Living in an era where content is the new black or orange has placed content writers in high demand. While we are still trying to maintain quality, the increased workload has made it almost impossible for us to avoid using content writing tools for SEO purposes.
This blog post is dedicated to all hardworking content writers who need content writing tools for SEO to improve the quality of their content and meet deadlines. The reward for us is when we see those blog posts that we write ranking on the first page of Google’s SERPs.
What is content writing?
Content writing is the entire process of planning, writing, and publishing content in written formats. These pieces of content take various forms, but whatever form they take, the endpoint is usually to convey a message to a particular audience.
Depending on the quality of your content, it has the ability to convert your audience into paying and returning clients.
The importance of SEO in content writing includes:
Visibility
No matter the platform you are writing for, the end game for every writer is to be able to showcase their work in front of an audience.
For example, when you write content for blogs, you want to see it show up on the first page of a SERP for its focus keyword. When you write content for social media, you want to see it get the needed engagement and traction.
Whatever content you write, what makes your efforts worthwhile is when it is visible to your target audience. What better way to do this than through SEO?
SEO allows your content to be visible to people who are searching for it.
Engagement
Due to the fact that SEO is based on research, it allows you to discover what people want to read about in the exact format that they want.
This lets you create personalized content, which promotes engagement.
Brand building
When your visibility increases, it helps you develop a strong online presence, which is advantageous to your brand.
As more people engage with your content, they become familiar with your brand, its values, and its offerings, fostering a positive brand reputation.
Builds credibility
When you consistently produce high-quality content that is optimized for search engines and users, earn quality backlinks from reputable websites, and optimize your website to enhance user experience, it will help to build your credibility as an authority in your niche.
Niche relevance
SEO-driven content ensures that your brand is associated with specific keywords and topics that are relevant to your target audience. By incorporating relevant keywords into your content, you align your website with the search queries that your audience is using. This targeted approach effectively positions your brand as a relevant resource for users seeking information or solutions within your niche.
Free marketing
Organic traffic is the icing on the cake when it comes to SEO. Unlike other paid marketing options, SEO is more long-term and rewards consistent, quality content with adequate research and cost-effective strategies.
How to choose the best content writing tools.
Selecting your most suitable content writing tools for SEO requires careful consideration of various factors to optimize your content creation process and achieve your SEO goals effectively.
Here are some factors to consider when choosing the best content writing tools for SEO:
Your Content Needs and Requirements
Assess your content writing needs and identify the specific tasks you want to automate or enhance with the use of these tools. Consider whether you need tools for keyword research, content optimization, plagiarism checking, grammar assistance, or a tool that combines these functionalities.
Ease of Use and Good User Interface
Prioritize content writing tools for SEO that offer a user-friendly interface and easy navigation, especially if you are a beginner. This little factor can significantly affect your workflow and productivity.
Accuracy and Reliability
Ensure that the content writing tools for SEO that you choose provide you with accurate and reliable data. This is crucial for making informed decisions about your content strategy and optimizing your content for search engines.
Pricing and Budget
Evaluate the pricing plans of these tools and compare the functionalities offered by different plans. Select tools that align with your budget and provide the features and functionalities you need without breaking the bank.
Free Trials or Demos
Take advantage of the free trials or demos offered by many content writing tools for SEO. This allows you to experiment with the tool’s functionalities before making a purchase.
Integrations with Existing Tools
Consider how well the tools you choose integrate with your existing content management system (CMS), analytics platform, and other relevant tools. It needs to have seamless and hitch-free integration with your existing tools for overall efficiency.
Customer Support and Resources
You need to consider the level of customer support provided by the developer. Access to comprehensive tutorials and responsive customer support can be your saving grace when troubleshooting issues arise.
Content Writing Tools for SEO Writing
Grammarly
If you are a content writer, I am absolutely sure you’ve heard of Grammarly at least once. This is because it is one of the best content-writing tools available.
The essential features of Grammarly cover spelling, punctuation, and grammar, but it doesn’t stop there. When you upgrade to the paid plan, you get plagiarism checks, vocabulary, and even sentence tone checkers.
One thing that distinguishes Grammarly is that it uses AI systems to detect subtle writing errors, making its reviews and feedback very accurate and spot on.
Although AI systems have certain disadvantages, including the inability to identify word structures outside of their programming, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. You can manually correct your writing where you deem appropriate.
The free version of Grammarly, though limited, is far better than most spellcheckers and editing tools as it offers a variety of features, including:
Integration with several browsers
Integration with Google Docs
AI system for spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors
Availability on mobile devices
Readability metrics
As expected, the premium version offers far more value than the free version and gives writers literally all the features needed to have a WOW effect on readers. It goes beyond the basic suggestions and checks word tone, style, ineffective word usage, and plagiarism. Another feature of the premium version is outsourcing your writing to an actual human proofreader, although this comes at an additional cost.
Grammarly Premium makes sure your writing has clarity and emotional appeal and is free from plagiarism.
Developed by SEMRush, this writing assistant has all the features necessary for content optimization, and the good news is that these features are automated. Unlike other content writing tools for SEO, the features are not exactly embedded in the tool but come from various integrations, including all the SEMRush tools.
I like this tool because it shows you recommendations and gives you feedback as you write. This means that you don’t have to wait till you’re done writing to make necessary corrections. You also get to finish your work faster and learn on the go.
The SEMRush Writing Assistant offers:
SEO suggestions
Real-time feedbacks
Google Docs integration
Integration with other SEMRush tools
It can be used as a WordPress plugin
The limitation of the SWA is that you cannot access it unless you have an active SEMRush subscription which starts at $120 per month.
