Lewis Hamilton ranks his 2022 season among the worst three of his career, but says he is not overly concerned about missing out on a race victory this year.
The post Hamilton: 2022 one of my worst F1 seasons appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
Presidential historian Jon Meacham compared President Biden to Abraham Lincoln Tuesday, arguing the upcoming midterm elections will be the most important choice that America has made since the lead up to the Civil War.
Appearing on “CNN Tonight” to promote his new book about Lincoln, he was asked by CNN co-host Alisyn Camerota to “tell us why you think that this is the most important election since 1850.”
Meacham responded that the upcoming elections are about a lot more than just particular policies.
“Well, I think it’s the most important election easily since that period because we are facing a stress test for the rule of law and democracies run not just on policies, not just about what a particular policy or tax rate is, it’s about an overall context of our mutual respect for each other as fellow citizens and a sanctity of law and custom that means that people who win elections legitimately get to serve in office,” Meacham said.
Meacham, who spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, went on to mock former President George W. Bush while criticizing the Republican Party.
“When you deplete the trust in the system, which is what is unfolding today around the country, and I will confess, as George W. Bush might say, I misunderestimated the power of the ‘big lie’ here, but it’s burrowed in and democracies do not long endure if everything becomes about power at the expense of winning humbly and losing graciously,” Meacham said.
Co-host Laura Coates brought up the Confederacy and slavery before the Civil War and how Meacham compared them to Republicans who question the 2020 presidential election, noting how he wrote that both Lincoln and Biden had to deal with their own versions of the big lie, with Lincoln’s being that “slavery was a justifiable institution.”
She said there were moments where, if Lincoln had succumbed to pressure to placate the Confederacy, history would have turned out much differently and told Meacham, “You draw these analogies in a way, I think is not always so obvious but it’s fascinating to think of how and where we are today.”
Meacham said the main question we must answer “for the continuation of the constitutional experiment” is “do we put our own interests above everything else?”
“If we go entirely political, if it’s entirely – every moment is this battle where it is cataclysmic – then the system doesn’t endure,” he said, reiterating that Lincoln could have chosen a different path. But because he prioritized democracy over his political future, “Abraham Lincoln, flawed, fallen, and fallible, said no. And he said no, because he believed fundamentally that slavery had to die and the union had to endure.”
Republicans are gaining ground in the crucial midterm elections, with Republicans focusing on the economy and rising crime while Democrats have sought to make the campaign about abortion and a “threat to democracy.”
Have you lost track of all the content you’ve created? It’s easy to do.
If you’re anything like me, you’re so focused on coming up with ideas and creating new articles that you might lose track of what you’ve already created.
But the truth is the content you’ve already created is just as valuable as anything you’re yet to create, possibly more so. Optimizing it just a little bit could result in thousands of dollars more in revenue.
That’s why you need a content audit of existing pages. In this article, I’ll cover:
Ready to create an inventory of your assets? Then let’s begin.
A content audit is the process of creating an inventory of your website’s content assets and analyzing them against a set of criteria.
It’s a way of keeping track of the content you have created, seeing which assets need improving, and identifying which topics to tackle next.
A content audit can be as brief or as detailed as you want. You can audit your entire site, just your blog, or even just a category of your blog. They can all offer value and insight. I recommend doing a comprehensive audit, though. The time you spend on your audit now will pay off later.
You should carve out the time to do a content audit to see where the gaps are and to start creating better content.
Why should you do a content audit? There are a number of reasons a content audit can help your website perform better.
A content audit offers a heap of benefits. These include:
Whether or not you see value in running a content audit, there are certain points in the life of your website when running a content audit becomes essential. Consider running a content audit if:
How you approach a content audit will depend on your goals. While you can create a content audit that achieves all of the benefits I listed above, it will be much more effective if you pick one or two goals to focus on.
For instance, if you want to use a content audit to improve your SEO, then you’ll want to focus on identifying content gaps and pages with missing metadata. That means paying particular attention to the technical SEO of each page.
Given you are reading a digital marketing blog, I’m going to write the rest of this guide as if you were running an SEO-driven content audit. You can still use this guide if you’re looking to improve your reader’s experience or make your content more inclusive and accessible, but just know some of the more technical aspects may not be relevant.
Software tools are an essential part of the content audit process. Rather than go through your website manually, noting each issue in turn, you can use the following tools to automate much of the process.
If you’re running a content audit to improve your SEO, Ubersuggest is essential. Running a site audit is easy. Just enter your URL, click “Search,” and click “Site Audit” on the left. Think of this as a quick, free overall look at how your website is doing.
You’ll also get a snapshot of which SEO issues are most prevalent on your site and how critical they are.
Do you want to compare the performance of your pages? Then use Google Analytics to find traffic data for each page.
Note: Be aware that Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, in favor of Google Analytics 4. If you haven’t already, you should make the switch to GA4 before completing your content audit. The faster you switch, the more historical data you’ll have and the easier it will be to reuse your content audit in the future.
As you analyze your content, you’ll want to find and fix broken links. Integrity, Ahrefs, and Dead Link Checker can help you there.
You could manually pull each content link associated with your website, but that could take far too long and you could risk overlooking some things. Instead, you may want to try a content inventory tool like Screaming Frog or DynoMapper.
It may seem like there’s a lot of work involved with creating a content audit. But it’s easy when you break it down into manageable steps.
The first step of a website content audit is to make an inventory of your assets. Seeing all of them in one location makes it much easier to analyze content performance, highlight areas to improve, and update each asset methodically.
Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider Tool is the best way to extract content assets from your site. It’s free to use if your site has less than 500 pages. But you can also use any of the other content extractors I mentioned above.
Whichever tool you use, export your data into a spreadsheet, making sure relevant data points (word count, meta description, target keyword, no. of images, etc.) are included. You may also want to add traffic data from Google Analytics to each page so you can analyze content performance alongside technical SEO metrics.
As I explained above, you will want to build a content audit spreadsheet so you can keep all the data in one place. You can build one from scratch, download one of the following templates, or use these as a launching point and customize your spreadsheet.
Keep in mind the goals we discussed earlier. There are lots of stats or data points you could pull alongside each content. However, some data is going to be more relevant to you than others.
If you are using this audit to improve your content marketing engagement, you will want to check information about clickthroughs, social media engagement, comments, and so on.
If your goal is associated with SEO, you may want to include warnings and recommendations you gather from Ubersuggest.
Now you have all your content assets in one place; it’s time to analyze them. Go through each piece of content one at a time to see how it’s performing, whether it’s missing metadata or there are any obvious ways it can be improved.
Here are a few things to look for, in particular:
Keep track of everything by creating a note next to each asset about why it needs improving. You can also color-code your spreadsheet based on the type of optimization required, but this can quickly become complicated if a single asset has multiple issues.
You can’t do everything at once, so now it’s time to prioritize your content issues. One strategy is to work through each asset numerically, starting with those at the top of the spreadsheet. Another is to group each optimization issue together and tackle them in bulk. For instance, you could update the meta data on every page, then move on to fixing image issues and so on.
Alternatively, use Ubersuggest to prioritize content issues for you. When you run an SEO audit on Ubersuggest, you’ll receive recommendations based on an issue’s difficulty and SEO impact.
Focusing on tasks with a high SEO impact and low difficulty will give you a series of quick wins. But you could also prioritize all of the easy tasks to get the ball rolling if you’re not that confident.
Content audits work best when they are tackled by several people, so don’t be afraid to ask for help and split up the work. Maybe you can take care of on-page issues while a colleague addresses the content gaps your audit has highlighted.
A content audit is the process of creating an inventory of your website’s pages and analyzing their performance.
Content audits help you identify topic gaps, problems, and areas for improvement on your website. Good content helps you rank better in Google and can earn you more traffic, conversions, and revenue.
You can use tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to run a content audit.
You should start your content by compiling a list of all of your content assets. You can do this by pulling a report through tools like Screaming Frog and then analyzing the results in a spreadsheet.
A content audit may feel overwhelming at first glance. But don’t let that stop you.
Starting a website content audit is one of the best steps you can take to improve your content marketing strategy. Compiling all of your assets in one place makes it much easier to see what needs improving and which assets are missing. It also makes it easier to prioritize and fix issues.
Once you’ve run a content audit once, managing your assets in the future becomes a breeze. You’ll have no problem taking your content marketing efforts to the next level.
What issues has your content audit identified?
Have you lost track of all the content you’ve created? It’s easy to do.
If you’re anything like me, you’re so focused on coming up with ideas and creating new articles that you might lose track of what you’ve already created.
But the truth is the content you’ve already created is just as valuable as anything you’re yet to create, possibly more so. Optimizing it just a little bit could result in thousands of dollars more in revenue.
That’s why you need a content audit of existing pages. In this article, I’ll cover:
Ready to create an inventory of your assets? Then let’s begin.
A content audit is the process of creating an inventory of your website’s content assets and analyzing them against a set of criteria.
It’s a way of keeping track of the content you have created, seeing which assets need improving, and identifying which topics to tackle next.
A content audit can be as brief or as detailed as you want. You can audit your entire site, just your blog, or even just a category of your blog. They can all offer value and insight. I recommend doing a comprehensive audit, though. The time you spend on your audit now will pay off later.
You should carve out the time to do a content audit to see where the gaps are and to start creating better content.
Why should you do a content audit? There are a number of reasons a content audit can help your website perform better.
A content audit offers a heap of benefits. These include:
Whether or not you see value in running a content audit, there are certain points in the life of your website when running a content audit becomes essential. Consider running a content audit if:
How you approach a content audit will depend on your goals. While you can create a content audit that achieves all of the benefits I listed above, it will be much more effective if you pick one or two goals to focus on.
For instance, if you want to use a content audit to improve your SEO, then you’ll want to focus on identifying content gaps and pages with missing metadata. That means paying particular attention to the technical SEO of each page.
Given you are reading a digital marketing blog, I’m going to write the rest of this guide as if you were running an SEO-driven content audit. You can still use this guide if you’re looking to improve your reader’s experience or make your content more inclusive and accessible, but just know some of the more technical aspects may not be relevant.
Software tools are an essential part of the content audit process. Rather than go through your website manually, noting each issue in turn, you can use the following tools to automate much of the process.
If you’re running a content audit to improve your SEO, Ubersuggest is essential. Running a site audit is easy. Just enter your URL, click “Search,” and click “Site Audit” on the left. Think of this as a quick, free overall look at how your website is doing.
You’ll also get a snapshot of which SEO issues are most prevalent on your site and how critical they are.
Do you want to compare the performance of your pages? Then use Google Analytics to find traffic data for each page.
Note: Be aware that Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, in favor of Google Analytics 4. If you haven’t already, you should make the switch to GA4 before completing your content audit. The faster you switch, the more historical data you’ll have and the easier it will be to reuse your content audit in the future.
As you analyze your content, you’ll want to find and fix broken links. Integrity, Ahrefs, and Dead Link Checker can help you there.
You could manually pull each content link associated with your website, but that could take far too long and you could risk overlooking some things. Instead, you may want to try a content inventory tool like Screaming Frog or DynoMapper.
It may seem like there’s a lot of work involved with creating a content audit. But it’s easy when you break it down into manageable steps.
The first step of a website content audit is to make an inventory of your assets. Seeing all of them in one location makes it much easier to analyze content performance, highlight areas to improve, and update each asset methodically.
Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider Tool is the best way to extract content assets from your site. It’s free to use if your site has less than 500 pages. But you can also use any of the other content extractors I mentioned above.
Whichever tool you use, export your data into a spreadsheet, making sure relevant data points (word count, meta description, target keyword, no. of images, etc.) are included. You may also want to add traffic data from Google Analytics to each page so you can analyze content performance alongside technical SEO metrics.
As I explained above, you will want to build a content audit spreadsheet so you can keep all the data in one place. You can build one from scratch, download one of the following templates, or use these as a launching point and customize your spreadsheet.
Keep in mind the goals we discussed earlier. There are lots of stats or data points you could pull alongside each content. However, some data is going to be more relevant to you than others.
If you are using this audit to improve your content marketing engagement, you will want to check information about clickthroughs, social media engagement, comments, and so on.
If your goal is associated with SEO, you may want to include warnings and recommendations you gather from Ubersuggest.
Now you have all your content assets in one place; it’s time to analyze them. Go through each piece of content one at a time to see how it’s performing, whether it’s missing metadata or there are any obvious ways it can be improved.
Here are a few things to look for, in particular:
Keep track of everything by creating a note next to each asset about why it needs improving. You can also color-code your spreadsheet based on the type of optimization required, but this can quickly become complicated if a single asset has multiple issues.
You can’t do everything at once, so now it’s time to prioritize your content issues. One strategy is to work through each asset numerically, starting with those at the top of the spreadsheet. Another is to group each optimization issue together and tackle them in bulk. For instance, you could update the meta data on every page, then move on to fixing image issues and so on.
Alternatively, use Ubersuggest to prioritize content issues for you. When you run an SEO audit on Ubersuggest, you’ll receive recommendations based on an issue’s difficulty and SEO impact.
Focusing on tasks with a high SEO impact and low difficulty will give you a series of quick wins. But you could also prioritize all of the easy tasks to get the ball rolling if you’re not that confident.
Content audits work best when they are tackled by several people, so don’t be afraid to ask for help and split up the work. Maybe you can take care of on-page issues while a colleague addresses the content gaps your audit has highlighted.
A content audit is the process of creating an inventory of your website’s pages and analyzing their performance.
Content audits help you identify topic gaps, problems, and areas for improvement on your website. Good content helps you rank better in Google and can earn you more traffic, conversions, and revenue.
You can use tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to run a content audit.
You should start your content by compiling a list of all of your content assets. You can do this by pulling a report through tools like Screaming Frog and then analyzing the results in a spreadsheet.
A content audit may feel overwhelming at first glance. But don’t let that stop you.
Starting a website content audit is one of the best steps you can take to improve your content marketing strategy. Compiling all of your assets in one place makes it much easier to see what needs improving and which assets are missing. It also makes it easier to prioritize and fix issues.
Once you’ve run a content audit once, managing your assets in the future becomes a breeze. You’ll have no problem taking your content marketing efforts to the next level.
What issues has your content audit identified?
The post How to Run a Content Audit (2022 Update) appeared first on #1 SEO FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.
The post How to Run a Content Audit (2022 Update) appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
I don’t get it. I have a ton of friends who own companies. As soon as they start making some money, they start talking to me about all kinds of investments.
“Real estate’s supposed to be good.”
