Confusion.
That’s what website creators often feel when they try to understand SEO tips that will result in more traffic.
“Will Google like this or won’t they?” is the question often asked when content creators compose their posts and try to optimize them for SEO.
Although these strategies will effectively boost your SEM SEO effectiveness on any search engine, this post focuses on how to maximize your results on Google.
Do you want to know how to create a website Google will love?
I can tell you along with several experts who are quoted in this post.
Let’s get started.
Consider these comments:
“Samantha (Anderson, guest author of 4 Reasons You are in Danger of Losing Organic Search Traffic) has written a very useful article for us. Today I got the reason why I lost 80% of my traffic. Can you please write an article about how to recover that traffic which we have lost? I will be glad to know about that because I have been facing that issue for a long time.” ~ Divya Sehgal
My response: If you create a blog post that Google loves, you’ll get traffic from Google.
This post tells you how.
“We know that Google is the top most-used search engine. I think we need to focus more on Google SEO practices to get massive amounts of traffic to the site.
Writing long form content according to our niche helps readers to get the full information. Short content doesn’t have much information that can solve the reader’s problems.” ~ Praveen Verma
Not everyone agrees we should spend time trying to get Google traffic:
The main blogging cost is the time I spend improving and improving and doing everything to fall in the laps of Google’s favorable graces. ~ Mr. CLIXLR8 ONLINE
“It’s interesting to see the data behind how Google determines whether your blog post is worthy of being seen by others. Fortunately, I blog for pleasure and that saves me going down the Google rabbithole of being told what and how to write to try to get a few extra views. To me it’s about being authentic to my own voice – not to the Google gods and their latest algorithms.” ~ Leanne
My response to Leanne:
“As a blogging tips coach, I want to let people know the information so they can make informed choices. I know you’re happy doing what you do. You should be. You’ve built an engaged community. I like to try to have the best of both worlds– be authentic to my own voice and make Google happy.”
Follow these SEM SEO strategies. You’ll save time if you use these tips as a checklist and rank well on Google.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. You want to ensure your post is in optimal condition so that it ranks well on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Keep reading to discover how.
According to Wikipedia,
“Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results.”
What is SEM?
According to Wikipedia,
Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising.
This article will cover both SEM SEO tips.
You can’t have either without the other.
SEM and SEO are related. For example, you need to optimize your posts for search engines in order to have your content, products, and services found on Google and other search engines.
SEM SEO Tips to Boost Your Traffic and Sales
1. Publish original content. Curating content is a great idea. However, Google may not know which one to rank and may not pick the version you prefer. Publishing only original content avoids this problem. Concerns over Google penalties are overblown. If you do use other people’s content, make sure to offer the source.
2. Create content 2000+ words. I recently read an article that says 3,000+ words should be your average length. Long-form content is definitely trendy. However, write helpful information. Answer questions provided by Answer the Public if needed. Don’t write empty words just to fill this word-length goal.
3. Put the word “Update” in your headline. Genuinely update the information.
4. Do your research! This means finding keywords with high search volume and low competition for readers. Free tools exist to help you find these.
5. Tag your posts. Use long-tail keywords as your focus keywords and in your tags. Search engine users are apt to type multi-word questions and phrases into search engines. Tagging your posts this way will increase the visibility of users finding you.
6. Build links to your site. The more links you build, the more quality Google will believe you have. However, don’t build links from sites using Black Hat SEO methods. Google would disapprove of those links and your blog would look low-quality in Google’s eyes. You can build links from high authority sites. Note: Linking to a site with whom you have a financial relationship without a disclaimer that you stand to profit may get you penalized.
7. Link to other websites. Search engines will rank you higher. By linking out, you show Google you are a credible site that cares about providing readers quality.
8. Google likes links with anchor text. Using them close to the top is the most effective. People call the top section of your post “above the fold.”
9. Long-tail keywords will still take center stage due to voice search. Consumers speak their queries and use long-tail keywords when they do.
10. While long-tail keywords will still be marketers’ focus, interest in search volume will start to decrease. Since the numbers add up, marketers will be happy with the content that ranks on Page 1 even if the search volume is smaller.
11. Google likes fast loading sites. Blogger Moss Clement explains, “Not having a mobile-friendly site is a no-no for Google because search engines now favor mobile-friendly websites. These are websites that load fast. So, if your site is not mobile-friendly, you’re certainly going to lose traffic.” Use GTMetrix to discover how fast your site loads.
12. Google likes links to your site with a higher Domain Authority than yours. Guest post for these sites to get these. Use the free MozBar to determine your DA and the DA of sites you consider guest posting for.
