8 Most Important Factors to Improve Your SEO
Here’s an overview of what we’ll cover:
- 1. Sitemap
- 2. Your Content
- 3. Media
- 4. Keywords
- 5. Meta Data
- 6. Backlinks
- 7. Responsiveness
- 8. Site Speed
My goal is to simplify SEO for you, so don’t let some of the lingo in this post scare you, such as “sitemap,” “meta data,” or “backlinks.” I’ll break everything down for you so you can understand the essentials without missing out on anything important.Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools
1. CREATE A SITEMAP
First and foremost, you must have a sitemap for your blog. A sitemap, simply put, is a list of the pages and posts on your blog. If you’re on WordPress, I suggest downloading the Yoast SEO plugin that will take care of this for you automatically.
Sitemaps are important because search engines crawl (read) them so they can 1) get a better idea of what your blog is about; 2) include your links in searches; and 3) speed up the process of your blog showing up in search engines. This process is known as indexing.
2. YOUR CONTENT
Without great content, your blog is of little value to not only your readers, but also to search engines. To improve your search engine optimization, your blog posts should be lengthy, well-written, and informative. What this means is useful, long reads free of grammatical errors. If spelling and grammar aren’t your strong suits, I recommend Grammarly – it can be a life-saver!
With longer posts comes a higher average time on site rating, which search engines notice and appreciate; a longer average time spent on site means readers are enjoying your content and find it to be of value. Therefore, search engines will also believe your blog is valuable. And, in case you missed my previous post, learn more about the basics of a great blog post because those tactics will come in handy with your blog’s SEO too. As a basic rule of thumb, though, the longer your posts are (without rambling!), the better. Most of my posts tend to be around 2,000 to 3,000 words.
Always remember quality trumps quantity, but search engines also like a high frequency of content too – in other words, the more posts you have, the better. Don’t mistake this for churning out tons of pointless, irrelevant posts, though. At the very least, stick to a consistent posting schedule that you can manage (with really high-quality posts!), whether that’s once a day or once a week. Consistency is key, and you should never sacrifice the quality or informative value of your posts.
3. BREAK UP YOUR TEXT WITH MEDIA
Posts become easier to read when your text is broken up with media. Try throwing in a photo or video here and there to break up dense sections of text; if you do so, your readers are more likely to stay engaged. On top of that, search engines also favor content that features imagery because they know readers prefer these easier reads.
4. USEFUL, RELEVANT KEYWORDS
One of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of search engine optimization is keywords. A keyword or key phrase is a word or group of words that gives clues to what a post is about, defines the topic of your blog post, and it’s how readers will find your post in searches. For example, keywords for this post you’re reading might be “SEO” or “search engine optimization.”
However, a concept that will help you tremendously in improving your optimization is the use of long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are typically three to four word (minimum) phrases that are very specific. Instead of making the keyword for this post simply “SEO,” examples of long-tail keywords I could use for this post would be “search engine optimization for bloggers,” “search engine optimization simplified,” or “an introduction to search engine optimization”…and so on.
The benefit and purpose of using long-tail keywords instead of generic, one-word keywords is that you’re more likely to be found. Think of the competition you’ll be up against for the keyword “SEO”…you may never be found! Or, it would at least take a lot of work and time to start getting discovered for such a broad, simple and overused keyword. Therefore, using long-tail keywords will increase your ranking for certain search terms and bring you more organic traffic.
5. META DATA
Meta data is a set of data that provides information about your blog post. The meta data you need to focus on are 1) your blog post’s title, 2) your blog post’s description, and 3) image titles and alt text.
Because meta data is so important to search engines, you should include your keyword or key phrase in each of the three aspects I just listed. Your blog post title and URL should immediately tell readers and search engines what the post is about, so it makes sense to want (and need) to include your keyword here. In your blog post’s description, you also want to include your keyword or key phrase, and it’s more effective if you do so as close to the beginning of the description as possible.
Lastly, let’s talk images. Image titles should also include keywords. Tip: When saving your images, know that -‘s serve as spaces to search engines. Therefore, you want to name your image “search-engine-optimization-for-bloggers.jpg” instead of “SearchEngineOptimizationForBloggers.jpg.” Additionally, images have what’s called alt text. Alt text is an alternative description of your image and is useful for two reasons. Firstly, if your image won’t load for whatever reason, the alt text will display, letting readers know what the image content is relevant to. Secondly, and most importantly, the alt text is another way to tell search engines what your post is about. It can also lead to your image showing up in image results on search engines, which can be another way to gain traffic.
6. BACKLINKS
A backlink is a link from another website linking back to your blog. Essentially, the more backlinks you have, the better your ranking will become. The idea behind this is that search engines tend to believe the more links you have to your blog, the more valuable and liked it is. However, your ranking can be penalized if spammy backlinks are found. Therefore, a backlink from a well-established, high-trafficked site counts a million times more than one hundred backlinks from sites with no traffic whose sole purpose is to post links. In a future post I’ll cover some strategies for building backlinks authentically to increase your organic traffic – stay tuned!
7. RESPONSIVENESS
Google somewhat recently announced that responsive, or mobile-friendly, websites would automatically rank higher than sites that are not responsive. This makes sense…it’s frustrating trying to navigate a website on your phone or iPad that doesn’t resize, right? With today’s technology, there’s really no reason or excuse for your blog not to be responsive.
Squarespace sites are responsive, and almost every good-quality WordPress theme comes responsive out-of-the-box. If your blog isn’t responsive already, I highly suggest making changing this a priority! You’re not only hurting your SEO, but you’re likely losing readers and followers as well. If you’re in need of a new WordPress theme that’s responsive, here are some of my favorite providers: Studio Press, Restored 316, and Elegant Themes.
8. SITE SPEED
Last but not least, the time it takes your blog to load has an effect on your search engine optimization. To put it simply, if your blog loads too slowly, your ranking will suffer. Search engines favor sites with quick load times. This handy tool allows you to enter your domain (for free and without signing up!) to check your blog’s load time, along with suggestions to improve the speed.
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