“I wanna be an angel investor, any tips?”
My usual response?
“Google Ads, dude!”
They run these big companies, selling great products, and what do they do? Run off and try to put their money in anything, EXCEPT their own business.
Why not just sell more of their products? Double down on what’s already working, instead of starting to play in a field you know nothing about?
In my experience, Google Ads is usually the easiest way to do it. If my friend wants to increase his investment money, say $50,000, he can spend 1000 hours trying to become good at angel investing, learn everything about it, and hopefully land an investment in the next Facebook. A friend of mine could do the same for real estate, trying to snag a cheap apartment or condo, and flip it (easier, but still hard).
Instead, you can spend 100 hours learning Google Ads (or just hire someone who knows it) and invest $50,000 in Google Ads campaigns to make $500,000 in sales. Which one do you think is the most likely to pan out?
In my opinion, option three is a no-brainer.
In light of that, today, I want to open a black box most people are unfamiliar with: Google Ads.
Google Ads is a way to get your money’s worth, often boasting an ROI in the hundreds of percentage points. However, the steps I cover here ensure you’re depositing more money into your own bank account rather than just funding Google’s empire.
Now, let’s get down to it. Tie on your Google Ads apron, grab a pen to write down the key steps of a successful campaign, and follow along as I walk you through how to create a profitable Google Ads campaign from scratch.
See How My Agency Can Drive Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website
If your customers are not searching for your product or service online, then obviously, Google Ads won’t work for you.
With that in mind, before you get too excited about creating your first Google Ads campaign, you need to verify there is a search volume for what you’re offering.
I recommend using Ubersuggest, which is my free keyword research tool. The keyword tool acts much like a thesaurus. You enter in phrases you think your prospects are searching for, and it tells you other similar, relevant phrases.
Additionally, Ubersuggest tells you how:
When put together, all this information helps you determine which keywords to use in your first Google Ads campaign.
I also recommend you use the keyword “Suggestions” provided under the main chart. This gives you an idea of related keywords and how much search volume those keywords have.
In addition, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to help you find the best keywords to target. It provides you with bid estimates and total searches, so you can make a plan.
Next, there are three questions to ask to determine whether to advertise on a particular keyword:
Before finalizing your keyword list, you must ensure it makes sense to target that term. This prevents you from going after unprofitable keywords. I find it’s better to run these numbers before you start sinking time and money into a campaign destined to fail.
To answer the question “Can I afford to advertise on this keyword?” you need to calculate your maximum cost per click (Max CPC). To do this, you compare your business’s Max CPC to the estimated keyword CPC in the Keyword Tool to see if you can afford to advertise.
For example, if your Max CPC is $5 and the estimated CPC is $4, then you know there’s a good chance you can profitably advertise on that particular keyword.
You determine your Max CPC by your website’s conversion rate, profit per customer, and target advertising profit margin. If you don’t know these numbers, you need to guesstimate or set up tracking to calculate them more accurately.
Use the formula below to calculate your Max CPC and then compare it to the estimated CPC you found above:
Max CPC = (profit per customer) x (1 – profit margin) x (website conversion rate)
For example, let’s say your average profit per customer is $500, and out of 1,000 website visitors, you convert 10 into customers. That means you have a 1 percent website conversion rate.
If you are comfortable with a 30 percent profit margin, then here’s how you would calculate your Max CPC:
Max CPC = $500 x (1 – 0.30) x 1% = $3.50
Again, your Max CPC must be in the neighborhood of the estimated CPC in Google’s Keyword Planner tool, or else you’re in trouble.
Suppose your Max CPC is $3.50 and the estimated CPC for a keyword is $10. In that case, you need to first increase either your profit per customer or your conversion rate before you can profitably advertise on that particular keyword.
At this point, you now have a list of “buying intent” keywords that you’re confident you can afford. The next step is to reduce your risk by leveraging competitor intelligence.
In most industries, you find competitors who know far more than you do about optimizing and testing their Google Ads campaigns. That means they understand which keywords, ads, and landing pages work in your niche. Peeking into your competitor’s business helps you to determine if it’s easy to outrank a competitor.
Here’s how to get started.
Go to Spyfu.com and enter your keyword. In this case, it’s “cheap bricks.”
It shows you the average CTR and the number of companies that have advertised for this keyword in the past three months.
In this case, there are just 41, which is nothing, considering there are over 1 million companies advertising on Google Ads.
It also shows you other keywords that are performing well on Google Ads.
If you click on “Advertiser history,” you even see the actual ads that your competitors use.
Pro tip: One determinant of relevancy, for Google’s quality score, is whether the keyword shows up in your actual ad.
In this case, Brickit doesn’t even mention bricks in its ad. That means they shouldn’t be too hard to beat.
However, here’s an even better tip.
You can look up an individual competitor. Maybe start with the 800-pound gorilla who’s dominating the SERPs.
Then you can go in and look up all the keywords they’re currently bidding on (along with their estimated volume and costs, of course).
See, combining these approaches helps you uncover your competition’s entire PPC playbook, and then you can reverse engineer it to outperform them.
Sneaky, right?!
Don’t compete. Dominate.
Your USP, or unique selling proposition, differentiates your business from your competitors and gives your prospects a compelling reason to choose you.
In other words, your USP answers the question, “Why should I, your prospect, choose to do business with you, versus every other option.”
When it comes to Google Ads, there are three important reasons to create a powerful USP. It:
OK, a USP is a key ingredient. Makes sense, but how do you create one?
Well, first, you focus on your core strengths. What are you better at than your competitors?
Second, talk to your customers, and more importantly, listen to them. The best companies built their USP on customer insight, so ask your customers why they do business with you.
Also, ask questions to determine what your customers dislike about your industry and what your customers wish you could provide in addition to your core products or services.
Third, analyze your competitors, and look for an opening. The most important word in unique selling proposition is unique.
To create a solid USP, you need to study your competitors’ ads, websites, and marketing materials, and find your opportunity to stand out. To find the commonalities in your competitors’ ads and websites, I recommend you use a spreadsheet. As you’re doing this, look for an opening to say something unique and superior.
For example, remember the old Domino’s slogan?
“You get fresh, hot pizza, delivered to you in under 30 minutes – or it’s free!”
(Image source: ConversionXL)
What more could you want when ordering pizza? Fast delivery and it’s still hot when you get it.
Domino’s Pizza doesn’t claim to be all things to everybody, though. In fact, it doesn’t even mention quality ingredients, price, or taste. It focuses its entire business on the one thing its customers care about most – fast, on-time delivery.
Picture some college students late Saturday night, and you’re looking at Domino’s Pizza’s ideal customer profile!
Now, spend some time thinking about how you’re different from everyone else. What can you bring to the table that your competitors don’t?
Capitalize on that.
What can you offer in your Google Ads campaign that is so compelling your prospect would be a fool to not take action? How can you stand out from the other ads your prospect sees in the search results?
The answer is your irresistible offer, which consists of the following four components:
Your product or service must be more valuable than the price. That’s marketing 101. This doesn’t mean your offer has to be cheap. You just need to clearly define all the value your product or service provides to your customer and ensure it outweighs your price tag.
When you make an offer that appears to be too good to be true, then your prospect may be a little skeptical. That’s why you must provide a believable reason for your offer.
For example, if you’re running a special sale, explain why you’re offering such a steep discount. The reason could be anything: clearing out inventory, end-of-the-year sale, celebrating an anniversary, opening a new store, your birthday, and so on.
Everyone is scared of getting ripped off online. One of the best tactics to minimize the risk to your customer is with a money-back guarantee. A money-back guarantee puts the risk on your business to deliver excellent service, or else you have to give the money back to the customer.
Whenever possible, I always recommend you include some kind of guarantee in your offer. It improves your response rates, and it’s a great way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
One of my elementary school art teachers once gave me fantastic advice when he was teaching a class. He told me to always “Use the KISS method… Keep it simple, stupid.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but those truly are words to live by, especially when you’re creating an irresistible offer.
If you want your prospect to call you, then make it crystal clear and simple to pick up the phone. Don’t expect your prospect to connect the dots or search around your website to figure out the next step. Use a strong call to action and keep it simple.
At this point, you’re probably wondering when you actually create your Google Ads campaign. After all, we’re already halfway through the steps, and you don’t have any ads to show for it!
Trust me, the first five steps are absolutely critical, and you’ll thank me later once your ads are live and you’re generating profit.
However, since you’re so keen, let’s dive in and talk about creating your ads.
With a Google Ads campaign, you pay only when people click on your ads. Therefore, your ads have two crucial jobs:
That means more traffic, more sales, and less wasted money on unqualified leads, which all leads to higher profits for you.
There’s one more important job for your ads. Compelling ads with a high click-through rate (CTR) boosts your Quality Score, which in turn lowers the cost per click of your keywords.
Don’t forget that your ads directly affect how much you pay per click for each keyword. Great Google Ads lower your costs, while lousy ones raise your costs.
Do you see why step #6 is so important? This is also why you must complete the previous steps, because we use them all to make the ads more compelling.
There are four key components to your Google Ads text ads:
The headline is the most critical component because it’s the first thing your prospect will read. Try to include your keyword in your ads’ headline because Google will bold the text, which makes it stand out from other ads.
This also is the easiest way to ensure your ad is 100 percent relevant for the prospect that is searching.
Another great strategy is to ask a question in the headline. For example, if the keyword is “new york city dentist,” a compelling headline is “Need a New York Dentist?”
Not only is part of the keyword in the headline, but the question will get the prospect nodding their head yes. As all great salespeople know, just one yes is sometimes all it takes to start a chain reaction leading to the sale.
Now, let’s look at character length.
Google Ads allows 30 characters for your headline, so make every letter count and use abbreviations whenever possible.
In your two description lines, reiterate the benefits of your service, state your USP, provide social proof, and/or describe your offer. And, of course, include your call to action. Google’s description fields allow 90 words each.
The display URL is an easily overlooked area of your ads. Don’t just copy and paste your domain name. Instead, use your display URL to include your offer, your call to action, your USP, or anything else that makes your ads stand out.
Here are three examples for a dentist to give you an idea of what you can do:
Before we move on, I want to show you an example of a good ad and a bad ad, so you can see the difference.
Same Day Sub-Zero Repair
24 Hour Service…Within 1 Hour
$25 Off Coupon. Call Us Now.
As you can see, the advertiser is clearly targeting a specific niche – people with Sub-Zero appliances. They offer compelling benefits, including same-day 24-hour service within one hour. They have an offer of a $25-off coupon. And they have a clear call to action to call now.
Note that I would try to improve this ad by including the keyword in the title to make it more relevant to the search phrase.
[Name of Company]
family-owned since 1939 for all
your appliance needs call now
The headline of this ad was the name of the company, which is not relevant to the keyword “appliance repair.” Unless you’re a big-name brand, no one will recognize or even care about your name. It’s not compelling and there’s no congruence from the keyword to the ad.
Also, “family-owned since 1939” is not a specific benefit. There’s implied benefit if the prospect puts two and two together and believes longevity equals good service. However, that’s a lot to ask and clearly does not follow the KISS principle. Stick to explicit benefits rather than implied benefits in your ads.
Finally, the phrase “for all your appliance needs,” is too vague. This is an example of trying to be all things to all people, rather than solving a very specific problem for a very specific target customer.
At this point, your prospect is actively searching for your product or service. They found your ad to be compelling versus all of the other options, clicked to learn more, and landed on your website.
Now what?
Well, if you’re like a lot of first-time advertisers, then your prospect is now on your homepage scratching their head trying to figure out what just happened. The ad made a promise the homepage couldn’t keep.
That’s because your homepage is not an advertising landing page!
Homepages explain everything your business does, all of your products and services, and all the different customers you serve. In other words, your homepage is not 100 percent relevant to the keyword searched and the ad clicked. Do not make this mistake.
Instead, create a dedicated landing page that matches the keyword and the ad. The goal is to make the entire sales process congruent so your prospect is continually reassured they are going down the right path.
The most important component on your landing page is your headline, which is the first thing your prospect will read. Your headline must grab attention, reiterate the offer made in the ad, and compel your prospect to keep reading the rest of the page.
Ensure the copy of high-converting landing pages is relevant both to the keyword searched and the ad clicked on. In addition, include:
We’re almost ready to set up your campaign in Google Ads, but there is one final ingredient: conversion tracking.
If you skip this step, you never know which keywords and ads generate sales and which are losing money. In other words, you can’t optimize your Google Ads campaign once it’s up and running.
Conversion tracking measures the sales generated by your Google Ads campaign. More specifically, you want to know which keywords and which ads are generating sales.
If some or all of your sales occur online with an e-commerce shopping cart, then conversion tracking is pretty straightforward. Just use the built-in Google Ads conversion tracking.
The Google Ads conversion tracking code can be found in your Google Ads account under the tool icon, then “Measurements > Conversions.”
To create a new conversion, simply click on the [+ Conversion] button and follow the steps to define your conversion. Then add the small snippet of code to your order form’s thank-you page or receipt page.
This code is similar to Google Analytics code, if you have that installed on your website, but it should be on only the final page after a customer completes their order.
Then, when a customer lands on your receipt page or thank you page, Google tracks the conversions in your Google Ads account automatically. That’s really all there is to it, and there’s no reason not to install this before you turn on your ads.
Google can also track app installs, web conversions, phone calls, and offline conversions.
What if you generate leads online, but you ultimately close the sale “offline” – over the phone or in-person – rather than online? Clearly, you can’t add a conversion code to your cash register, so what can you do?
The three tactics I recommend for tracking offline sales are:
Once conversion tracking is in place, then the time has finally come to log into Google Ads and set up your first campaign.
The Google Ads interface makes campaign setup a breeze, but don’t blindly accept the default settings as one of them can get you into trouble.
As I mentioned, Google Ads does a great job of making it fairly easy to set up your Google Ads campaign. Simply click on the blue plus symbol, then the New Campaign button, as shown below, and follow the steps to add in your ads and keywords.
The process is pretty simple; however, many of the default settings are not in your best interest. That’s why step #9 is to use the correct Ads settings for success.
Here are the most important settings to watch out for:
Select Search Network Only for your campaign type, so you’re targeting only the Google Search Network and not the Display Network.
The display network is a completely different animal than search advertising and it requires a different set of keywords, ads, and landing pages. So always set up separate campaigns to target each network.
Many first-time advertisers have no idea there are different match types. As a result, they waste money on irrelevant search phrases that are not part of the keywords listed in the account.