There are several ways you can use the SEMRush Writing Assistant:
Inside SEMRush: This allows you to check the viability of your content right from the SEMRush platform, although this prevents you from styling options or image insertion.
As a Google Docs Plugin: More preferable than the first option, although you need to have a Google Workspace account. Then you have to install the plugin to your Google docs from the GSuite Workspace market, after which you enable the add-on via your Google Docs.
As a WordPress plugin: This is the most preferred option as it is easy to use with more available options. All you need to do is go to your WordPress plugin page, search for the SWA, and install and activate. Click on the ‘Flat mode’ in your post editor, log in to your account, and your SWA is ready for work.
For any content creator or writer, answerthepublic gives you insight into your customer’s minds. It compiles a list of search queries based on specific keywords. It then categorizes these queries into several forms, including:
Questions like why, where, how, who, what, can will, etc
Prepositions like without, near, with, to, without, etc.
Comparisons like versus, and, or, like, etc
Alphabetical: displays results in alphabetical order
Related
and presents it in an appealing visual format.
This tool is best for researching market trends and observing queries around specific keywords in any niche. These keywords are predictions of what your audience will search for, and it is an accurate analysis as these data are updated frequently.
The free version offers you search insights and allows you to download the displayed data, although you have a limited number of searches per day.
The paid version allows you access to unlimited daily searches, unlimited users, data comparison, and CSV export.
There is no free trial for answerthepublic, and the pro plan starts at $99 monthly with a 20% discount if you want to pay for an entire year.
Initially, when I started writing, I always loved using Microsoft Word for all of my writing until I discovered Google Docs.
Besides the fact that Google Docs automatically saves your writings to your drive or device to prevent the risk of losing your writing, it also allows you to add plugins that can help your content writing process.
Working with a team allows you to collaborate on a document and automatically syncs all inputs.
When writing blog posts, I always use Google Docs, and it’s incredible how I can highlight a particular phrase or word, search the internet for related posts, and automatically insert the links. This saves you the stress of having to insert URLs or add related links to your writings manually.
If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, what you see on your Google Docs is what you will see at the backend of your website, so you hardly have to edit your texts.
If you aren’t using Google Docs as a blogger or writer, you should try it!
Possibly the best keyword tool for SEO writers, Ubersuggest brings all your SEO needs to fulfillment. Developed by Neil Patel, it offers insight into keywords, content analysis, website analysis, competitor analysis, link tracking, and many other features.
It has a reliable and vast database of keywords and uses the API (Application Programming Interface) for Adwords, specifically Google Keyword Planner and Google Suggest, to get its data. This gives its users insights that help their SEO strategies and ranks them better in search engines.
If you are looking for an SEO tool that covers all the aspects of SEO, then this has got you covered. The free version offers you limited access to keyword analysis and content analysis. There is also a 7-day free trial that gives you a preview of what you can have access to in the premium version.
There are three categories of the paid version:
Individual: $12 monthly or a $ 120-lifetime access
Business: $20 monthly or a $ 200-lifetime access
Enterprise: $40 monthly or a $ 400-lifetime access
One of the best tools is the Hemingway editor when it comes to streamlining writing styles and writing clarity. Perfect for writing concision and word phrasing, it shows the readability of the article and aspects of the writing that need corrections by using different color codes.
Yellow: Phrases highlighted in yellow indicate long, complex sentences.
Blue: Highlighted blue phrases show weak verbs and phrases. You might want to edit these phrases with context words and more impactful verbs.
Green: Green highlights are indicative of passive voice.
Red: Red highlights show that the highlighted phrase is difficult to read, and the readers will likely not get its meaning.
Purple: Phrases highlighted with purple usually indicate that you can shorten the selected phrase or that the highlighted word has a simpler alternative.
There are two ways to use the Hemingway editor. You can use it as a free tool online or download it as an app. The online Hemingway editor is entirely free, but the App version comes with a one-time fee of $19.99.
Although the features for both the online and app versions are the same, a significant difference is that you cannot download or upload your corrected work using the online version, but you can do that via the app. The app also gives you download options, including HTML, Markdown, or Word document.
The app version also allows you to use it without an internet connection, while an internet connection is necessary for the online version.
This makes it to my list because it is one of the few AI tools that can actually help you with SEO. The Jasper AI has integration with Surfer SEO to help writers and bloggers with on-page SEO.
What is Jasper AI?
Jasper AI is a GPT-3 (Third-generation generative Pre-trained Transformer) content writing tool that helps you create and edit content. The fact that it is a GPT-3 tool means that it can use a small amount of input text to generate large amounts of relevant texts using the internet data, making it a perfect choice for long-form and short-form content.
Another reason you will love this tool is that it offers a lot of templates:
Long-form assistant: to write long articles from start to finish.
AIDA Framework: Utilizes the AIDA model for copywriters (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action)
Content Improver: To copy and paste pieces of your writing to make it better.
Facebook Ad Primary Text: Create highly converting copy for the ‘primary text’ section of your Facebook ads.
Google Ads Headline: To create highly converting copy for your Google Ads’ headline section.
Marketing angles: To add vibrancy to your marketing by researching different angles.
Video description: To create unique descriptions in your YouTube videos.
Email Subject Line: For compelling subject lines to get readers to open your mail.
Real Estate Listing – Residential: Creating enticing real estate listings that sell homes fast.
PAS Framework: For creating new marketing ideas using the PAS framework (Problem-Agitate-Solution)
Pricing for Jasper AI. starts at $29 per month for the starter plan and $59 per month for the Boss mode. There is an option to pay yearly with 2-month payments off.
Well, if you have an app that allows you to make amazing graphics for your content in record time and offer millions of templates, then maybe you don’t need Canva.
