot more targeted [to specific traffic] and not as broad.
**A meta description is an element that describes your page to search engines.
Related Posts and Pages:
8 Backlinking Mistakes That Every Blogger Should Avoid
How to Significantly Rise in the SEO Ranks
How to Increase Blog Traffic Like an SEO Expert
Link Exchange (If you have subscribed to this blog and would like to be added to the link-building group, write your blog URL and niche in the comments section.)
Sources:
http://seopressor.com/blog/short-tail-or-long-tail-keywords