There are three main keyword match types:
Broad match, as you now know, is the default match type. If you leave your keywords as a Broad match, then Google will show your ads to any search phrase Google thinks is relevant to your keyword.
This means your ads will get more impressions, but you’ll likely show ads to irrelevant search phrases that will just waste your budget. So I do not recommend Broad match.
Phrase match keywords will trigger ads when the exact phrase is part of the keyword typed into Google. For example, if your Phrase match keyword is “office space,” then your ad will display for “New York office space” and “office space in New York.” However, your ad would not display for “office in space” because the phrase “office space” is broken up by the word “in.”
Phrase match gives you much more control over your ads than Broad match. To change your keyword to Phrase match, simply add quotes around the keyword (see image below).
Exact match simply tells Google to display your ad only when the exact keyword is typed into Google. You get the most control with Exact match, but you limit your exposure. To set your match type to Exact match, add square brackets around your keywords (see image below).
I recommend starting with Phrase match because you get the best of both worlds with regard to targeting and reach. However, when you use Phrase match, you need to make sure you include negative keywords.
Negative keywords give you the ability to block phrases from triggering your ads. For example, if you’re an office space rental company advertising on the Phrase match keyword, “office space,” then you will want to block the keyword “movie.”
That way, Google won’t display your ads for an office space rental for folks searching for the Office Space movie.
To add negative keywords, go to the Keywords tab in your account, scroll down, and click on the Negative keyword link (see image below).
Next, click the Add button to add in the keywords you want to block.
Once you’ve completed the setup process, then you’re ready to enable the ads and start optimizing your campaign!
As soon as you set your bidding, enable your campaign, and Google approves your ads, you can take a nice deep breath. Congratulations, your ads are live!
Unfortunately, you can’t relax yet. Most campaigns are not profitable from the start and they always require continual optimization to stay profitable.
There are three main areas to improve your Google Ads campaign performance:
You’ve set up your Google Ads. What do you do now? Don’t sit back and wait. I’m serious.
Turn on your second ad and once everything is running, do something else.
Don’t sit at the computer waiting for things to happen.
Remember the third promise that you made before we began? Google Ads takes patience.
Check back in a day. Then, create more ads and start building your first ad groups. Read the data. Start tweaking.
Finally, remember that nothing matters without conversions.
It’s great if you can tell which Google Ads get a better CTR, but, if they don’t get conversions, that also doesn’t help you make money.
It might take you a month or more to get results.
Just follow your ads and analyze the data, as it comes in over the next 10 days.
Then, review, turn off ads that don’t work, add more keywords, and double down on what’s performing well.
Once you start going deeper, be sure to check out the great videos we have on Google Ads, over at Quicksprout University. You can also try to join the Google Partner program.
Have you launched a successful Google Ads campaign? What tips do you have to share?
Does this topic sound a bit familiar? There’s a good reason for that.
Every year, there are new SEO trends every website owner should be aware of. Sometimes it might just be a fresh approach to a classic SEO tactic, and other times, it’s something new that could give your website an advantage over your competitors.
However, while these new trends and innovations emerge, many of the tried and tested SEO methods still play an important part in improving your website’s rank. Ultimately, isn’t that what every website owner wants?
To help you out, I’ve compiled the ultimate SEO checklist for 2022, an all-purpose tool for website owners to optimize their traffic.
First, though, let’s get started with a look at some emerging SEO trends.
Voice search, mobile SEO, long-form content, local SEO, and user intent remain strong. They were around in 2021, they’ve been a constant for a long time before that, and they’re likely to remain a core part of your online marketing efforts for the foreseeable future.
Now I’ve got some of the mainstays of your SEO checklist out of the way; what’s new? Well, Hubspot points to tightened page headers for additional context, or Google’s snippet feature, People Also Ask, and using emotive headlines. I’m sure most of us have clicked on a headline just because it resonated with us, so we can all relate to that one. You know what I mean:
‘You Won’t Believe What This CEO Did To Save His Company’ or ‘How One Simple Change Can Transform Your Life’
Then there are some more innovative trends that we’re all set to see plenty more of. Many of you have heard of AI and its use in content creation. If you haven’t, you soon will. Other continuing trends for 2022 are:
As I stated in the intro, regardless of new trends and advances, the major staples for SEO remain unchanged for 2022. However, even though you may be familiar with these SEO tactics, drawing up a clear strategy can seem like a challenge. It doesn’t have to be, though.
To help guide you, I’ve drawn up an SEO checklist to optimize your site. Just follow along, stage by stage, and see how your rankings can grow.
Let’s begin with the basics.
If you’re looking for a free way to monitor your site’s performance and traffic, enhance your website listing performance, and fix errors, then Google Search Console needs to be at the top of your SEO checklist.
Other benefits include:
Sound good? Then you may want to set up an account by:
Although Google is the king of search engines, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign up for Bing or other competitors.
Bing Webmaster Tools can help you identify and fix any errors preventing your website from appearing higher in search results. Additionally, it’s a great resource for optimizing your website for Bing and improving your overall SEO health through identifying duplicate content issues and checking loading speeds.
If you’re new to Bing Webmaster Tools, follow these steps:
If you want some guidance for drawing up an SEO strategy, I’ve created a comprehensive list of resources.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool used to track website traffic. It’s important to set up Google Analytics before you start publishing content so that you can track your website’s progress.
It’s hugely popular, and major companies such as Airbnb, Spotify, and Uber use it.
Here are the steps to get started with Google Analytics:
WordPress users can easily optimize their sites by including a plugin as part of their SEO checklist.
There are many great SEO plugins available for WordPress, such as Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack. These plugins let you optimize your website for search engines, and they provide handy checklists so you can ensure you’re doing everything you can to improve your site’s visibility.
Other SEO plugins include:
Regardless of whichever keyword plugin you choose, look for one that:
By creating and submitting a sitemap, you make it easier for crawlers to index your pages and identify any changes you’ve made since the last time the search engines crawled your site. Additionally, a site map increases visibility while aiding navigation and improving poor linking.
There are several different ways to create a sitemap, but the most common is an XML file. Once you’ve created your sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. They’ll crawl your site and add it to their indexes.
However, not every site needs a sitemap. According to Google, sitemaps work best if:
Now that you’ve done that, it’s time to set up a Robots.txt file.
When you’re creating or editing a website, don’t forget to add a robots.txt file! This file tells search engine bots which parts of your website they’re allowed to crawl and index.
The benefits of including robots.txt as part of your SEO checklist are:
Here are things to consider when creating your robots.txt file:
When it’s complete, your Robots.txt. might look like something like Nike’s.
If you’re running a website, it’s vital to ensure the search engines can crawl and index it. After all, you want potential customers to find you online, right? Here are a few things to tick off your SEO checklist to help ensure the search engines can do just that.
You should also consider the recent changes to Google’s scoring system: Now, Googlebot crawls and indexes just the first 15MB of your web content. Therefore, it’s imperative you place your most essential content first.
As part of its update, Google announced changes to its Product Structured Data Guidelines, so read all about those, too.
Is your site mobile-friendly?
According to research, nine out of ten consumers have at least one mobile shopping app. The top reason people are using apps? Because of the superior user experience.
Visitors who have a negative user experience may not come back for more. Therefore, it’s well worth including this on your SEO checklist.
How do you do this? It’s easier than you think. You can:
Here’s an example from Zappos:
Note its clear images and intuitive, highly visible search function.
It’s a simple enough equation: the larger your image files are, the longer they take to load.
To check for oversized image files, use a tool like ImageOptim or Google PageSpeed Insights. The PageSpeed tool checks for loading times and offers tips to improve them.
ImageOptim compresses images without compromising quality; you can use it with Mac, Linux, and Windows.
These tools will analyze your images, tell you how large they are, and how you can optimize them for better performance.
Broken links and 404 errors can have a negative effect on your website’s SEO.
Not only do they create a poor user experience, but they can also impact your site’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). To avoid this, it’s imperative you regularly check for and fix broken website links.
To check for broken links and pages, use a tool like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console. These tools allow you to spot broken links and find pages that Google has yet to index.
When you’ve found a broken link, you’ve got a few options:
1) Edit the link so that it points to the correct page
2) Create a 301 redirect so that the broken link is redirected to another page on your website.
3) Remove the link from your website altogether.
If you use the same keyword phrase too many times, the search engines may penalize your site.
In addition, if you have multiple pages that target the same keyword phrase, the search engines may not know which page to rank higher. What does this mean for your website? It’s called keyword cannibalization, and it could mean lower search engine rankings for all your pages. That’s the last thing you want when you’ve worked hard to establish your website.
To avoid this, use an SEO checklist that details your keywords to ensure that you aren’t inadvertently optimizing your pages for the same keyword phrases.
In addition:
Just because you rank first for a particular keyword or set of keywords doesn’t mean that traffic and conversions automatically follow.
To truly optimize your website and its content for your target audience, you should research your competitors’ keyword profiles and understand what terms and phrases they are targeting.
By doing this research, you can get a good idea of the competition you’re up against, along with the terms and phrases that are most important to your target audience. Armed with this information, you can then begin targeting those same terms and phrases on your own website, helping to improve your rankings and visibility over time.
The result? They can be spectacular, helping you to rank higher, save money and maximize your ROI.
However, how do you find these keywords?
As a starting point, I’d recommend my tool, Ubersuggest, for finding competitor keywords. It’s easy to use. Just enter the URL, choose your country, and click ‘search’ to discover:
Search intent is one of the top factors for SEOs to consider. However, what do we mean when we’re talking about ‘search intent,’ and why should it be on your SEO checklist?
Well, first, search intent is a critical ranking factor, with many top SEOs basing their content strategies on this concept.
When you understand what the searcher wants, it enables you to create content that meets their needs and provides them with the information they’re looking for.
To find search intent, put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask:
Then:
Your primary keywords work best when you use them alongside focus and secondary words. Secondary keywords are words that relate to your primary keywords. When you use them in content, they can get it in front of a broader audience and help bolster your website rankings.
When selecting focus and secondary keywords, you should focus on a select few with the biggest impact. Here are some tips to help you do that:
This one should be on everyone’s SEO checklist, Your chosen keywords are no good to you if you’re not ranking for them. With that in mind, how do you rank for them? You can start by following these pointers:
To help you out, I’ve published a comprehensive guide that talks you through all the above steps.
Okay. Creating content is already on your SEO checklist. However, it can’t just be any content; it needs to be engaging, useful, and actionable. Why?
First, you need engaging content because you don’t want readers leaving part way through before they’ve got to the CTA or taken up your lead magnet offer. If your content is dull and uninspiring, and your reader isn’t doing what you want them to do, you’re wasting your time. Looking for some inspiration? Here’s a great infographic that tells you how to create epic content.
Next, it goes without saying that your content should be useful. You want readers to leave feeling like they’ve learned something.
Finally, write actionable content. You want readers to finish your article knowing what they can do to implement your ideas and get results.
Here are some tips for making your content actionable:
Just one last thing: when creating content, always keep Google’s guidelines in mind.
Descriptive URLs assist with your SEO efforts and make it easier for customers to find your website. Also, by using descriptive URLs, it’s easier for searchers to understand what your content is about. Plus, it enables the search engines to deliver relevant content to the right people.
Additionally, more descriptive URLs can improve click-through rates, as users are more likely to click on a link that accurately reflects the page content.
To help craft more descriptive URLs, you can use tools like Ubersuggest, Google AdWords Keyword Planner, or Moz’s Keyword Explorer to find popular keywords related to your business. Then:
One of the most important parts of an SEO checklist is adding title tags, meta descriptions, and image tags to your pages. These tags provide information about your page to search engines and can help them rank higher.
You see, title tags are one of the main factors search engines look at when determining a web page’s rank.
Then there are meta descriptions. You’ve all seen these before. They’re the short blurbs that appear under your title in search engine results pages (SERPs), and they’re your opportunity to persuade people to click through to your site.
They look like this:
Finally, adding image tags to your pictures is one of the simplest ways to improve your SEO. Image tags tell search engines what your image is about, which helps them rank your page higher in search results.
One way to improve your website ranking is by using schema markup. Schema markup is code that you add to your website, which tells search engines what your content means. This can help the likes of Google better understand your content and rank it accordingly.
Rich snippets allow you to add extra information to your search results. Snippets come in different formats like movies, recipes, and maps:
These rich snippets can help you stand out from the competition and attract more visitors to your site due to improved click-through rates (CTRs). This signals to the search engines that you have quality content and can ultimately help you rank higher in SERPs.
You’ve worked carefully on your SEO checklist but are you forgetting something? Like tracking your ranking success, maybe?
If you’ve made it this far, you’re doing awesome, but unless you’re tracking your progress (rankings), you don’t know that for sure.
When you create a report, it should cover things like:
However, you can include additional info, as pictured below:
To assist with tracking your efforts, Backlinko has a free SEO checklist/report template you can download.
You’ve just about made it all the way through your SEO strategy checklist. Just one more thing, though.
Now, you want to start creating a link-building strategy for all your amazing content to further enhance your SERPs.
Where do you begin, and why is link building important? Hold on while I talk you through it.
Aside from the lift it can give your SEO, link building can increase organic search results and conversions. For example, one brand found that its revenues increased by 808.87 percent, and organic search sessions increased to 82.3 percent. Impressive, huh? And it all took was six months of off-site SEO.
Below are some simple tips you can use to start link building today:
The three areas you should focus on are on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. This includes on-page optimization, link building, keyword research, title tag, meta description, headings, images, and other elements on the page.
This depends on who you ask, but for many, the most important ranking factors are links, quality, content, and website authority. You should also focus on speed/mobile-friendliness, search intent, and usability.
However, Google often updates its guidelines, so ensure you keep up-to-date with these, too.
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A lot of stuff to cover, right?
It may seem overwhelming at first, but following these simple SEO tips can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages and improve your online visibility. Although this SEO checklist includes the mainstays of search optimization, it’s essential to stay up-to-date on the latest SEO trends to ensure your website continues to rank well.
While trends are changing, the constants like competitor keyword research, minimizing image size, optimizing for mobile, and using free tools like Ubersuggest paid tools to analyze keywords are all aspects on your SEO checklist that serve you well long term.
Use this article as your guide and remember that SEO is a long-term project, not a once-off. Keep working at it, and it’s likely your site is going to reap the rewards over time.
Which SEO tactics work well for you?
Ever noticed a change in your SEO rankings for better or for worse, even though you didn’t make any major changes? This may be Google at work.