Visual content is just as important as written content. In fact, your written content is not complete without pictures, infographics, or short videos. Canva makes it easier for content creators to develop graphics they can use to hook their readers.
With millions of templates ranging from infographics, websites, concept maps, planners, posters, invoices, ebook covers, YouTube intro, blog graphics, Instagram posts, videos, and the list goes on! It is a must-have for all content writers and bloggers.
Pricing: The free version is available and has a lot of templates from which you can select.
As the name implies, this tool majorly helps generate topic ideas for your writing. This is the tool for you if you are continually hitting a creative block or running out of topics.
When you open the site, you get to add a noun that best describes what you want to talk about. Hubspot allows you to add up to five nouns, and it gives you days, weeks, or months’ worth of blog topic ideas that you can use.
You can access more ideas when you sign in to the platform using your website’s URL.
The Hubspot blog topic generator is completely free.
Improve your writing: In less than a month of using appropriate tools, the quality of your writing is sure to increase. As the tool makes corrections, you also learn aspects of your writing that need improvement.
Improve reader experience: One of the benefits of most content writing tools for SEO is that they optimize your content to be reader-friendly. These include paragraphing and flowing sentences.
Optimize for search engines: Yes, your content gets to go through SEO scrutiny and editing—keyword stuffing, paragraph length, keyword research, word count, etc.
Organize your content: Content writing tools help organize your content layout and make it visually appealing to your readers.
Professional content: After editing and revising your content, the final product is usually professional.
Instant feedback: Most tools instantly revise your content as you write and make suggestions where necessary.
My content SEO Tools: top picks
These content writing tools for SEO have a lot of advantages, and they are sure to improve your writing quality and optimize for search engines.
My top picks from these tools would be
AnswerThePublic,
UberSuggest,
Google Docs,
Grammarly, and
Canva
What tools have you tried out? Do you think they help improve your writing skills? Did I fail to include your go-to content-writing tool?
As you probably know, SEO is the talk of the decade. While the end goal of most SEO strategies is to increase organic traffic to a website, there are several other reasons to optimize your website.
This is where plugins come in.
SEO plugins help you simplify SEO and save time. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an SEO expert; plugins are necessary.
This post focuses more on plugins that are either created or compatible with WordPress websites, and this is because, when it comes to making your sites rank on the first page of Google, having a WordPress site takes you steps closer to your goal.
SEO plugins are your best bet for self-managing your website’s optimization, but how do you choose? This post selects the best WordPress SEO plugins you need for 2024.
What are plugins?
Plugins, also called ‘add-ons‘ or ‘extensions,’ generally refer to a software component that is made to enhance or add to the functionalities of an existing computer program without altering the program’s initial function(s).
Basically, you can add functions to a computer program without affecting the program.
When it comes to SEO plugins, the main focus is to be able to assist the content management system by expanding its SEO functionalities.
SEO plugins are extensions installed in a browser, software, or content management system like WordPress that allows for an expansion of function or the performance of specific and technical optimization tasks that the program cannot perform.
This API allows the plugins to access and control functions on the existing program and carry out their specific functions.
However, plugins will not work without an existing program with which it is compatible.
What to consider when selecting a plugin
Compatibility: If you are downloading and installing a plugin, it is important to check its compatibility with your site or the version of your content management system. Some plugins might require you to update your CMS before it can function properly.
Easy installation: Most WordPress SEO plugins are easy to install and use. However, you need to consider if there is backup support for the plugin and the possibility of using that plugin without support.
Cost: If you are just starting out as a blogger, I will advise you to stick to free or low-cost plugins. There are several WordPress SEO plugins that are free and with enough functionality to help you scale your SEO strategies.
The Plugin function(s): This is very important because your active installed plugins should be relevant to your website and SEO goals. For example, you have no business with a WooCommerce plugin if you do not have an online store.
Technical knowledge: Stick to plugins that are on par with your technical knowledge or, at the very least, have 24/7 customer support for when you’re stuck.
Why WordPress?
Besides the tons of search engine-optimized themes available, it can load web pages faster and optimize for mobile devices. The SEO plugins in WordPress are specific to their platform. This means that you do not have to worry about the plugin being compatible with your website.
These WordPress SEO plugins help improve your SEO game without requiring you to be tech-savvy.
Most of these plugins are easy to install, compatible with all kinds of websites (e-commerce, blog, vlogs, educational, etc.), and include paid and free versions.
Why do you need a plug-in for WordPress?
There are several in-built features embedded in WordPress accounts that help to optimize your sites for search engines.
However, there is a limit to their functionalities, and there might also be a need to add extra features depending on your optimization goals.
More powerful extensions can be added to your website to help carry out specific SEO functions.
It is possible to optimize your sites and rank well on search engines without plugins, but that also means that you are a step behind those who use a plugin.
The best thing to do is install a beginner-friendly free WordPress SEO plugin. This way, it doesn’t cost you capital, and you get to enjoy the benefits of an SEO plugin, albeit limited.
Aspects of SEO that you need plug-ins for
There are different reasons you’ll need WordPress SEO plugins aside from visibility and organic traffic.
You’ll also need SEO for:
Website crawling
XML Sitemaps
Media optimization
Snippet featuring
Broken link checking
Caching
Redirection
Backlinking
Social media SEO
Google AMP SEO
Others
These various aspects are like the SEO needs that you need to consider when selecting the plugin to use for your website.
This particular plugin is one of the most popular plugins among WordPress users, which helps with both on-page and off-page site optimization.
As effective and versatile as the Yoast plugin is, it is also beginner-friendly. This plugin is best for your websites to rank higher in search engines.