13. Google dislikes keyword stuffing.
Blogger Camilo Atkinson explains the history behind why Google dislikes keyword stuffing:
“Believe it or not, this keyword stuffing used to work to get your website on the first page of Google.
If the exact keyword had to be repeated numerous times, it would force writers to stuff the keyword anywhere they could.
Google realized this was bad user experience as the text won’t flow naturally, and so they changed the rules.”
How to avoid keyword stuffing:
Use the Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast will tell you if you’ve used your keyword too many times in your post. If you find Yoast recommends reducing the number of times you mention your keyword, try replacing your keyword with synonyms called “LSI Keywords.” LSI Graph, a free tool, provides those synonyms for you.
14. Interlink your posts. Google likes them. According to Blogger Lorraine Reguly, “You can take one simple topic and write 3-5 posts on the same thing, each with a different spin on it. Interlinking all the posts with one another after they have been published is a great way to establish blog authority as well as authority with Google.”
15. Use Search Strings. According to Dabakar Bala,
“As we know, asking the correct question solves half of the problem. Similar is the case with Google Search Queries. Strings with punctuation and symbols like ” and + are not known to many writers and bloggers. Using those search strings with your niche keyword brings up loads of poor quality articles. One can take up those topic ideas and improve upon them. Easy peasy. For example, “link building + blogs.”
16. Publish consistently. Google likes new content. Active blogs consistently publish content. If you run out of ideas, update old content. Putting “Update” or “The Latest” will please Google.
17. Fix broken links. Use a link checker plugin which will cross out the broken links on your site. Google dislikes sites with broken links. This way, you’ll know you need to fix them and others won’t click them.
18. Google likes posts that include videos. Blogger Donna Merrill can attest to this.”I do find that whenever I make a video and put it on YouTube and embed it on my blog, my ‘Google Status’ jumps high.
19. Google likes engagement. Based on my experiences, posts with many comments will do well in search engines. Asking people to comment at the end of your post will encourage and increase comments.
20. Install an SSL Certificate. Google prefers HTTPS sites.
21. Avoid linking to spammy sites. Link to authority blogs instead.
22. If you do link to a low-quality website, make sure you don’t give a dofollow link.
23. Veteran bloggers: Write about high volume search words. New bloggers: Once you have started to drive the organic traffic for low searches, then you may go with the keywords with the search volume more than 100 or 100-200. Don’t choose the primary keyword with thousands of search volume as it is tough to rank.
24. Publish posts about keywords with low online competition. [Check out these tools which will help you conduct competitive analysis.]
25. Optimize your post with those high volume, low competition search words. Put the keyword in the headline, a subhead, sprinkled throughout the post, in the meta description, and in the alt image tag.
26. Write your meta description in a way that search engine users know you’re answering their query. Do this by including verbs like “fix,” and “get.”
27. Bold your anchor text. This provides extra Google power.
28. Have a variety of media in your posts. For example, include graphics, infographics, screenshots, video, and GIFs. Embedding these in your post will keep people longer on your blog. This, in turn, improves your bounce rate and your SEO increases.
29. Publish quality content that helps people. Use the phrase “How to” in your headline.
30. Avoid matching your anchor text to your keyword when you insert a link. According to Gaurav Kumar, exact match anchor text is out. If you use an anchor text that matches your keyword, Gaurav warns you could be opening yourself up to a Google penalty.
31. Keep your slug, the back end part of your URL, short. For example, the slug for this post is SEM-SEO. The slug is not 35-New-SEM-SEO-Tips-to-Make-You-See-More-Google-Traffic.
32. Don’t pay for links. Google considers buying links Black Hat SEO.
33. Use Headline Tags (H1 in your headline, H2, H3, H4) in the body of your post. These headings should organize your points in your post like an outline organizes the points in an essay.
34. Place links in a context. According to Neil Patel, links should be surrounded by context and not at the bottom of your post in the footer.
35. Type a question in your post and answer it in one sentence. Those are the kind Google picks for Position Zero, Google’s snippets at the top of the search page.
Wrapping Up: SEM SEO Tips
In case you think any of these ideas seem outdated, my guest author followed these SEM SEO strategies and got my post on Page 1 of Google. I had another guest author do the same.
This is a screenshot from Spyfu.com showing I have 34 keywords on the first page of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages.
Follow these tips, and you can have many keywords on Page 1 of Google’s SERPs as well.
Readers, please share so bloggers, content marketers, and anyone seeking visibility on Google learn these SEM SEO tips.
I look forward to your views in the comments section. Are there any SEM SEO methods you can suggest?