Over the past few years, Google has released several updates to their search engine algorithm, with Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird being some of the biggest. Those updates set augmented rules on how owners should structure their sites for link building, both building incoming links and using anchor text for outgoing links.
Despite the updates, however, on-page SEO hasn’t really changed all that much. Every on-page SEO task is really for the user’s benefit. Yet, most SEO professionals still haven’t come to terms with that fact.
Google wants the user to be happy when they visit your web page. The only way that Google will know that your site users are satisfied is when they’re engaged. How long do they spend reading your content?
In this on-page SEO checklist, I’m going to show you the essential things to pay attention to. They’ll improve your search traffic, boost your rankings and make off-page SEO a lot easier for you.
Inadvertent duplicate content can slow indexing down, so examine your site to remove it.
It makes sense. After all, don’t we all hate to wait? And, the instant gratification of the web has only made us more impatient.
So, it makes sense that Google cares about page load time (and has for a very long time). From the Webmasters Central Blog:
Back in 2010, Matt Cutts announced that site speed would carry less weight than other key ranking factors, such as relevance, authority links, and so on. That’s no longer quite as accurate. Nowadays, speed is essential, nearly as much as a cornerstone keyword phrase.
One study showed that a delay of a single second in page response time can yield a 7% reduction in conversions.
So, in case it wasn’t already clear, site speed absolutely affects rankings, as asserted in this infographic (click here to enlarge):
You can use Ubersuggest’s site audit tool to check your site’s load time, among a variety of related factors. Here’s how it works:
Step #1: Enter Your URL and Click “Search”
Step #2: Click “Site Audit” in the Left Sidebar
Step #3: Scroll down to “Site Speed”
You’re shown the loading time for both desktop and mobile devices. The results above show that my site is in the “excellent” range for both.
In addition to loading time, it also tests:
If your results aren’t optimal, don’t worry – there are many ways to increase your site speed. The easiest way, which will often cost some money, is by using search engine content delivery networks.
That aside, if you’re a WordPress user, you could delete unused plugins for an instant speed boost.
For more suggestions and how-to’s, check out the following resources.
Do you take meta tags seriously? Although the effect of the title tag or meta description has changed significantly over the past several years, it’s still a good practice to pay attention to them.
In on-page SEO, the major types of meta tags that you should pay attention to are:
Title tags: Title tags define the title of your web page or document. They’re mostly used to display preview snippets of your web pages. When you’re writing your title tag, it should be short, clear, and descriptive but don’t duplicate content from the page content.
The ideal length is 50 – 60 characters. If your title tag exceeds 60 characters, Google will only show the first 60.
You can use Moz’s preview tool to preview how your title tags will appear in the search engine.
Meta description:
This is how a meta description usually appears in the organic search listings:
The meta description is what search engines use to gauge what topic you’re writing about and the exact audience that they should send to that page. So, make it descriptive and short – no more than 160 characters.
There is no need to stuff keywords in your meta description (which would work against you anyway). 160 characters are just not enough space for stuffing. Instead, use synonyms or latent semantic indexing (LSI) of your main keyword to get on-page SEO in the meta description, keeping search engines happy.
For example, if your main keywords in the headline are “generate website traffic,” here are LSI keywords that you can use:
You must also be careful to never duplicate title tags or meta descriptions. Ubersuggest can also help with this. On the same results page (site audit) that displays site speed, you’ll see something that looks like this:
You can then examine any issues with your title tags or meta descriptions. For example, the above shows that my site has 8 pages with duplicate title tags. By clicking on the issue, you’re given the following:
As you click on each result in the Page URL column, you’re presented with a list of pages that share the same title tag, which is displayed in the second column:
Unless there’s a good reason for it, such as using the same title for content in different languages (see above), it’s important to make the necessary changes.
Content is the backbone of a thriving business and on page SEO is the backbone of content marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying, “content is king.” There is way more to successful content marketing than just “content,” though. You have to publish the kind of content that will drive traffic and grow your business.
This involves using specific keyword phrase components that include long-tail anchor words.
You’ll also notice that when you start creating in-depth content, you’ll see a corresponding increase in traffic from long-tail searches, a very specific keyword phrase indicating buyer positioning and urgency. These search engines help give you juice because you are helping people solve problems with your content.
These days, your customers are smarter than you think. You have to be willing to listen to and learn from them – their search for solutions motivates them to ask certain questions. Those questions can tell you exactly what they want most from you.
Content that drives traffic:
According to Demand Metric, 76% of online shoppers felt excited and closer to a company after reading its custom content. That’s why 78% of CMOs consider custom content to be the future of digital marketing.
Duplicate content was once an easy cheat to getting content so search engines would see more stuff, but duplicate content is now easily found by search algorithms and penalizes the culprit.
Traffic-generating content makes the user happy. So, we’re going to start with the aspect of content marketing that matters most: user experience optimization. It often starts with a keyword phrase relating to what the user is searching for.
Remember, on-page SEO begins and ends with the user. No one should build a site for search engines. We build sites for people. After all, search spiders won’t write a comment, subscribe to your list, or buy your product. Only your users can do that.
On-page SEO consists of those activities that directly affect the content, pages, and architecture of the site – in other words, all of the internal factors that make a site useful for the visitor.
User optimization is all about presenting your content and design so that users can find what they’re looking for immediately – another reason that you need to speed up your site load time.
As part of the user experience, you may have duplicate content in your site map. This may be important for consumer ease of use, but make sure to let the spiders know not to index for the duplicate content to improve search engine speed.
It’s all about creating positive experiences for your users. One study by Ruby Newell-Legner, concluded that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved customer experience.
User optimization is all about answering search users’ questions with easy-to-read content, not merely targeting their keywords. For example, if customers are searching for “electric guitar lessons,” here is the wrong way to write your headline and introduction:
Easy Electric Guitar Lessons For Those Looking To Learn Electric Guitar
Do you want easy electric guitar lessons that will make you play guitar like a hero? Well, this electric guitar lessons post will definitely guide you on the right path, so you can master the electric guitar chords in 30 days or less.
The above headline and introduction are not optimized for the user. The keywords are stuffed in and the article introduction is confusing, if not at least lame.
To help you understand what user optimization is about, let’s write a better headline and introduction, while still targeting the keyword “electric guitar lessons:”
Best Electric Guitar Lessons That Will Turn You Into a Pro
What is the best way to learn guitar at home? Many people prefer to read books, but there is a better way. Take some electric guitar lessons from a professional who knows what he’s doing. I don’t want to flaunt my guitar skills here, but trust me, I can help you master the art.
See the difference? In the second example, the main keyword phrase appears once in the headline and just once in the introduction. Moreover, the opening doesn’t promise anything that sounds too good to be true. The reader will understand the second article better because it was optimized for them.
Remember that when it comes to user experience, use of keywords is not the major factor. Instead, the critical issue is addressing the user’s intent – in other words, the reason why the user is searching for that particular keyword.
When you do your on-page search optimization efficiently, your listing will be more attractive and the users will benefit, as a consequence, even before they click to visit your web page.
Brian Clark put it well, when he said that Google is like an infant who doesn’t know what to do and relies on you as a guide.
In his words, “you’ve got to spoon-feed search engine spiders with valuable content that the users will be excited about.”
And, over the years, Clark and his prolific team have produced some of the best blog posts and articles around. Through consistent and proper use of keyword phrase content marketing techniques, Brian Clark turned a blog (copyblogger.com) into a $7 million digital company.
Another important aspect of user experience is functional design. Steve Jobs knew that design isn’t just “how a device looks” but also about “how it works.”
Other great things that make the social site a good fit for the user are:
Another example is the Apple brand juggernaut. Many companies focus on selling features, but Apple also believes in the power of good design.
Apple customers trust the brand completely and happily recommend it to others, not because it’s the most affordable or sophisticated, but because of the sleek design and how the Apple experience makes their lives better.
Another site that thrives on good user experience, is easy to navigate, is legible and has a nice choice of colors combined with high-quality content is HubSpot.com.
Understand the Google Panda algorithm: The Panda algorithm update was first released in February 2011. It was designed to help Google return high-quality results when users type a keyword phrase into the search box.
While other updates have come and gone, Panda’s effect is still going strong. You may recall that Panda penalized low-quality content and thin sites. If you consider the state of search now, you’ll agree with me that Google’s ranked top results have vastly improved since Panda.
Marketers have come to realize that nothing spectacular can be achieved without the right content.
Panda made it easier for smart content marketers to start creating a conversation with their content. You give insights and advice to your customers and they respond with their questions, appreciation or suggestions.
That’s the reason for Google Hummingbird, as well – to bring the user and the marketer together and meet the user’s needs.
If you want to improve your search rankings, you need to consider two aspects of your content:
Avoid low-quality content: The days of generic content with no value are long gone. Enough said.
Avoid thin content: Your content may be high-quality, in terms of the information that you share, but if you want to give your blog a boost in the SERPs, you’ve also got to increase your content length.
No more 300- or 500-word posts, unless you’re also using an infographic on the same page. Instead, write in-depth articles of 2000 words or more, because recent content length affects rankings.
98% of the articles that I publish on this blog hit that 2000-or-more word count. And, by being consistent with the creation of in-depth content that offers a lot of value, I’ve significantly improved my search rankings for several keywords. It also helps link building because there are simply more areas to redirect to. For example, I rank #4 for a highly targeted keyword, “blog traffic.” See for yourself:
Content freshness: The percentage of content, within a page, that remains fresh, has an effect on the site’s rankings. Google takes freshness very seriously.
As a result of this, Google now prefers fresh content, breaking news and other recent content updates that deal with trends.
When it comes to on-page SEO, you may be wondering how Google scores fresh content. Well, according to Amit Singhal, “different searches have different freshness needs.”
Freshness as a ranking factor isn’t new. Over the years, even before the Document Scoring Based on Document Content Update, which Google’s engineers filed a patent for in 2003, the Google search engine had scored content based on freshness for many years.
Naturally, some search terms or keywords require fresh content or insight. For example, when you’re looking for a hosting coupon code for 2019, it’d be utterly useless to find a coupon code that was generated in 2017 or 2018 and was only good for those years.
Singhal described the categories of keywords that will most likely require fresh content:
Hot trends: These are things that are happening right now, all around the world. Those in the gaming niche usually publish recent or upcoming games for a particular month. Some other keywords for hot trends can be found at Google.com/trends:
A typical example of an authority site that will benefit from a Google freshness reward is Mashable. This popular site constantly publishes fresh content, based on what’s hot in the fields of entertainment, technology, startups, business, education, and politics. Its on-page SEO checklist focuses on gossip or news keyword phrase items.
Recurring events: Events that take place every month, every quarter, every year, etc., can also lead to an increased freshness score because such content requires constant updating. These keywords are recurring:
Frequent information update: Some other keywords that are searched for in Google require frequent updates. For example: best dslr cameras and top fitness programs.
These three yardsticks are important to Google when scoring a web page for freshness. But, don’t forget that Google also gauges the freshness of a web page based on the date Google discovered it. Over time, this freshness fades and new content with a newer inception date replaces the older piece.
So, what are you supposed to do for your site, in order to boost its freshness score and ultimately attract more search traffic?
First, you’ve got to consistently publish fresh content.
If you can, publish daily and make sure that you share helpful tips for your target audience. If you’re busy as I am, then publishing two times a week will ensure that your web pages are fresh and attract fresh crawls from Google’s spider, as well as deep bots that will sustain your indexed pages.
Research shows that Google prefers to serve up fresh results to users when they search for a keyword. To get around this preference, some people use blackhat SEO tricks to manipulate web page freshness, like changing the implementation date on older articles and pages.
This might work, but it’s very risky and it’s not sustainable. Avoid taking shortcuts that may seem promising. Why would you want to manipulate freshness and inception dates, only to risk your page getting penalized by Google?
Content engagement: The word “engagement,” in this context, means the state of interactivity. The true test of high-quality content is the engagement that it creates. When you’re conscious of engaging your audience, you’ll most likely create the right content for them. Search engines love this.
This initial on-page optimization will align a piece of content with the user’s needs. If you’re going to attract the right clients to your business, you’ve got to focus on engaging your prospects.
Brandon Dennis, of Scotch and Smoke Rings, increased his Facebook engagement by 200%, using Buffer. He created focused news that his audience would enjoy, then shared it with them at the exact time that they wanted it.
He did some research to find out the best times to post on Facebook and Twitter and found this infographic.
By being consistent with the right social media timing, he increased interactions on Facebook from 150 per day to over 700. That’s a 367% increase in engagement.
Content writing tools: An integral part of on-page SEO is content. You have to give it your full attention. However, you need to automate some writing tasks, because speed matters, when seeking to increase your search rankings. Some of the best tools out there to speed up your content creation are:
Ubersuggest: This is one of my favorite tools for finding high-volume, high-converting long-tail keywords. It’s a simple four-step process:
Step #1: Enter Your Seed Keyword and Click “Search”
Step #2: Click “Keyword Ideas” in the Left Sidebar
Step #3: Review the Keyword Ideas.
I always start with the keywords provided, but you can also click one of four tabs located next to “suggestions.”
For example, I love using the questions filter, as it gives me a better idea of what my target audience is searching for:
Step #4: Click on a Keyword
After you find a keyword that piques your interest, click on it for a detailed report:
This shows you the top 100 URLs that rank for the keyword when you search for it on Google. It also provides:
You can use this data to decide if a keyword is worth targeting. For example, you now know if you rank in the #1 spot for “content marketing examples” that it’ll bring you an average of 303 visitors per month.
Once you’re done with the above, click “Content Ideas” in the left sidebar. Doing so displays popular blog posts related to the keyword, which can provide both ideas and inspiration.
Take for example the third title above: 29 Essential Content Marketing Metrics.
Think about ways to improve upon this title and content, such as:
You get the point. Now that you know what’s working, create better content with the idea of outranking your competitors.
HubSpot blog topic generator: This is one of my favorite content writing tools. When you’re stuck and don’t know what to write about on your blog, just enter a few nouns or seed keywords. Then, click on “Give Me Blog Topics!”
HubSpot will generate 5 blog post headline ideas or prompts that will keep you busy for a week. If you want, you could tweak the headline ideas or, if you’re pressed for time, just use them as they are. I find that the prompts are usually attention-grabbing and prepped for search engine success. Take a look at the results:
nTopic: Relevance is a key ranking factor. If you want to make on-page search optimization a lot easier, then your internal links, inbound links, and content in particular must be relevant to your topic. Link building is another important search engine ranking tool.