The plugin appears on each post and reviews your content while also giving suggestions on how you can improve each blog post for search engines.
These suggestions include keywords and readability and show how your page will appear on Google’s SERPs when uploaded on the net.
The fantastic thing about Yoast is that the free version contains all the necessary functions needed to have a fully optimized post.
Key Features of Yoast SEO plugin
Content analysis
Readability analysis
Schema blocks
Google preview
Automated technical SEO
Automatic XML generator
Fast site loading speed
In addition to all these goodies, the Yoast plugin also comes with several extensions compatible with the free version, including WooCommerce SEO, Yoast video SEO, and Yoast local SEO, among a few others.
Prioritizing user experience, AIOSEO is the best plugin for higher rankings and increasing your site’s traffic.
As the name implies, it goes beyond just optimizing your site but starts right from website set-up and into everything needed for search engine optimization. It also contains functions that help to uncover new SEO growth opportunities.
AIOSEO is an easy yet powerful SEO plugin that effortlessly integrates with other important tools and social media platforms.
It is user-friendly, beginner-friendly, and incredibly easy to install. When you install the AIOSEO, it automatically generates all the necessary features, which you can later customize in the settings.
Key Features of the AIOSEO
Easy installation
Comes with a marketing toolkit
Beginner-friendly
Optimized for several search engines
XML sitemaps
Optimized search appearance
Social media integration
Schema markup for SEO
Optimized SEO meta title
Optimized SEO meta description
404 error page monitoring
Redirection management
Can integrate with other plugins, including speed and caching plugins
Named the first WordPress SEO plugin to use artificial intelligence (AI) and one of the fastest-growing SEO plugins, it is also the plugin of choice to increase site traffic while saving time.
The free version of Rank Math offers more SEO features than any other plugin’s unpaid version and provides features that will otherwise be paid for in other plugins. The paid version also contains AI content analysis, which is peculiar to this plugin, alongside SEO rank tracking.
Using the Rank Math plugin, you can import data from previous plugins to avoid data loss when converting. This plugin can be used instead of AIOSEO and not together to prevent conflict plugin.
Like the AIOSEO, it contains all the features necessary to have a fully optimized post and site on several search engines besides Google.
In a WordPress review, it was said that the features of Rank Math are so numerous that if you need any SEO function to optimize your site, Rank Math probably has it, i.e., they cover everything and anything SEO.
This is arguably one of the best WordPress SEO plugins ever!
SchemaPro is a plugin that allows you to add schema.org structured data markup automatically to WordPress sites in the recommended format.
This optimizes your content and improves how Google presents it on its result page. This process helps sites to enhance their ranking and the way they appear on search engines.
Although most plugins have in-built schema markups that provide the same function, you might want to consider SchemaPro if you need more variety of schema types.
The SchemaPro also simplifies adding schema markups to posts.
When it comes to indexing your site, this plugin does it better. It creates a special XML sitemap that will help search engines index your site better.
It lets the crawlers get a complete and simplified view of your website’s structure and also retrieves this information completely and easily.
If you understand the importance of site indexing and how it makes it easy for Google to crawl and index your web pages, you will discover that this sitemap is one of the most necessary WordPress SEO plugins to have.
This is another plugin that must be included when talking about the best WordPress SEO plugins because it is easy, efficient, and powerful. It contains features similar to other plugins, including adding meta titles, meta descriptions, redirection, and XML sitemaps.
Installation is easy, and it is suitable for beginners and advanced SEO experts. If you are looking for a simplified plugin that addresses your SEO needs, you might want to consider SEOPress, although it has limited features compared to Rank Math, Yoast, and AIOSEO.
Ever thought of being able to access your site’s analytics quickly on your WordPress dashboard? The MonsterInsight plugin allows you to easily install Google Analytics on WordPress and access it on your WordPress dashboard.
It shows all the details found in Google Analytics and includes eCommerce SEO which shows the progress of your products.
Personally, this is one of the active WordPress SEO plugins that I use for my website, and it has made SEO easy for me.
Are you looking for the best SEO plugin without ads? SEO framework focuses on increasing site speed and optimizing content for search engines. It is fast, lightweight, and visually appealing to its users.
The user interface is flexible and organized to make navigation easy for users and gives easy access to most SEO functions compared to other plugins.
Compared to other WordPress SEO plugins, the unique selling point of Slim SEO is in its automation. It can automatically generate meta tags, schema markup, redirections, and sitemaps.
The downside to Slim SEO is that it cannot do an on-page SEO analysis, but you can configure how your content will appear on social media.
Key Features of Slim SEO
Automatic generation of several SEO functions
Redirects for author pages
Modification and sharing option for contents
Easy configuration
Addition of custom codes to headers and footers.
WP Optimize
WP Optimize is an all-in-one plugin, unlike some other WordPress SEO plugins that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It helps you with website caching, database optimization, and even image optimization as well.
The WP Optimize WordPress SEO plugin also helps with deferring CSS and Javascripts for fast loading time.
This plugin works for WordPress versions 4.5 and above.
Key Features of WP Optimize
Database cleanup
Website Caching
Image compression
a3 Lazy Load
The main goal of this particular plugin is to assist with site speed, which can be hugely affected by large-sized images and the time it takes to load.
a3 Lazy Load is a WordPress plugin that helps you lazy load your images. This means that images will only be loaded when they are needed, which can improve your website’s loading times.
This plugin has over 100,000+ active installations and is compatible with WordPress versions above 5.6.
