How to Develop an Effective SEO Strategy
Blogging can be a fun and very lucrative business with an effective SEO strategy in place. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy working from home and writing about things they enjoy? This might lead you to wonder why everyone isn’t doing it.
The answer is easy. While blogging can be very profitable, it is also very competitive. Latest statistics show that there are more than 370 million blogs competing today. If you hope to realize any substantial income from blogging, it is imperative that you have an effective SEO strategy in place. Without SEO, your blog will never drive the amount of traffic needed to generate profits.
The good news is that you’ve come to the right place. This guide will help you develop an SEO strategy that is both effective and practical.
Related: How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you even start writing your next blog, it is important to know who your audience is. Who is most likely to read your blog? College students? Parents? Retirees? Men? Women? Professionals? Investors? Understanding the demographics, such as age, location and gender, of your audience, will enable you to create content that is geared toward them. This also will ensure you drive the right traffic to your blog.
Use the Right Keywords
Keywords are the crux of SEO marketing. Without the right keyword placement in your online content and tags, your blog will never rank high on Google, Bing or any other search engine platform. It is important to use keywords that your target audience is most likely to search for online. Compile a lost of approximately 10 keywords related with your product, niche or services. Insert these keywords into Google’s Keyword Planner Tool, and find the exact variations being used in your industry.
I use a paid enterprise keyword planner tool called SEMrush. You can enter a seed keyword and get up to 2 million related keywords for your SEO and PPC. The service provides keyword analytics, site audit, traffic analysis, position tracking and organic research for your website and your competitors. The best way to choose keywords is to find out what your competitors are using and what they are ranking well on.
There has been a recent emphasis on long-tail keywords, which consist of three or more words. This is due to the popularity of voice-activation searches. Today’s bloggers must use keywords that are not only most likely for their audience to type into a search bar but also likely for users to utilize with Siri and other voice-activated search tools.
Set Up a Blog
Blogging is an amazing way to rank for keywords, engage with your audience and make money online. If your business does not have a blog then learn how to start a blog from one of my previous articles. Every blog post you write gives you an opportunity to rank for a particular keyword in the search engines. While you desire to rank in the search engines, keep in mind that your content must engage with your readers first. If your readers don’t engage with your topics then they wont come back or purchase your products and services.
To build a successful blog it needs to have a clear focus. What will you write about? You need to build content around something you are passionate about. My blog is focused on teaching people how to make money online, seo, and online marketing. That is my expertise and passion.
Related: How To Build a Solid Blog Foundation
Build Keyword-Rich Content Pages
Content is King! If you are serious about making money online, then you need to build quality content. You will need a lot of it, but don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. Your content needs to be anchor content that drives someone to tack action. There are thousands of blogs being launched every day. There are already established blogs publishing content on your topics. You just need to be a little unique and influence a special group of people that have been waiting to hear what you have to say. Making money online is not difficult, you simply need to become a master of content writing. As a blogger, you need to be a leader from a content perspective so you can build a following. My recommendation is not to go mainstream or broad topics like online marketing. Not only do blog earners have that covered but so do the major major magazine outlets and software providers. Go niche and dive deep into that niche like becoming the guru of email marketing.
Keep in mind that your content needs to be written for your readers while at the same time being friendly and crawl-able for search engines. Make sure it is engaging, keyword rich for search engines, unique and well written. You don’t need to write masterpieces, just good informative content. Remember, you will need to publish your content on a weekly basis.
Related: 5 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy in 2018
Track Analytical Data and Measure Success
The last thing you want to do is develop an SEO strategy and then just assume that it will be successful. Instead, you must track the performance of your blog on a regular basis. Statistics, such as the number of unique visitors, views per visit and bounce rates, can help you determine the effectiveness of your blog.
Once your blog is posted, you can use an online calculator to check your SEO score, as well as your competitors’ score. In addition, evaluating which posts are most popular and which generate the most social interaction will let you know what type of content your target audience wants most. Again, I use SEMrush for competitive analysis as well as my free SEO Analyzer.
Related: Influencer Marketing to Enhance Your SEO
Off-Page SEO
In addition to on-page SEO strategies, such as dynamic web design and keyword-rich content, off-page marketing is equally important. Off-page tactics, such as external link building and social media marketing boost your SERP (search engine result page) ranking. A successful blogger’s SEO strategy includes a good balance of on-page and off-page techniques.
Related: 8 SEO Mistakes You’re Making in 2018
Keep Up on Latest SEO News and Trends
Search Engine Optimization changes as fast as Google makes updates to it algorithms and ranking factors. Here are my top 5 resources to check out and monitor:
Related: SEO Predictions for 2018
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