However, if you’re not sure whether the topic or keyword that you want to write a post on is relevant, nTopic.org is a simple SEO tool that you can use.
On the homepage, plug your blog URL and topic (e.g., social media marketing) into the appropriate boxes. Click the “score” button.
You can find a huge list or other content writing tools here, as well as content marketing tools to make your search optimization efforts more successful.
SEO is not complicated at all. In fact, people who generate the most results aren’t operating at a higher plane than the rest of us – they simply work harder on the basic elements. If you want SEO explained simply, there are 3 crucial factors:
If you’re not familiar with “crawlability,” a quick search on Google will help, straight from the Google Knowledge Graph:
You’ve got to recognize that search spiders are not as intelligent as they’ve been portrayed to be by most SEOs.
If your link is broken and spiders can’t crawl your web page easily as a result, trust me – they’re not programmed to go looking for the right link. They’ll simply stop there – and you know what comes next, don’t you? Poor performance in the search engine results because of inattention to link building.
SEO was never a “set it and forget it” proposition and it never will be. It’s a continuous learning process, wherein you put yourself in the shoes of your customers and create remarkable content that they want to read.
Remember, remarkable content will only improve your search rankings, if it triggers high engagement and sharing, on both mobile and desktop platforms.
Also, interlinking internal blog pages is an important step toward improving your site’s crawlability. Remember, search engine spiders follow links. It’s much easier for them to pick up your fresh content page from a link on your homepage than by searching high and low for it. Spending time on link building knowing how spiders perform can improve search engine results.
You should also know that there are some case studies pointing to the fact that improving the crawlability of your web pages can boost rankings.
Remember if you have duplicate content on there for a reason, you need to let the spiders know not to index it to then avoid a search engine penalty. Something like a disclaimer on every page might be perceived as duplicate content and needs to be addressed so you still have the right information where you need it and not lose search engine juice.
He made his fresh content easily accessible in one month. Little changes like this could mean a lot in your organic traffic and personal branding.
Having seen the importance of making your content pages easy to find (crawlable), let’s look at some simple ways to go about making it happen.
Your URL Structure: The URL – Universal Resource Locator – is the address of the web page on your site. It’s an important SEO best practice. So, why are there no ultimate guides for structuring your URLs?
Don’t change the URL of your older posts. If you do, it’ll cause a broken link, because your web page will no longer be accessible, when users click the URL that was initially specified.
Blog page URLs are meant to provide some information and meaningful experience to humans and computers alike. This is why we don’t use binary numbers or IP addresses, but rather real words, in our URLs.
Structuring the page URL has been a controversial topic in the blogosphere. Most people believe that you should make it shorter, while others prefer it to be long – like having the whole headline in their URL.
Since the rules aren’t set in stone, the best way to structure your URL is to see how the authority sites are doing it. You can have your category come before the keywords that you’re targeting, the way that HubSpot does:
Or, you can model Copyblogger, which doesn’t use the category for structuring the URL of any web page. Instead, they simply add the 3 keywords that the headline revolves around:
Brent Carnduff recommends that, when you write your URL, you should make it 3 – 5 words separated by a hyphen (-), not an underscore (_).
In all, both long and short, keyword-rich, generic URLs do well in the search engine results pages (SERPs), especially when the content is useful and easy to implement.
Write URLs that will further educate the reader on what you’re talking about. Though I use all my headlines in the page URL, I don’t recommend this because it’s too long for readers to memorize and recall. For example, could you memorize the URL of this post?
It’s much easier for the user to memorize and tell others about this particular web page because the URL is short and contains just the 3 words representing the main topic of the article:
Above all, your URL should first and foremost be self-explanatory. In other words, the user shouldn’t need anyone to interpret what you’ve published on that page. Make it clear and avoid spelling errors.
Crawl Error Resolution: In the process of doing on-page user optimization to attract the attention of search engine spiders, there may be a crawl error encountered.
Remember that the SEO process is one of continuous improvement of your landing pages, content, architecture, and audience. So, whatever error you discover, don’t panic – just let it motivate you to do what needs to be done.
If you go to Google Webmaster Tools (now Search Console) and click on the “Health” tab at the top left, then hover over crawl errors, you may see something like this:
These errors typically mean that your web pages were not easily accessible when the bot visited a link to your site or came directly to your site.
It might even be caused by an error in the robot.txt file.
When I say, “come to your site,” I’m not referring to the way people do it. The way bots visit a web page is quite different. That makes sense because they’re advanced programs written to scour the entire web, looking for fresh web pages and links to add to their index.
When you find crawl error messages, it means that other sites can’t get access to some of your web pages. This is a mess. The faster you resolve it, the better off you’ll be.
If you get a “not found” error, it can be resolved in a similar manner, with a slight difference.
When Google Panda was rolled out, many sites didn’t take it seriously. And, consequently, they paid dearly. For example, eBay lost 80% of its prime rankings. It was a big loss.
The moral of the story: Before a new update jumps out at you unexpectedly, you have to prepare for it.
April 21, 2015 was a happy day for mobile users. Google gave them a gift, by setting up standards that force every site owner to consider mobile users. It was predicted that the update could affect over 40% of Fortune 500 websites.
Those who weren’t prepared got dinged in search rankings. One legal software company with a responsive design saw an initial decrease in rankings, but then a substantial rise, a week after:
Box Office Mojo, on the other hand, didn’t have a mobile-friendly site. When the update was released, their search rankings and visibility tanked:
Searchmetrics compiled a list of authority sites that lost and those that gained from the mobile update. Here are some of them:
Trust me, the passion that Google has for mobile users will only increase in the future. That’s because mobile usage is only going up.
The purpose of all of the statistics above is to help you understand the opportunities available with mobile.
The reason why you should include responsiveness in your on-page SEO checklist to pay attention to is that the majority of your users will access your site from their mobile devices.
You’ve got to organize your site for mobile users. You can always check whether or not your blog/site is responsive, through Google’s mobile-friendliness test tool. Just plug your site URL into the search box, then click the “Test URL” button:
My blog is mobile-friendly. If yours isn’t, you’ll get this result:
On-page SEO can be as simple as incorporating primary keywords in your headers. Focus these keywords in your <h1> and <h2>. This concept can be applied to other content elements like alt text, meta descriptions, or page URLs, to name a few. So, if your keyword is ‘father’s day gifts,’ center the piece around ‘10 Father’s Day Gifts Dad Will Love.’ Making it feel like a gift guide will allow you to be seen as a subject matter expert to users and an SEO expert with Google. You’ll see how these placements reflect in your results.
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Implementing on-page SEO ensures Google is informed about your site and how you add value to its visitors. The content you create and publish should be optimized for both human users and search engine bots. In order to rank high and draw in new potential customers, making adjustments strengthens your on-page SEO.
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A while ago, I wrote a post titled “The Ultimate Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet,” in which my goal was to give you an overview, as well as the exact steps, of how to build a content-driven blog that will generate the right leads for you.
I’ve taken the same approach with this in-depth article. However, if you don’t remember everything mentioned here, just keep in mind the true purpose of on-page SEO: to educate, inspire and guide your users properly, as they navigate your site.
Get your site ready, before going out there to build authority inbound links, because the foundation is what matters most when it comes to SEO. Always study your Google webmaster tools and analytics, as both will educate you on what your ideal customers truly want from your site.
Both B2B and B2C marketers are beginning to realize the need to implement basic SEO practices. You need to commit yourself to the process, not just to the results that you’re after.
You’ll learn a lot more with that mindset than you could ever learn just by getting the top rank in Google.
Have you implemented any of these on-page search engine optimization hacks? What was your result?
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Ever noticed a change in your SEO rankings for better or for worse, even though you didn’t make any major changes? This may be Google at work.
Over the past few years, Google has released several updates to their search engine algorithm, with Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird being some of the biggest. Those updates set augmented rules on how owners should structure their sites for link building, both building incoming links and using anchor text for outgoing links.
Despite the updates, however, on-page SEO hasn’t really changed all that much. Every on-page SEO task is really for the user’s benefit. Yet, most SEO professionals still haven’t come to terms with that fact.
Google wants the user to be happy when they visit your web page. The only way that Google will know that your site users are satisfied is when they’re engaged. How long do they spend reading your content?
In this on-page SEO checklist, I’m going to show you the essential things to pay attention to. They’ll improve your search traffic, boost your rankings and make off-page SEO a lot easier for you.
Inadvertent duplicate content can slow indexing down, so examine your site to remove it.
It makes sense. After all, don’t we all hate to wait? And, the instant gratification of the web has only made us more impatient.
So, it makes sense that Google cares about page load time (and has for a very long time). From the Webmasters Central Blog:
Back in 2010, Matt Cutts announced that site speed would carry less weight than other key ranking factors, such as relevance, authority links, and so on. That’s no longer quite as accurate. Nowadays, speed is essential, nearly as much as a cornerstone keyword phrase.
One study showed that a delay of a single second in page response time can yield a 7% reduction in conversions.
So, in case it wasn’t already clear, site speed absolutely affects rankings, as asserted in this infographic (click here to enlarge):
You can use Ubersuggest’s site audit tool to check your site’s load time, among a variety of related factors. Here’s how it works:
Step #1: Enter Your URL and Click “Search”
Step #2: Click “Site Audit” in the Left Sidebar
Step #3: Scroll down to “Site Speed”
You’re shown the loading time for both desktop and mobile devices. The results above show that my site is in the “excellent” range for both.
In addition to loading time, it also tests:
If your results aren’t optimal, don’t worry – there are many ways to increase your site speed. The easiest way, which will often cost some money, is by using search engine content delivery networks.
That aside, if you’re a WordPress user, you could delete unused plugins for an instant speed boost.
For more suggestions and how-to’s, check out the following resources.
Do you take meta tags seriously? Although the effect of the title tag or meta description has changed significantly over the past several years, it’s still a good practice to pay attention to them.
In on-page SEO, the major types of meta tags that you should pay attention to are:
Title tags: Title tags define the title of your web page or document. They’re mostly used to display preview snippets of your web pages. When you’re writing your title tag, it should be short, clear, and descriptive but don’t duplicate content from the page content.
The ideal length is 50 – 60 characters. If your title tag exceeds 60 characters, Google will only show the first 60.
You can use Moz’s preview tool to preview how your title tags will appear in the search engine.
Meta description:
This is how a meta description usually appears in the organic search listings:
The meta description is what search engines use to gauge what topic you’re writing about and the exact audience that they should send to that page. So, make it descriptive and short – no more than 160 characters.
There is no need to stuff keywords in your meta description (which would work against you anyway). 160 characters are just not enough space for stuffing. Instead, use synonyms or latent semantic indexing (LSI) of your main keyword to get on-page SEO in the meta description, keeping search engines happy.
For example, if your main keywords in the headline are “generate website traffic,” here are LSI keywords that you can use:
You must also be careful to never duplicate title tags or meta descriptions. Ubersuggest can also help with this. On the same results page (site audit) that displays site speed, you’ll see something that looks like this:
You can then examine any issues with your title tags or meta descriptions. For example, the above shows that my site has 8 pages with duplicate title tags. By clicking on the issue, you’re given the following:
As you click on each result in the Page URL column, you’re presented with a list of pages that share the same title tag, which is displayed in the second column:
Unless there’s a good reason for it, such as using the same title for content in different languages (see above), it’s important to make the necessary changes.
Content is the backbone of a thriving business and on page SEO is the backbone of content marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying, “content is king.” There is way more to successful content marketing than just “content,” though. You have to publish the kind of content that will drive traffic and grow your business.
This involves using specific keyword phrase components that include long-tail anchor words.
You’ll also notice that when you start creating in-depth content, you’ll see a corresponding increase in traffic from long-tail searches, a very specific keyword phrase indicating buyer positioning and urgency. These search engines help give you juice because you are helping people solve problems with your content.
These days, your customers are smarter than you think. You have to be willing to listen to and learn from them – their search for solutions motivates them to ask certain questions. Those questions can tell you exactly what they want most from you.
Content that drives traffic:
According to Demand Metric, 76% of online shoppers felt excited and closer to a company after reading its custom content. That’s why 78% of CMOs consider custom content to be the future of digital marketing.
Duplicate content was once an easy cheat to getting content so search engines would see more stuff, but duplicate content is now easily found by search algorithms and penalizes the culprit.
Traffic-generating content makes the user happy. So, we’re going to start with the aspect of content marketing that matters most: user experience optimization. It often starts with a keyword phrase relating to what the user is searching for.
Remember, on-page SEO begins and ends with the user. No one should build a site for search engines. We build sites for people. After all, search spiders won’t write a comment, subscribe to your list, or buy your product. Only your users can do that.
On-page SEO consists of those activities that directly affect the content, pages, and architecture of the site – in other words, all of the internal factors that make a site useful for the visitor.
User optimization is all about presenting your content and design so that users can find what they’re looking for immediately – another reason that you need to speed up your site load time.
As part of the user experience, you may have duplicate content in your site map. This may be important for consumer ease of use, but make sure to let the spiders know not to index for the duplicate content to improve search engine speed.
It’s all about creating positive experiences for your users. One study by Ruby Newell-Legner, concluded that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved customer experience.
User optimization is all about answering search users’ questions with easy-to-read content, not merely targeting their keywords. For example, if customers are searching for “electric guitar lessons,” here is the wrong way to write your headline and introduction:
Easy Electric Guitar Lessons For Those Looking To Learn Electric Guitar
Do you want easy electric guitar lessons that will make you play guitar like a hero? Well, this electric guitar lessons post will definitely guide you on the right path, so you can master the electric guitar chords in 30 days or less.
The above headline and introduction are not optimized for the user. The keywords are stuffed in and the article introduction is confusing, if not at least lame.
To help you understand what user optimization is about, let’s write a better headline and introduction, while still targeting the keyword “electric guitar lessons:”
Best Electric Guitar Lessons That Will Turn You Into a Pro
What is the best way to learn guitar at home? Many people prefer to read books, but there is a better way. Take some electric guitar lessons from a professional who knows what he’s doing. I don’t want to flaunt my guitar skills here, but trust me, I can help you master the art.
See the difference? In the second example, the main keyword phrase appears once in the headline and just once in the introduction. Moreover, the opening doesn’t promise anything that sounds too good to be true. The reader will understand the second article better because it was optimized for them.
Remember that when it comes to user experience, use of keywords is not the major factor. Instead, the critical issue is addressing the user’s intent – in other words, the reason why the user is searching for that particular keyword.