Key Features of a3 Lazy Load
support different image format
Support WebP images
Video lazy load feature
customizable loading behavior
Mobile-focused
Backup support
Ahref’s SEO Plugin
Ahrefs is a well-known SEO tool that can help you track your website’s backlinks, keyword rankings, and competitors.
It combines your website’s data from Ahref. Google Analytics and Google’s Search Console data show you how your posts are performing based on specific keywords.
If you are looking for one of the best WordPress SEO plugins that helps you with content and build your backlink profile, then this is for you.
Key Features of Ahref’s SEO Plugin
Content auditing
Backlink tracking
Rank monitoring
Competitor research
Performance score
GA and GSC integration
Broken Link Checker
Described as the “fastest and most accurate” broken link checker on WordPress, this SEO plugin helps you find and fix broken links on your website.
Broken links can negatively impact your website’s SEO, so it is important to fix them as soon as possible. The 700,000+ active installations for this plugin show how necessary this plugin is.
WPSmush is one of the most important WordPress SEO plugins that help you optimize your images for the web. WPSmush can automatically compress your images without sacrificing quality, convert your images to WebP format and also resize your images.
All these can help to improve your website’s loading times and SEO.
Elementor is the best WordPress page builder used by over 5 million people. It allows you to create beautiful and responsive websites without writing any code.
Key Features of Elementor
Drag-and-drop interface
Wide range of widgets (40+)
Responsive designs
Template library
Multiple language support
Imagify
Imagify is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your images for search engines. Imagify is an advanced plugin that allows you to optimize your images with a single click and just like the WPSmush plugin, it does not sacrifice quality as well.
Key Features of Imagify
Bulk image optimization
Image compression
Image resizing
Image file format conversion
Automatic image optimization
WebP conversion
JetPack
Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that includes a number of features to help you improve your website’s SEO security. It also helps to grow your traffic and back-up your website.
Jetpack also has features that support quality website performance, including image optimization features, site speed, and eCommerce features.
Key Features of JetPack
Automatic site security
Automatic backup
Site change details
Examine incoming traffic
Anti-spam features
Sitemap generation and submission
Social sharing buttons
Automated-Related posts display
LuckyWP Table of Contents
LuckyWP Table of Contents plugin automatically generates optimized tables of contents for your blog posts/pages.
This can help to improve the readability of your posts, and it can also help to make them more scannable for visitors.
Key Features of LuckyWP Table of Contents
Automatic & optimized TOC
Customizable TOC
Color themes
Smooth scroll
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create an online store and customize it to fit your brand’s aesthetic and purpose. It also makes it easy to sell and buy products/services online.
Key Features of WooCommerce
Customizable storefront
Product catalog management
Payment processing
Integration with payment platforms
Shipping option configuration
Contact Form by WPForms
Contact Form by WPForms is a contact form builder plugin that allows you to create contact forms and other types of forms on your website.
SEO Squirrly is one of the few WordPress SEO plugins that are good for SEO beginners willing to optimize their content for search engines.
This plugin assists you in writing entirely optimized posts by giving suggestions as you write.
Key Features of SEO Squirrly
Real-time keyword optimization
Competitor analysis
Keeps data from previous plugins
Sharable content reports
Final Thoughts
A list that contains the best SEO plugins for WordPress can be relative because it may vary from individual perspectives and experiences. However, as earlier stated, there are some factors to consider when selecting your plugins.
It is also important to note that when using SEO plugins for your website, it is usually best to limit them as possible without compromising your SEO needs.
When you have a bunch of plugins installed on your website, it can reduce your site’s loading speed. This doesn’t speak well to search engines and will make your website slip down in search results.
It will be challenging to select specific plugins as the best because your SEO needs can differ, so these explanations should help make your selection process a bit easier.
Keywords serve as the backbone of all SEO efforts and strategies.
Like most other search engines, Google constantly strives to bring content the searcher wants to them, and your job as a blogger is to present such content by writing content as closely related to what the searcher will likely search.
Keywords can be regarded as the most critical element in search engine optimization (SEO) as search engines crawl your page, searching for these keywords to ensure your content is relevant to the searcher’s query.
Placing your keywords in the correct quantity and the proper manner is crucial to a website’s ranking.
This task may seem daunting and almost impossible, especially for someone new to the SEO space. So, in this blog post, you will understand keyword optimization in SEO with tried and tested methods of using it.
What exactly are keywords in SEO?
Keywords are the words, clauses, and phrases searchers enter into search queries on which they want to see content.
For your website, keywords are the main ideas of your content. They are the things that all the paragraphs, images, and illustrations should boil down to.
Also, keywords are phrases and words placed strategically in your content to remain relevant to the searcher’s query, keep their attention, and prompt Google to deem your content a viable answer to their search queries.
Types of keywords
Concerning length and relevance, 3 (three) types of keywords are used in SEO.
These, also known as generic keywords, are concise phrases of one or two words. They are popular, broad search terms that generate significant traffic but face high competition. An excellent example would be the term “Men’s Shoes.”
2. Long-tail keywords
Long tail keywords are specific phrases with lower competition and lower search traffic. Due to their specificity, they often yield higher conversion rates. These are typically the longest keywords, tailored to specific audiences or topics. “Black and White Comfortable Men’s Shoes” is a long-tail keyword.
These keywords fall between short-tail and long-tail keywords. They have moderate traffic volume but offer better conversion rates and less competition than other keywords. “Comfortable Men’s Shoes” is an example.
Keyword optimization is the process of identifying and selecting the right keywords in your content so that your target audience can find your pages more easily in search engine results.
It means identifying common phrases and clauses searchers type into search queries and forming your content to match those keywords. In keyword optimization, you analyze the best possible keyword for the content you wish to create and work those keywords into your ideas to appear as relevant to the search query as possible.
