It’s impossible to overstate the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for businesses today. The phone book has been obsolete for over a decade – when people need to buy something now, they open up a web browser and use a search engine to find their best options. The higher you’re listed in search results, the more likely it is that customers will choose to use your business rather than one of your competitors.
SEO can be complicated, though. The algorithms used by Google and other top search engines consider hundreds of factors when determining the rankings for any given keyword. Learning how to optimize content for these algorithms takes a great deal of research and practice. You’ll need the help of a digital marketing agency that provides SEO services to get the best results for your site.
That said, there are a few easy tricks that anyone can use to make a blog post more SEO-friendly, such as…
Table of Contents
Add Your Keyword to the Title
Put yourself in Google’s shoes. They developed a search engine, and then they monetized it by implementing ads. They always want more people to use their search engine, as this results in more revenue for them. And for their search engine to be popular, they need to make sure users are satisfied with their service. Otherwise, users will start looking for a search engine that produces more relevant results.
So, Google has a vested interest in generating the most relevant results possible for each search. That means their search algorithm must be able to tell what a post is about. Only then can it determine whether a post is relevant to a search or not.
Just like a human, search algorithms use the title of a blog post as a key indicator of what the post is about. Whenever you’re targeting a particular keyword with a blog post, the first step is to include that keyword in the post’s title.
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Add Your Keyword to the First Paragraph and at Least One Subheading
Algorithms will also analyze key portions of the body of your post – namely, the first paragraph and subheadings – to decide how relevant it is for certain searches. Always add your keyword to these areas.
Of course, you shouldn’t go overboard with keywords. Google penalizes sites that practice keyword stuffing. Keywords need to sound natural when they’re included in the text, and they should be used somewhat sparingly. It’s recommended that you keep your keyword density (the number of times the keyword is included in the post divided by the total word count of the post) under 4%.
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Optimize the Image Text
Search engine algorithms don’t have eyes. To determine how relevant an image is to a search, they review the name of the image file and the image’s alt text. That gives you two more opportunities for adding keywords to your post.
Instead of sticking with a default image name like “IMG0459”, choose a new name that describes the image and includes your keyword. Also, alt text is helpful for when an image fails to load on your site. It assists readers with limited vision who use screen readers, too.
Remove Anything that’s Slowing Down Your Website
Some aspects of SEO aren’t about keywords at all.
For example, Google has been using the speed of sites as a ranking factor in its search algorithm since 2010. Again, this makes sense from Google’s perspective: they have a bottom-line interest in ensuring that the users of their search engine are happy with the sites that are listed as top search results. If those top search results link to slow sites, users won’t be happy.
The average visitor will only wait a few seconds for a page to load before they get frustrated, give up, and try another site. If you can count to three before your post finishes loading, then you’ve got a problem.
Does your post feature any high-quality images or videos? Getting rid of them could speed things up for you. In the case of WordPress blogs, a bulky theme or plugin might be dragging down your site. Switching to a lightweight alternative is the right move for SEO, and it improves user experience as well.