When you do your on-page search optimization efficiently, your listing will be more attractive and the users will benefit, as a consequence, even before they click to visit your web page.
Brian Clark put it well, when he said that Google is like an infant who doesn’t know what to do and relies on you as a guide.
In his words, “you’ve got to spoon-feed search engine spiders with valuable content that the users will be excited about.”
And, over the years, Clark and his prolific team have produced some of the best blog posts and articles around. Through consistent and proper use of keyword phrase content marketing techniques, Brian Clark turned a blog (copyblogger.com) into a $7 million digital company.
Another important aspect of user experience is functional design. Steve Jobs knew that design isn’t just “how a device looks” but also about “how it works.”
Other great things that make the social site a good fit for the user are:
Another example is the Apple brand juggernaut. Many companies focus on selling features, but Apple also believes in the power of good design.
Apple customers trust the brand completely and happily recommend it to others, not because it’s the most affordable or sophisticated, but because of the sleek design and how the Apple experience makes their lives better.
Another site that thrives on good user experience, is easy to navigate, is legible and has a nice choice of colors combined with high-quality content is HubSpot.com.
Understand the Google Panda algorithm: The Panda algorithm update was first released in February 2011. It was designed to help Google return high-quality results when users type a keyword phrase into the search box.
While other updates have come and gone, Panda’s effect is still going strong. You may recall that Panda penalized low-quality content and thin sites. If you consider the state of search now, you’ll agree with me that Google’s ranked top results have vastly improved since Panda.
Marketers have come to realize that nothing spectacular can be achieved without the right content.
Panda made it easier for smart content marketers to start creating a conversation with their content. You give insights and advice to your customers and they respond with their questions, appreciation or suggestions.
That’s the reason for Google Hummingbird, as well – to bring the user and the marketer together and meet the user’s needs.
If you want to improve your search rankings, you need to consider two aspects of your content:
Avoid low-quality content: The days of generic content with no value are long gone. Enough said.
Avoid thin content: Your content may be high-quality, in terms of the information that you share, but if you want to give your blog a boost in the SERPs, you’ve also got to increase your content length.
No more 300- or 500-word posts, unless you’re also using an infographic on the same page. Instead, write in-depth articles of 2000 words or more, because recent content length affects rankings.
98% of the articles that I publish on this blog hit that 2000-or-more word count. And, by being consistent with the creation of in-depth content that offers a lot of value, I’ve significantly improved my search rankings for several keywords. It also helps link building because there are simply more areas to redirect to. For example, I rank #4 for a highly targeted keyword, “blog traffic.” See for yourself:
Content freshness: The percentage of content, within a page, that remains fresh, has an effect on the site’s rankings. Google takes freshness very seriously.
As a result of this, Google now prefers fresh content, breaking news and other recent content updates that deal with trends.
When it comes to on-page SEO, you may be wondering how Google scores fresh content. Well, according to Amit Singhal, “different searches have different freshness needs.”
Freshness as a ranking factor isn’t new. Over the years, even before the Document Scoring Based on Document Content Update, which Google’s engineers filed a patent for in 2003, the Google search engine had scored content based on freshness for many years.
Naturally, some search terms or keywords require fresh content or insight. For example, when you’re looking for a hosting coupon code for 2019, it’d be utterly useless to find a coupon code that was generated in 2017 or 2018 and was only good for those years.
Singhal described the categories of keywords that will most likely require fresh content:
Hot trends: These are things that are happening right now, all around the world. Those in the gaming niche usually publish recent or upcoming games for a particular month. Some other keywords for hot trends can be found at Google.com/trends:
A typical example of an authority site that will benefit from a Google freshness reward is Mashable. This popular site constantly publishes fresh content, based on what’s hot in the fields of entertainment, technology, startups, business, education, and politics. Its on-page SEO checklist focuses on gossip or news keyword phrase items.
Recurring events: Events that take place every month, every quarter, every year, etc., can also lead to an increased freshness score because such content requires constant updating. These keywords are recurring:
Frequent information update: Some other keywords that are searched for in Google require frequent updates. For example: best dslr cameras and top fitness programs.
These three yardsticks are important to Google when scoring a web page for freshness. But, don’t forget that Google also gauges the freshness of a web page based on the date Google discovered it. Over time, this freshness fades and new content with a newer inception date replaces the older piece.
So, what are you supposed to do for your site, in order to boost its freshness score and ultimately attract more search traffic?
First, you’ve got to consistently publish fresh content.
If you can, publish daily and make sure that you share helpful tips for your target audience. If you’re busy as I am, then publishing two times a week will ensure that your web pages are fresh and attract fresh crawls from Google’s spider, as well as deep bots that will sustain your indexed pages.
Research shows that Google prefers to serve up fresh results to users when they search for a keyword. To get around this preference, some people use blackhat SEO tricks to manipulate web page freshness, like changing the implementation date on older articles and pages.
This might work, but it’s very risky and it’s not sustainable. Avoid taking shortcuts that may seem promising. Why would you want to manipulate freshness and inception dates, only to risk your page getting penalized by Google?
Content engagement: The word “engagement,” in this context, means the state of interactivity. The true test of high-quality content is the engagement that it creates. When you’re conscious of engaging your audience, you’ll most likely create the right content for them. Search engines love this.
This initial on-page optimization will align a piece of content with the user’s needs. If you’re going to attract the right clients to your business, you’ve got to focus on engaging your prospects.
Brandon Dennis, of Scotch and Smoke Rings, increased his Facebook engagement by 200%, using Buffer. He created focused news that his audience would enjoy, then shared it with them at the exact time that they wanted it.
He did some research to find out the best times to post on Facebook and Twitter and found this infographic.
By being consistent with the right social media timing, he increased interactions on Facebook from 150 per day to over 700. That’s a 367% increase in engagement.
Content writing tools: An integral part of on-page SEO is content. You have to give it your full attention. However, you need to automate some writing tasks, because speed matters, when seeking to increase your search rankings. Some of the best tools out there to speed up your content creation are:
Ubersuggest: This is one of my favorite tools for finding high-volume, high-converting long-tail keywords. It’s a simple four-step process:
Step #1: Enter Your Seed Keyword and Click “Search”
Step #2: Click “Keyword Ideas” in the Left Sidebar
Step #3: Review the Keyword Ideas.
I always start with the keywords provided, but you can also click one of four tabs located next to “suggestions.”
For example, I love using the questions filter, as it gives me a better idea of what my target audience is searching for:
Step #4: Click on a Keyword
After you find a keyword that piques your interest, click on it for a detailed report:
This shows you the top 100 URLs that rank for the keyword when you search for it on Google. It also provides:
You can use this data to decide if a keyword is worth targeting. For example, you now know if you rank in the #1 spot for “content marketing examples” that it’ll bring you an average of 303 visitors per month.
Once you’re done with the above, click “Content Ideas” in the left sidebar. Doing so displays popular blog posts related to the keyword, which can provide both ideas and inspiration.
Take for example the third title above: 29 Essential Content Marketing Metrics.
Think about ways to improve upon this title and content, such as:
You get the point. Now that you know what’s working, create better content with the idea of outranking your competitors.
HubSpot blog topic generator: This is one of my favorite content writing tools. When you’re stuck and don’t know what to write about on your blog, just enter a few nouns or seed keywords. Then, click on “Give Me Blog Topics!”
HubSpot will generate 5 blog post headline ideas or prompts that will keep you busy for a week. If you want, you could tweak the headline ideas or, if you’re pressed for time, just use them as they are. I find that the prompts are usually attention-grabbing and prepped for search engine success. Take a look at the results:
nTopic: Relevance is a key ranking factor. If you want to make on-page search optimization a lot easier, then your internal links, inbound links, and content in particular must be relevant to your topic. Link building is another important search engine ranking tool.
However, if you’re not sure whether the topic or keyword that you want to write a post on is relevant, nTopic.org is a simple SEO tool that you can use.
On the homepage, plug your blog URL and topic (e.g., social media marketing) into the appropriate boxes. Click the “score” button.
You can find a huge list or other content writing tools here, as well as content marketing tools to make your search optimization efforts more successful.
SEO is not complicated at all. In fact, people who generate the most results aren’t operating at a higher plane than the rest of us – they simply work harder on the basic elements. If you want SEO explained simply, there are 3 crucial factors:
If you’re not familiar with “crawlability,” a quick search on Google will help, straight from the Google Knowledge Graph:
You’ve got to recognize that search spiders are not as intelligent as they’ve been portrayed to be by most SEOs.
If your link is broken and spiders can’t crawl your web page easily as a result, trust me – they’re not programmed to go looking for the right link. They’ll simply stop there – and you know what comes next, don’t you? Poor performance in the search engine results because of inattention to link building.
SEO was never a “set it and forget it” proposition and it never will be. It’s a continuous learning process, wherein you put yourself in the shoes of your customers and create remarkable content that they want to read.
Remember, remarkable content will only improve your search rankings, if it triggers high engagement and sharing, on both mobile and desktop platforms.
Also, interlinking internal blog pages is an important step toward improving your site’s crawlability. Remember, search engine spiders follow links. It’s much easier for them to pick up your fresh content page from a link on your homepage than by searching high and low for it. Spending time on link building knowing how spiders perform can improve search engine results.
You should also know that there are some case studies pointing to the fact that improving the crawlability of your web pages can boost rankings.
Remember if you have duplicate content on there for a reason, you need to let the spiders know not to index it to then avoid a search engine penalty. Something like a disclaimer on every page might be perceived as duplicate content and needs to be addressed so you still have the right information where you need it and not lose search engine juice.
He made his fresh content easily accessible in one month. Little changes like this could mean a lot in your organic traffic and personal branding.
Having seen the importance of making your content pages easy to find (crawlable), let’s look at some simple ways to go about making it happen.
Your URL Structure: The URL – Universal Resource Locator – is the address of the web page on your site. It’s an important SEO best practice. So, why are there no ultimate guides for structuring your URLs?
Don’t change the URL of your older posts. If you do, it’ll cause a broken link, because your web page will no longer be accessible, when users click the URL that was initially specified.
Blog page URLs are meant to provide some information and meaningful experience to humans and computers alike. This is why we don’t use binary numbers or IP addresses, but rather real words, in our URLs.
Structuring the page URL has been a controversial topic in the blogosphere. Most people believe that you should make it shorter, while others prefer it to be long – like having the whole headline in their URL.
Since the rules aren’t set in stone, the best way to structure your URL is to see how the authority sites are doing it. You can have your category come before the keywords that you’re targeting, the way that HubSpot does:
Or, you can model Copyblogger, which doesn’t use the category for structuring the URL of any web page. Instead, they simply add the 3 keywords that the headline revolves around:
Brent Carnduff recommends that, when you write your URL, you should make it 3 – 5 words separated by a hyphen (-), not an underscore (_).
In all, both long and short, keyword-rich, generic URLs do well in the search engine results pages (SERPs), especially when the content is useful and easy to implement.
Write URLs that will further educate the reader on what you’re talking about. Though I use all my headlines in the page URL, I don’t recommend this because it’s too long for readers to memorize and recall. For example, could you memorize the URL of this post?
It’s much easier for the user to memorize and tell others about this particular web page because the URL is short and contains just the 3 words representing the main topic of the article:
Above all, your URL should first and foremost be self-explanatory. In other words, the user shouldn’t need anyone to interpret what you’ve published on that page. Make it clear and avoid spelling errors.
Crawl Error Resolution: In the process of doing on-page user optimization to attract the attention of search engine spiders, there may be a crawl error encountered.
Remember that the SEO process is one of continuous improvement of your landing pages, content, architecture, and audience. So, whatever error you discover, don’t panic – just let it motivate you to do what needs to be done.
If you go to Google Webmaster Tools (now Search Console) and click on the “Health” tab at the top left, then hover over crawl errors, you may see something like this:
These errors typically mean that your web pages were not easily accessible when the bot visited a link to your site or came directly to your site.
It might even be caused by an error in the robot.txt file.
When I say, “come to your site,” I’m not referring to the way people do it. The way bots visit a web page is quite different. That makes sense because they’re advanced programs written to scour the entire web, looking for fresh web pages and links to add to their index.
When you find crawl error messages, it means that other sites can’t get access to some of your web pages. This is a mess. The faster you resolve it, the better off you’ll be.
If you get a “not found” error, it can be resolved in a similar manner, with a slight difference.
When Google Panda was rolled out, many sites didn’t take it seriously. And, consequently, they paid dearly. For example, eBay lost 80% of its prime rankings. It was a big loss.
The moral of the story: Before a new update jumps out at you unexpectedly, you have to prepare for it.
April 21, 2015 was a happy day for mobile users. Google gave them a gift, by setting up standards that force every site owner to consider mobile users. It was predicted that the update could affect over 40% of Fortune 500 websites.
Those who weren’t prepared got dinged in search rankings. One legal software company with a responsive design saw an initial decrease in rankings, but then a substantial rise, a week after:
Box Office Mojo, on the other hand, didn’t have a mobile-friendly site. When the update was released, their search rankings and visibility tanked:
Searchmetrics compiled a list of authority sites that lost and those that gained from the mobile update. Here are some of them:
Trust me, the passion that Google has for mobile users will only increase in the future. That’s because mobile usage is only going up.
The purpose of all of the statistics above is to help you understand the opportunities available with mobile.
The reason why you should include responsiveness in your on-page SEO checklist to pay attention to is that the majority of your users will access your site from their mobile devices.
You’ve got to organize your site for mobile users. You can always check whether or not your blog/site is responsive, through Google’s mobile-friendliness test tool. Just plug your site URL into the search box, then click the “Test URL” button:
My blog is mobile-friendly. If yours isn’t, you’ll get this result:
On-page SEO can be as simple as incorporating primary keywords in your headers. Focus these keywords in your <h1> and <h2>. This concept can be applied to other content elements like alt text, meta descriptions, or page URLs, to name a few. So, if your keyword is ‘father’s day gifts,’ center the piece around ‘10 Father’s Day Gifts Dad Will Love.’ Making it feel like a gift guide will allow you to be seen as a subject matter expert to users and an SEO expert with Google. You’ll see how these placements reflect in your results.
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Implementing on-page SEO ensures Google is informed about your site and how you add value to its visitors. The content you create and publish should be optimized for both human users and search engine bots. In order to rank high and draw in new potential customers, making adjustments strengthens your on-page SEO.
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A while ago, I wrote a post titled “The Ultimate Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet,” in which my goal was to give you an overview, as well as the exact steps, of how to build a content-driven blog that will generate the right leads for you.