Why is keyword optimization relevant to your blog?
Keywords are vital because they link the content people want and the content you create. And, importantly, proper keyword optimization:
1. Drives organic traffic to your website
Searchers will likely click on headlines and websites that display keywords that correlate to their search queries. You also increase your likelihood of ranking higher on SERPs, which enhances your chances of organic traffic.
2. Reduces bounce rate
With proper keyword optimization, the searchers will find your website relevant to their search queries and be less likely to leave your website as soon as they enter it (bounce).
3. Competitive advantage
In the SEO world, everything is subject to comparison; your goal in SEO is to rank HIGHER than your competitors. A website with proper keyword optimization has an advantage over its competitors because it can get more traffic.
Keyword research
Keyword research is simply gathering information from available registries on the right keywords for your content, how well they do on search engines, rank difficulty, and content from other sources regarding the same or similar keywords.
Keyword research helps you understand your audience better so you can write content they want to read.
If you’re thinking of all the stress involved in research, there are tools to help you. Keyword research tools show you data concerning the keywords you want to use so you can avoid common pitfalls, such as writing content on topics with high-ranking difficulties or writing good content people do not search for.
There are several options regarding the keyword research and optimization tools to use for your SEO journey. Here is a list of trusted and known keyword research tools:
The first step in keyword optimization is to conduct your keyword research. Know what the searchers want and conform to that.
You can use keyword tools to find and incorporate keywords that fit your goals into your writing. Begin by brainstorming a list of keywords and phrases associated with the content and then systematically enter each keyword into a search or tool.
Also, keep notes of all the analytics you get from your brainstorming session and use them to further your SEO goals.
ii. Map your keywords.
Keyword mapping is simply mapping your keywords!!!
After you’ve done your keyword research and have all your data, consider where all the keywords will go while writing. Think of it like drawing a map; you don’t want to keep all your keywords in one place and then have a lack of them in other spaces.
Keyword mapping ensures your user’s interest is still piqued throughout your entire post, not just at certain points.
It is vital in keyword optimization to think of quality over quantity.
It is more important that the keywords you use are relevant to your content.
It may be tempting to discover keywords with high search volumes and want to place many on your site. However, most search engines have learned to adapt to this and do not rank websites with excessive and unnecessary use of irrelevant keywords.
iv. Don’t forget your target.
As previously discussed, understanding your target audience is pivotal in optimization.
Consider a scenario where you’ve diligently optimized a webpage, striving to secure a high-ranking position in search results, only to realize that the people searching for the terms in your content seek something entirely different.
Two potential consequences may unfold when you fail to reach your intended audience.
Firstly, many individuals outside your target demographic might stumble upon your page, discover it doesn’t align with their interests or needs, and promptly exit, potentially avoiding your site as a future resource and negatively impacting your site by increasing its bounce rate.
Secondly, your intended audience might never come across your site in search results.
It’s crucial to weed out keywords that attract the wrong audience to your site and instead incorporate the search terms that resonate with your target audience’s preferences and interests.
v. Target popular keywords.
When a keyword enjoys high popularity, indicating a significant volume of searches, it can drive substantial traffic to your website if you attain a high ranking.
To maximize website traffic, focus on optimizing for highly searched keywords. However, note that as a keyword’s popularity increases, so does the level of competition, making it more challenging to secure a high ranking.
vi. Target less competitive keywords.
On the flip side, while it might appear counterintuitive to target less popular keywords, this approach is often the most effective for new websites.
Competing with well-established websites that have already gained trust and authority for trendy keywords in competitive industries can be highly challenging.
Therefore, newer websites often find tremendous success by optimizing less popular and less competitive keywords or by enhancing their keywords with modifiers, such as thematic or geo-targeted modifiers, to create mid to long-tail keywords.
In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, search engine keyword optimization remains a cornerstone of success.
Understanding the intricacies of keyword research, implementation, and monitoring can help propel your website to new heights in search engine rankings.
But remember, it’s not a one-and-done task; it requires continuous effort and adaptation to perfect it.
How often do you optimize your keywords, and how does it help you?
Landing page optimization (LPO) is the process of improving the performance of your landing page(s). This can increase conversions, such as people making purchases or signing up for your newsletters.
You can follow several best practices to optimize your landing pages, and this post simplifies them.
Before delving into landing page optimization, you should understand that you can have more than one landing page on your website.
The idea of a landing page is that the page serves a particular purpose (like a lead magnet).
Hence, you can have a landing page focused on people signing up for your newsletter, another landing page for selling one of your courses, and another for scheduling a meeting with you.
No matter how many landing pages you have, the intent remains lead generation.
What is landing page optimization (LPO)?
Landing page optimization involves improving your landing pages to achieve specific conversion goals that align with your overall marketing goals, such as increasing leads, sales, sign-ups, or downloads.
Landing page optimization is all about optimizing your landing pages for users and search engines. It involves optimizing everything from your designs to the functionalities of these landing pages.
Landing page optimization (LPO) is crucial for driving higher conversion rates. Your website visits can become valuable leads and customers when your landing pages are optimized, ultimately increasing your overall success.
2. Improved ROI
When you optimize your landing pages for conversion, the results are directly proportional to your increased return on investment (ROI) for your marketing campaigns.
By increasing your conversion rates with landing page optimization, you get more out of the money you spend on advertising, social media, and other marketing efforts.
3. Cost-efficiency
Landing page optimization is a cost-effective way to improve your website’s performance. Compared to investing in expensive paid advertising campaigns, LPO helps you achieve better results by optimizing what you already have.
You can get better financial outcomes by focusing on your existing traffic, creating lead magnets tailored to your traffic profile, and maximizing its potential.