I’ve taken the same approach with this in-depth article. However, if you don’t remember everything mentioned here, just keep in mind the true purpose of on-page SEO: to educate, inspire and guide your users properly, as they navigate your site.
Get your site ready, before going out there to build authority inbound links, because the foundation is what matters most when it comes to SEO. Always study your Google webmaster tools and analytics, as both will educate you on what your ideal customers truly want from your site.
Both B2B and B2C marketers are beginning to realize the need to implement basic SEO practices. You need to commit yourself to the process, not just to the results that you’re after.
You’ll learn a lot more with that mindset than you could ever learn just by getting the top rank in Google.
Have you implemented any of these on-page search engine optimization hacks? What was your result?
Lewis Hamilton is looking forward to seeing the back of his current Mercedes car after admitting Ferrari and Red Bull were in a “different league” during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.
The post Hamilton 'definitely won't miss' Mercedes' 2022 car appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.
Uma pesquisa de 2021 constatou que blogueiros que publicam de 2 a 6 posts por semana têm mais chances de alcançar seus objetivos.
Embora você provavelmente já saiba que postar com mais frequência te dê uma maior chance de sucesso, pode ser difícil pensar em tantos assuntos para postagens.
Você está lá olhando para a página em branco. Enquanto ela te olha de volta, você começa a pensar por que você começou um blog.
Essa é a realidade que muitos blogueiros vivem.
Ter ideias novas e interessantes para o seu blog é um baita desafio. A boa notícia é que encontrar boas ideias de posts talvez não seja tão difícil quanto você pensa.
Esse guia oferece 25 novas ideias para blogs para te inspirar a escrever conteúdo de alta qualidade de forma consistente.
Escrever é fácil; ter ideias e conceituá-las para fazer com que as pessoas queiram lê-las é o verdadeiro desafio. Aqui vão algumas ideias para te ajudar a começar:
89% dos consumidores dizem ler avaliações antes de fazer compras. Capitalize em cima disso criando posts para o seu blog que avaliem produtos populares e serviços relacionados ao seu mercado.
Se você entrar no Google agora e digitar “melhores”, você provavelmente vai dar de cara com um monte de produtos ou serviços para completar o termo de busca.
Melhor liquidificador, melhor caixa de ferramentas, melhor software de gerenciamento de projetos, melhor ferramenta de gerenciamento de RH e melhor xícara de café são todos termos populares de busca no Google. São os chamados posts de avaliação de produtos.
Esses posts oferecem um detalhamento de diversos produtos e serviços. O objetivo é escrever uma avaliação melhor do que as opções existentes no Google. Você pode fazer isso da seguinte forma:
Por exemplo, busque no Google, “melhor software de gerenciamento de projetos”. Você vai encontrar um monte de avaliações de sites de tecnologia conhecidos detalhando qual é o melhor software. Você também vai ver que essa palavra-chave tem um volume de busca bem alto, com mais ou menos 4.500 cliques por mês.
Você tem chances de ultrapassar esses sites nos rankings se escrever um post mais detalhado sobre o melhor software de gerenciamento de projetos — e você vai gerar tráfego para o seu site.
Comece dando uma olhada nos posts nas primeiras posições. Observe coisas como:
Procure escrever um post mais longo e mais informativo, abordando mais plataformas, incluindo vídeos e até entrevistando alguns especialistas. O objetivo é oferecer mais valor e chegar ao topo do Google.
As pessoas procuram o Google quando elas não conseguem resolver alguma coisa. Pense em quantas vezes você buscou como fazer uma comida, desentupir um cano ou usar as funcionalidades do seu software preferido. Mais de um bilhão de buscas no Google por dia são feitas na forma de perguntas.
Você pode elaborar um guia explicando como fazer alguma coisa pela qual você se interesse ou que você conheça bem. O guia deve dar o passo-a-passo que o leitor deve seguir para concluir a tarefa que ele deseja.
Vamos usar a velocidade de carregamento de um site como exemplo. Esse é um assunto quente no momento, com os core web vitals se tornando mais relevantes.
Escrever um post para o seu blog explicando tudo que pode ser feito para melhorar a velocidade da página torna a informação fácil de absorver e mais factível para os leitores.
O Crazy Egg fez um ótimo trabalho aqui mostrando 20 maneiras de melhorar a velocidade do seu site. Quando é assim passo-a-passo, não parece mais uma tarefa enorme. Você pode fazer cada uma dessas coisas isoladamente e aos poucos melhorar a velocidade da sua página.
Mais de 14% das buscas no Google são feitas na forma de perguntas — e se você conseguir dar uma resposta completa, você já tem aí uma ideia para um post.
A melhor parte de escrever um post de FAQ é que você tem uma boa chance de aparecer nos featured snippets do Google (também chamados de “posição zero”) se o artigo agregar muito valor para o leitor.
Se eu buscar “o que é uma tag de título” no Google, eu vou obter um monte de resultados, porque essa é uma pergunta frequente. No topo, vai ter um resultado em que o Google tirou a resposta do post e colocou bem ali para o leitor.
Ele se chama featured snippet, e conseguir a posição de featured snippet é considerado a “joia da coroa” do SEO. Muitos fatores determinam qual site ganha os snippets, mas, nesse caso, o atinternet.com respondeu à pergunta de cara, o que pode ser a razão para eles estarem no topo.
Existem algumas maneiras de encontrar perguntas frequentes:
Depois de compilar a lista de perguntas, busque-as manualmente no Google. Veja quais posts conseguiram os featured snippets, e dedique tempo a escrever respostas melhores do que aquelas já dadas. Você pode fazer isso respondendo de forma mais concisa, com uma formatação melhor ou usando definições mais precisas.
Uma ótima maneira de gerar autoridade para o seu site é criando guias definitivos. Esses guias detalham exaustivamente todas as etapas necessárias para se concluir uma tarefa.
Conteúdo detalhado, como aquele contido em um guia definitivo, vem se tornando regra. Em 2021, a extensão média de um post em um blog era de 1.400 palavras; a mais longa dos últimos tempos. Esse mesmo estudo constatou que conteúdo com 3.000 palavras ou mais tende a ter um melhor desempenho.
Uma boa ideia é incluir imagens, exemplos e analogias para ter certeza que o leitor vai entender.
A principal coisa a se ter em mente quando o assunto são guias definitivos é oferecer tudo de A a Z. Quando o leitor terminar, ele deve ter tudo o que precisa para alcançar seu objetivo.
Veja um exemplo que eu fiz sobre SEO local.
Esse guia literalmente aborda tudo, desde “o que é SEO local” até como implementá-lo, etapas, como maximizar seu potencial, e mais. O guia é longo, mas oferece tudo que você precisa, então você não precisa olhar em mais lugar nenhum.
Um belo guia definitivo é uma ótima maneira de mostrar aos seus leitores e ao Google que você é uma autoridade no assunto.
Para criar um guia definitivo, comece buscando sua palavra-chave base, depois busque as caixas de pergunta “buscas relacionadas” e responda-as também.
Você também pode usar o Ubersuggest, minha ferramenta gratuita, para encontrar palavras-chave relacionadas, o que pode te dar ideias para subtítulos no seu post de guia definitivo.
Inclua informações detalhadas no seu post, como estatísticas de apoio, detalhamentos de processos e exemplos.
Backlinks são fundamentais para SEO – as URLs na primeira posição das SERPs têm uma média de 3,8 vezes mais backlinks do que as URLs nas posições 2 a 10.
Quando você estiver procurando ideias ou assuntos para posts, você deve garantir que seu conteúdo é relevante e que existe demanda para ele. Uma forma de fazer isso é postar sobre dados relevantes para o seu nicho.
O que eu quero dizer com isso?
Dados de qualidade são informações factuais obtidas através de experimentos, testes e pesquisas. Quanto mais chamativos os dados, mais atenção você vai conseguir.
Criar posts compilando uma grande quantidade de dados em um artigo é uma ótima maneira de obter backlinks. Sempre que alguém procurar dados para incluir em artigos, vai encontrar essas informações no seu post e, idealmente, linkar de volta para o seu site.
Veja, por exemplo, esse artigo sobre 99 estratégias incríveis de marketing digital. É basicamente uma lista gigante de dados sobre mídias sociais, marketing de conteúdo, SEO e mais. É um ótimo recurso para quem está procurando dados sobre o assunto.
Se você tiver acesso a dados ou métricas internas, você pode usá-los para criar posts baseados em dados sobre tendências do mercado.
Veja como criar posts baseados em dados:
Como todos sabemos, o vídeo é rei. 97% dos profissionais de marketing usam vídeos para ajudar seus clientes a entender melhor seus produtos e serviços. Você deveria fazer o mesmo.
Existe uma razão para o Google exibir vídeos como o primeiro resultado de muitas buscas de “como fazer”.
Se você olhar a imagem, eu busquei “como consertar um zíper quebrado”. Naturalmente, o Google mostrou vídeos primeiro.
É muito mais fácil assistir a um vídeo do que ler um post de blog. Mas isso não significa que escrever sobre o assunto seja inútil.
Se descermos até o primeiro resultado da busca e dermos uma olhada no post, vamos encontrar um tutorial em vídeo, além do post no blog mostrando como fazer.
Incluir vídeos nos posts do seu blog é uma ótima maneira de agregar mais valor aos seus usuários e deixar o Google feliz.
Veja como começar a criar vídeos para o seu blog:
Não é nenhum segredo que as tendências vêm e vão, mas você pode conseguir um tráfego bem razoável escrevendo sobre assuntos que estejam em alta no seu mercado atualmente.
As palavras-chave “tendências” ao lado de termos do mercado como “mídias sociais”, “marketing”, “cor de cabelo” etc. representam milhões de buscas no Google por mês. Isso mostra que você tem grandes chances de conseguir tráfego se você abordar tendências do seu mercado nos posts do seu blog.
O Google Trends é uma ótima maneira de descobrir o que está em alta e o que não está no momento atual.
Vá até trends.google.com e digite um assunto sobre o qual você tem curiosidade ou procure as tendências de busca do momento.
No momento em que escrevemos isso, um assunto em alta no Google Trends é a aposentadoria do técnico do New Orleans Saints, Sean Payton, da NFL. Se você tem um blog de esporte, você pode fazer o que o Sportingnews.com faz e escrever sobre a aposentadoria do técnico.
Escrever sobre assuntos em alta vai te obrigar a ficar de olho no que está acontecendo na sua área, e você vai precisar estar pronto o tempo todo para pesquisar e conseguir um furo se você quiser gerar tráfego para o seu blog.
Além disso, certifique-se de que você está escrevendo sobre assuntos quentes com os quais o seu público se importa. Um site sobre cabelos femininos, por exemplo, não vai conseguir muito tráfego escrevendo sobre a aposentadoria de um técnico de futebol (a não ser que seja um site de cabelo segmentado para fãs de esporte!)
Você também pode usar ferramentas de pesquisa de palavras-chave e “tendências” de plugins para ver quais assuntos relacionados à sua área. Buscas no Google com o ano escrito no termo também são muito comuns. Se você escolher fazer isso, pense em como o conteúdo vai entrar na sua estratégia de conteúdo atemporal (por exemplo, você vai atualizar o post com a mesma URL todo ano?)
41% dos blogs falam sobre notícias do mercado. Posts de blog sobre notícias podem não ser a melhor coisa em termos de SEO, mas eles geral um público bastante leal que vai acompanhar todas as suas atualizações, e pode indiretamente melhorar sua posição nas SERPs.
Esse exemplo é parecido com o anterior, mas tem uma diferença básica. Os assuntos do momento significam compartilhar informações em que seu público provavelmente vai estar interessado. No caso das notícias, você as compartilha junto com suas ideias e opiniões.
A Vox é um exemplo interessante disso. Em vez de só focar nas notícias, eles oferecem textos de opinião mostrando o que eles acham do que está acontecendo.
Você pode ter a mesma abordagem em relação à sua área, compartilhando suas ideias em relação a tendências e notícias. Use os métodos que destacamos para encontrar as tendências do seu mercado e faça reportagens sobre eles.
Você também pode programar alertas do Google para termos de busca relacionados à sua área e planejar matérias sobre eventos que vão acontecer na sua área.
Não deixe também de seguir organizações, conferências e publicações de pesquisa dentro da sua área para ser o primeiro a dar o furo em assuntos relevantes na sua área.
Parte do que compõe um bom blog é criar um público de leitores que voltam com regularidade para ver se você postou alguma coisa.
59% dos americanos dizem que é inaceitável que as marcas sejam omissas em relação a questões de justiça social. E esse número só tende a aumentar.
Posts com um posicionamento forte também tendem a gerar muitos compartilhamentos e backlinks. Você pode escrever sobre as últimas tendências de justiça social, seja na área de direitos das mulheres, LGBTQ+ ou injustiça racial.
O mais importante aqui é ser você mesmo e não ter medo de tomar partido. Vivemos em um mundo relativamente dividido, então defender algo em que você acredita é admirável. Postar sobre esses assuntos é uma ótima maneira de cultivar um público fiel e construir uma lista de emails.
A Campus Pride é um blog/organização conhecida que foca na aceitação da comunidade LGBTQ+ nos campus de faculdades. Eles escrevem sobre assuntos como saúde mental, segurança no campus e desenvolvimento de carreira.
Tome uma posição genuína se você vai incorporar questões de justiça social no seu blog.
Pense não apenas nas questões que importam para você, mas naquelas que fazem sentido para sua marca postar sobre. Por exemplo, a Patagonia vende roupas e equipamentos para atividades ao ar livre. Faz sentido que eles se alinhem com questões ambientais, como sustentabilidade e preservação.
Você pode encontrar uma causa que esteja em alta e pela qual você se interesse para começar a compilar ideias de posts que mostrem sua posição em relação ao assunto (ao mesmo tempo que ofereçam valor ao usuário). Servindo de guia e se posicionando em relação a algo que pode ter um impacto significativo.
Listas são o segundo tipo mais popular de post, sendo produzido por 54% dos blogueiros.
Uma lista é um formato de post simples, mas eficaz. Ela elenca uma série de itens, lugares, serviços e praticamente qualquer outra coisa que você possa pensar.
Veja algumas ótimas listas para inspirar a sua:
A razão pela qual listas são tão populares é que você pode dar só uma passada de olho e é mais fácil de absorver. Os seres humanos têm um limiar de atenção de oito segundos. Isso quer dizer que você precisa atrair atenção rápido e trabalhar para mantê-la. Listas são uma ótima maneira de atrair os leitores e dar a eles o que eles querem.