4. Competitive advantage
Only a few people focus on or give enough attention to landing page optimization. Therefore, improving your landing pages can give you the distinct advantage you need to stand out.
5. Enhanced user engagement
A well-optimized landing page is designed to engage users and keep them interested in your offers.
Clear messaging, enticing visuals, and relevant content can contribute to a positive and engaging experience that will encourage your visitors to explore further and take the desired actions.
LPO allows you to track the performance of your marketing campaigns with greater accuracy.
By analyzing your users’ behavior on each of your landing pages, you can identify the exact campaigns driving the most conversions and optimize your efforts accordingly.
7. Specificity
Unlike your other generic website pages, landing pages are designed for a specific purpose and target audience.
This enables you to precisely tailor the messages and offers on the landing page to the needs and interests of your visitors, resulting in higher relevance and, ultimately, higher conversion rates.
Landing page optimization best practices
Here are some of the best practices for landing page optimization you can use:
1. Create a clear and concise message.
Your landing page must have a clear and concise message that immediately communicates the value proposition to the visitor.
Ensure your visitors know what you want them to know, see, or do. The landing page’s purpose should be clear and concise.
2. Use strong visuals.
Of course, we all know that the key to human attention is to captivate, and what better way to do this than with good visuals?
Visuals are practical tools for capturing attention, communicating information quickly, and increasing the emotional impact of your message.
Use high-quality images, videos, and infographics relevant to your offer and appeal to your target audience. Also, avoid using stock photos or generic visuals that lack personality.
3. Write compelling copy.
Your landing page should have compelling sales copy, mainly if the page aims to sell.
Write concise copy that speaks directly to your target audience’s needs and desires.
Use strong verbs and powerful language to highlight the value of your offer. Also, focus on your product or service’s benefits and how they can solve your audience’s problems.
4. Use a solid call to action (CTA).
Tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do next. Use clear, concise, and action-oriented language for your call-to-action buttons.
A clear and compelling CTA tells the visitor what to do, whether signing up, purchasing, or downloading something.
Make your CTAs prominent and visually appealing, and place them strategically throughout your landing page.
You also need to make your CTA very compelling to increase the likelihood of the visitor signing up.
5. Test and optimize.
Don’t assume you’ve created the perfect landing page on the first try. Test and optimize everything on your landing page.
Compare various landing page versions using A/B testing to determine which works better.
Test different headlines, images, CTAs, and copy variations to find the combination that drives the most conversions.
Use relevant keywords throughout your landing page content, including the title, headings, and body text.
This increases the amount of organic traffic and possible conversions to your page by helping search engines understand your content better and rank it higher in search results.
7. Make your landing page mobile-friendly.
The number of people using mobile devices to access the internet is increasing.
Ensuring your landing page loads quickly and displays properly across all platforms, including tablets and smartphones, is essential.
A responsive design on your landing page is vital to providing a seamless and user-friendly experience for all visitors, regardless of how they access your page.
8. Use social proof.
Use case studies, testimonials, and other social proofs to build credibility and trust with prospective customers.
Showcase positive customer experiences and highlight the benefits others have achieved by using your product or service.
Social proof can significantly increase conversion rates by promoting inclusivity and reducing doubts.
9. Limit distractions.
If your landing page has many distracting elements, the visitor might get confused about its primary purpose, or they will be distracted and forget what they came to the page to do.
Keep your landing page simple and free of irrelevant elements to avoid diverting visitors’ attention from the primary message and call to action.
Instead, focus on providing a clear and focused experience that guides visitors toward taking the desired action.
10. Use a landing page builder.
If you want to create and manage landing pages, consider using a builder.
These tools offer a user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop functionality, and various pre-designed templates to help you build high-converting landing pages without extensive coding knowledge.
This is a better option, especially for a beginner, because it provides an optimized template you can customize.
A website’s user experience and conversion rates greatly depend on its speed. Ensure your landing page loads on all devices quickly and effectively. This will prevent visitors from getting frustrated and abandoning your page before taking action.
You can include a lead magnet on your landing page to encourage visitors to take your desired action.
For example, you can promise to give them a free ebook if they sign up for your upcoming webinar or offer a free 5-minute consultation if they make a particular sale.
13. Write compelling headlines.
Your headline is the first thing people will see, so make it count.
Create a headline that catches readers’ attention, piques their interest, and conveys your offer’s value.
14. Build links to your landing pages.
While optimizing your landing page is crucial, please pay attention to the importance of building links to it.
Building links to your page increases its visibility and conversion potential by bringing in more targeted traffic.
You can build links to your landing pages by creating high-quality content, guest blogging on relevant websites, collaborating with partners, promoting on social media, and considering targeted advertising to increase visibility and reach.
14. Don’t forget your ‘Thank you’ page.
The “Thank you” page is sometimes disregarded, but it promotes continued engagement and positive brand perception.
Express gratitude, provide confirmation, offer next steps, personalize the message, and ensure mobile-friendliness.
Optimizing your ‘Thank you’ page can turn a one-time interaction into a long-lasting business relationship.
Any marketing strategy must include landing page optimization. You can make landing pages that are more effective and assist you in reaching your business objectives by following the best practices described in this blog post.
If you are serious about increasing your conversions, you should implement these practices on your landing pages today.
How optimized is your landing page on a scale of 1-10?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving; more information about how to rank on search engines, ranking factors, and more SEO experts are available, but despite this, one strategy that is often overlooked is internal linking.
While much attention is given to external links, internal linking is vital in enhancing your website’s visibility and user experience.
This blog post will explain the world of internal linking and show you some of the best practices and tips to effectively utilize internal linking for SEO.