Para criar listas, pesquise palavras-chave usando qualquer um dos métodos que a gente já mostrou e identifique assuntos que podem ser transformados em listas. Um exemplo é exatamente esse post! A gente já sabia que nosso público costuma procurar ajuda com assuntos para seus blogs (a palavra-chave “assuntos para blogs” tem 1000 buscas mensais). “Assuntos para blogs” é uma palavra-chave que se encaixa bem no formato de lista.
Em um mundo de informação infinita, tem muita desinformação por aí. Inclusive, em 2021, 62% dos usuários da internet disseram ter encontrado informações falsas ao navegar pela web.
É por isso que escrever um post quebrando alguns mitos comuns na sua área é uma ótima maneira de atrair tráfego.
Por exemplo, eu me interessaria por um artigo que falasse sobre mitos sobre empreendedorismo. Muita gente acha que empreendedores ficam na praia tomando margaritas o dia todo, quando não é bem assim.
Para criar um post de fact-checking:
Você já se sentiu sozinho ou como se ninguém te entendesse? Muita gente se sente assim e recorre ao Google ou ao Youtube para fazer perguntas e se questiona se outras pessoas se sentem do mesmo jeito.
Blogs de maternidade/paternidade são um ótimo exemplo disso. Quando a gente só vê nas redes sociais a melhor parte da vida dos outros, é fácil se sentir inseguro ou insuficiente nas nossas próprias vidas.
Blogs de mães como At Home With Natalie mostram um pouco de como é a vida de uma jovem mãe enquanto também dão conselhos e mostram produtos e serviços que as mães podem usar.
E tudo bem se você não tiver filhos; posts de aconselhamento podem abordar diversos assuntos, incluindo viagem, culinária, saúde mental, DIY, SEO, e outros.
Praticamente qualquer assunto vai ter seus desafios, então pense onde as pessoas sofrem mais e ofereça soluções.
Para encontrar assuntos de nicho para oferecer conselhos, busque no Quora, Answer the Public (ou uma ferramenta parecida), use seu próprio conhecimento ou pesquise termos de busca de cauda longa.
Posts do tipo “melhores de” levantam os melhores itens em um nicho específico, detalhando os prós e contras. Eu adoro essa ideia, porque ela pode ser usada em qualquer área. Esse tipo de post é bem popular; 24% dos blogueiros publicam posts com levantamentos.
Poste sobre os melhores filmes, músicas, vídeo games, carros, hotéis, restaurantes, faculdades, cursos de SEO, ferramentas de pesquisa de palavras-chave, computadores, e por aí vai.
Busque no Google por “melhores serras elétricas 2021” e você verá vários blogs de DIY e melhorias para a casa. O Chain Saws Direct fez um post compilando suas serras elétricas preferidas de 2021.
Você pode fazer isso com literalmente qualquer coisa, desde que haja tráfego para essa palavra-chave.
Detalhe as funcionalidades, benefícios, prós e contras de diversos produtos. Você pode ouvi-los sendo chamados pelo nome de “levantamento de produtos.” É uma ótima ideia de post para iniciantes, porque você não precisa ter os produtos em mãos para fazer as avaliações.
Muitos blogueiros criam sites de marketing de afiliados usando essa estratégia.
34% dos blogueiros publicam posts com entrevistas. Entrevistar um especialista gera autoridade para o seu blog, ao mesmo tempo em que cita o nome de alguém que pode ser mais conhecido que você.
Isso acontece muito no mercado de SEO, e você pode encontrar especialistas em SEO entrevistando outros especialistas em SEO; isso vale para os dois lados.
Veja uma entrevista que eu fiz com o Groove HQ que gerou 1929 compartilhamentos para o site deles.
Seu objetivo deve ser encontrar um especialista na sua área que as pessoas conheçam, chegar até eles e pedir para eles responderem a algumas perguntas suas. Para encontrar especialistas:
Facilite as coisas para essas pessoas. Não espere que o especialista gaste um tempão com você, então apresente as perguntas em um formato simples, como um formulário do Google.
Faça perguntas que seus leitores querem saber, e não só as que te interessam. Para encontrar essas perguntas, siga nossos métodos anteriormente sugeridos de buscar no Quora, usar ferramentas como a Answer the Public, ou pesquisar palavras-chave com uma ferramenta como o Ubersuggest.
Quando você tiver tudo organizado, você pode compilar as informações no formato de um post que ofereça valor e insights para os seus leitores.
Está procurando ideias para posts? Por que não perguntar aos seus leitores?
Recorra às redes sociais que seu público usa e pergunte sobre o que eles gostariam de ler.
Depois de definir os assuntos nos quais seus leitores estão interessados, faça a pesquisa de palavras-chave sobre eles para verificar se há volume de busca. Se houver, você já tem uma ótima ideia para seu post.
41% dos blogueiros publicam posts de opinião. Um tipo de post de opinião pode ser comparar duas coisas num formato “versus” — Coca Cola versus Pepsi, iPhone versus Android ou Mac versus Windows, só dando alguns exemplos óbvios. Claro, você precisa ter certeza de que é algo relevante para seu nicho.
O The Digital Merchant é um site de avaliações especializado em assuntos como esse. Eles fizeram um guia comparando dois softwares de gerenciamento de projeto, ClickUp versus Monday.com.
Esses posts de comparação detalham as funcionalidades, benefícios, prós e contras de cada ferramenta para ajudar o leitor a decidir qual delas ele deve usar para o seu negócio.
Você pode fazer isso em qualquer nicho, desde que o assunto tenha um bom volume de busca. Descubra o que as pessoas estão comparando na sua área e escreva um post de comparação sobre o assunto.
Segundo uma pesquisa de 2021 do Twitter, 70% dos participantes disseram querer ouvir histórias positivas das marcas.
Qual foi a última vez que você leu uma história sobre uma conquista de alguém? Como você se sentiu depois de ler? Você se sentiu motivado para alcançar algo incrível também?
Posts que compartilham histórias e inspiram outras pessoas podem ser poderosos. Eles ajudam a criar um público fiel e desenvolver uma ligação entre o autor e seus leitores.
Embora não seja bem um blog, o David Goggins faz isso muito bem. Ele é incrível ao contar para as pessoas sua história e o que o inspirou a se tornar quem ele é hoje. Tudo isso o levou a um livro, um negócio e palestras incríveis.
As pessoas querem ouvir sobre outras superando desafios. Isso as inspira a seguir em frente e superar seus próprios desafios.
Dicas para histórias:
76% dos blogueiros escrevem posts de “como fazer”. Já que você tem um blog, por que não escrever um post sobre como começar um?
Essa ideia é o que você está lendo nesse momento. Você está lendo um post em um blog sobre como escrever posts em blogs. Aqui tem outro post sobre como escrever posts para o seu blog.
Se você é blogueiro e está tendo dificuldades em ter ideias, você sempre pode criar um guia explicando aos outros como começar seu próprio blog. Diga ao leitor como usar seus interesses e experiências para ganhar dinheiro escrevendo sobre elas.
73% dos usuários só dão uma passada de olho por postagens em blogs. Uma maneira de oferecer conteúdo claro e de leitura rápida? Um guia para iniciantes.
Todo mundo começa de algum lugar. Ao intitular seu post um “guia para iniciantes”, você pode deixar algo intimidador mais fácil de encarar.
Vejamos as criptomoedas, por exemplo.
Criptomoedas são um assunto altamente popular, mas também bastante complicado.
Se você conseguir criar um guia para iniciantes cheio de informações importantes que explique as etapas básicas necessárias para começar, ele pode funcionar como um trampolim para o sucesso.
Tenha em mente que um guia para iniciantes não é um guia definitivo; ele só precisa mostrar às pessoas como começar.
Ao criar esse tipo de post, pode ser uma boa incluir instruções passo-a-passo; informações anteriores sobre conceitos básicos e links para informações detalhadas/avançadas.
Posts de primeira mão sobre estudos de caso são uma ótima maneira de aumentar sua autoridade e conseguir backlinks.
Às vezes é mais fácil aprender e absorver alguma coisa quando você vê como alguém a fez. Um estudo de caso documenta os passos de uma jornada para que o leitor veja o que foi feito. Você pode fazer você mesmo ou estudar o caso de outra pessoa.
Mas não se trata necessariamente da pessoa; é mais sobre o processo. Você pode fazer estudos de caso sobre qualquer coisa, sejam negócios, exercícios físicos, SEO, dietas ou finanças pessoais. Alguns exemplos incluem:
Vamos usar um estudo de caso de SEO, por exemplo.
A Growth Machine fez um estudo de caso em que eles analisaram como eles foram de 0 a 150.000 visitantes mensais em apenas oito meses. Eles explicam todas as etapas necessárias para alcançar esse objetivo.
Estudos de caso provam que determinadas coisas são possíveis. Uma coisa é dizer a alguém como fazer alguma coisa; outra bem diferente é mostrar que você a fez. Estudos de caso requerem bastante tempo e um investimento considerável, então eu não recomendaria essa estratégia até que seu blog esteja mais estabelecido.
Para fazer um post de estudo de caso:
Eu adoro empresas e marcas que mostram sua personalidade. Fazer um post sobre sua empresa, seus empregados ou você mesmo é uma ótima maneira de abrir as portas e mostrar aos leitores que você é uma pessoa de verdade.
Perfis de funcionários são uma forma de se fazer isso.
Isso não só faz com que o funcionário se sinta valorizado, mas também é ótimo para a consciência de marca e recrutamento. Esses tipos de posts também geram um monte de compartilhamentos nas redes sociais, o que pode criar novos relacionamentos. O Walmart fez isso com um artigo sobre diversidade cultural e inclusão.
Em 2022, 32% dos profissionais de marketing de conteúdo disseram esperar aumentar seus gastos para conhecer melhor seu público. Quer uma maneira melhor de fazer isso do que com testes?
Incluir testes nos posts do seu blog também é uma ótima forma de dar personalidade ao seu site. Por mais que as pessoas adorem ler seu conteúdo, ele pode se tornar monótono com o tempo. Conteúdo interativo como testes ou pesquisas podem manter os leitores engajados.
Além disso, testes podem ser uma ótima maneira de se capturar leads para aumentar sua lista de emails.
O BuzzFeed é conhecido por seus testes. Eles vão de encontrar a celebridade com quem você mais se parece até testes de compatibilidade. Descubra o que interessa ao seu público e crie um teste simples mas divertido para eles..
Você prefere ter mais tempo ou mais dinheiro? 80% dos adultos empregados dizem que prefeririam ter mais tempo. Você pode impactar a vida de alguém de forma significativa ajudando-o a maximizar suas 24 horas.
Você pode postar sobre assuntos como:
Não se esqueça de focar no seu nicho quando for escrever sobre poupar tempo. Se seu público é composto principalmente por mães de família, certifique-se de que as dicas se aplicam ao estilo de vida típico de uma mãe ocupada. Se seu público é de estudantes de faculdade, fale de coisas como locomoção, estudos, concentração e menos distrações.
Escrever artigos editoriais sobre assuntos controversos nem sempre é fácil, mas pode gerar atenção quando voltados para o público certo. Se você se interessa por política, igualdade de gênero, aborto, religião ou assuntos semelhantes, você pode escrever sobre esses assuntos.
Escreva sobre o que está acontecendo atualmente com o assunto, o que está em alta e como isso tudo está impactando o país. Ao escrever sobre assuntos controversos, normalmente é melhor apresentar o assunto como um mediador neutro. Você está apenas levando a informação para as pessoas sem uma opinião.
Claro, você pode se posicionar se quiser. A Equality Now se manifesta sobre assuntos como abuso sexual contra mulheres. Se essa é uma causa que você apoia ou pela qual se interessa, você pode escrever sobre ela no seu blog.
A internet tem sempre mais tráfego durante feriados. Em 2021, o tráfego aumentou 57% em um período de um ano.
Embora eu fale mais sobre escrever conteúdo atemporal, há algumas exceções – e conteúdo sobre feriados é uma delas. Você pode encontrar formas de incorporar conteúdo específico sobre feriados no seu nicho. Por exemplo, se você tem um blog sobre pesca, você pode escrever um artigo sobre os “melhores presentes para pesca.”
Independente do seu nicho, você pode encontrar uma maneira de escrever conteúdo sobre feriados. Você pode até focar em feriados menores, como dia dos namorados, dia das mães ou dia do trabalhador.
Se você é uma marca de e-commerce, pense em quais produtos que você vende são mais atraentes para as pessoas durante os feriados. Você também pode criar um post que fale sobre os produtos e as ofertas no seu mercado durante esses feriados.
Sobre o que eu deveria postar em 2022?
Escreva sobre seus interesses, hobbies e área de especialidade. Tendências do mercado e guias de como fazer também fazem sucesso. Não há limites quando o assunto são ideias para blogs, então encontre algo que você adore e comece um blog sobre o assunto.
Eu deveria usar alguma ferramenta para ter ideias para o meu blog?
Sim, você precisa de ferramentas de pesquisa de palavras-chave como o Ubersuggest para te ajudar a desenvolver assuntos com um bom volume de busca. Se você está tendo dificuldades para fazer seu blog decolar, nós podemos ajudar.
Quais ideias para blogs estão em alta no momento?
Qualquer ideia para blog pode fazer sucesso com o público certo, mas blogs de estilo de vida, saúde e desenvolvimento, viagens e autocuidado são os nichos mais populares em 2022.
Quantas ideias para posts eu preciso ter?
Eu recomendo fazer um planejamento de pelo menos um mês antes de começar. Isso vai garantir que você tenha um estoque de ideias se você se atrasar ou ficar preso em outros projetos.
Essa lista exaustiva de ideias para blogs deve te ajudar a decidir sobre o que escrever. Pegue algumas dessas ideias e planeje seu calendário de conteúdo. Não deixe de usar diferentes opções para que o conteúdo seja fresco e interessante para os seus leitores.
Lembre-se, ter ideias de assuntos é a parte difícil, mas coloque sempre seus interesses em primeiro lugar. Se você escrever sobre algo que você gosta, vai ser muito mais fácil escrever de forma consistente.
Ofereça valor para os seus leitores, faça a pesquisa de palavras-chave corretamente e sempre siga os princípios básicos de SEO.
De todas as ideias para blogs nesse guia, qual foi a sua preferida? Por quê?
The post As 25 Melhores Ideias para Blogs Que Vão Te Gerar Tráfego Certo em 2022 appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.