What Is Internal Linking?
Internal linking for SEO is the practice of linking to other pages on your website. It assists users in navigating your website and locating the information they seek.
This practice also helps search engines understand your website’s navigational structure and the relationships between different pages.
When you link to important pages on your website from other pages, you tell search engines these pages are important, which can help to improve the rankings of these pages in SERPs.
b. Enhanced User Experience
Internal linking also contributes to a better user experience on your website.
Imagine being able to read related posts or be guided to a similar post with a single click.
With this, the dwell time for users will likely increase because they will spend more time engaging with your content if they can easily navigate to the pages they want.
The bounce rate for a website is the number of users who leave the site immediately after loading or viewing a single page.
If your bounce rate is high, it can mean that users are not finding what they are looking for on your website.
Internal linking can decrease the bounce rate by making it easier for users to find the additional information they seek and navigate to other pages on your website.
d. Better Indexing of Content
Bots, or web crawlers, are automated robotic systems search engines use to crawl and index web pages.
These bots follow links registered on your sitemap to find new pages.
Well-structured internal linking makes it easier for search engine bots to discover and index your website’s pages, increasing your website’s visibility in search results.
Best Practices for Internal Linking for SEO
Here are some practices I utilize when doing internal linking for SEO:
1. Choosing the Right Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible text or word to which a link is attached.
Your choice of anchor text is important because it helps search engines understand the context of the linked page and the relationship between the referring and linked pages.
Here are some tips for choosing the right anchor text:
Use relevant and descriptive anchor text. Your anchor text should be relevant to the link page.
Avoid generic anchor texts like “click here” or “learn more.”
Use a variety of anchor texts. Avoid using the exact anchor text for multiple links.
Use long-tail anchor text.
Long-tail anchor text is more specific and descriptive than short-tail anchor text. For example, instead of linking to a page with the anchor text “click here,” you could use the anchor text “best practices for internal linking.”
2. Correct Placement of Internal Links
You can place internal links anywhere on a page, but they are most effective when placed in the body of the text because search engines give more weight to links placed in the body than links placed in the header, footer, or sidebar.
Here are some excellent places to place internal links:
In the body of the text, where they are relevant and contextual.
In the introduction and conclusion of a post or article.
In the image’s alt text.
In the captions of images and videos.
In the related posts section.
In the author’s bio.
Placing your internal links in the body of your texts indicates they are contextually relevant to your content and not just a random link.
You should link to the relevant pages on your website. Linking to irrelevant pages can confuse search engines and users.
When linking to internal pages, consider the following:
Link to pages that are relevant to the current page.
Link to pages that are important to your website.
Link to pages you want users to visit.
For example, if you are writing a blog post about “best practices for internal linking,” you could link to other blog posts on your website about topics related to linking, SEO best practices, and other points mentioned in your content (if you have a blog post relevant to them).
You could also link to your homepage and your contact page.
4. Linking from High-Traffic Pages
Linking from high-traffic pages can pass SEO authority to other pages on your website. This practice can improve the rankings of these pages in search results.
To identify your high-traffic pages, you can use Google Analytics. Once you have identified them, you can start linking from them to other pages on your website and even create sections in your high-traffic posts that deliberately link to other posts you want.
Here are some tips for linking from high-traffic pages:
Link to relevant pages.
Link to pages you want to promote.
Use a variety of anchor texts.
Avoid overlinking.
Avoid overlinking so Google and other search engines do not flag your content.
Remember to maintain a balance between internal and external links in each of your posts.
5. Avoiding Overuse
Avoid overuse of internal links, as search engines see this as spammy.
A good rule of thumb is to link to a page only if it is relevant to the page you are on.
6. Nofollow vs. Dofollow Links
There are two types of internal links: nofollow and dofollow.
Nofollow links tell the search engines not to follow or pass SEO authority to the linked page, while dofollow links tell search engines which linked page they should pass SEO authority to.
Use nofollow links for links you do not want search engines to follow, such as paid advertising or social media pages. Use dofollow links to direct visitors to important pages you want to index and rank.
7. Being Mobile-Friendly
When creating internal links, you should ensure the links are mobile-friendly.
The links should be easy to click on and navigate on mobile devices. You should also avoid using pop-ups or overlays for internal links, as these can be disruptive to users.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of your website’s pages. XML sitemaps can assist search engines in discovering and indexing the pages on your website.
You can use a plugin or an online tool to create an XML sitemap for the pages on your site. Once you have created your XML sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console.
The sitemaps help in validating your internal links.
9. Regular Auditing and Maintenance
It is important to regularly audit your internal linking structure to ensure it is still effective. This includes checking for broken links, orphan pages, and duplicate content.
Several link checker tools can help you audit your internal linking structure. Link checker tools can identify broken links, orphan pages, and duplicate content.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Internal linking for SEO is a powerful yet often underestimated strategy that can give your website the competitive edge it needs. When you link your pages, you optimize your website for search engines and enhance the overall user experience.
Regularly audit and update your internal linking strategy to adapt to new SEO updates and user preferences.
With the right approach to internal linking, you’ll see improvements in your website’s rankings and provide valuable, engaging content to your audience.
Everyone who knows something about SEO can understand the difference between plain and quality backlinks and why it is essential to focus on selecting and building an effective backlink strategy for your website.
This blog post will show you how to build quality backlinks even if you don’t have much SEO experience and also emphasize strategies that will increase your backlink profile and SERP position.
Let’s get right down to it.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are called ‘inbound links,’ ‘incoming links,’ ‘external links,’ and so on. They are hyperlinks from another website, connecting to a page on your website through an anchor text.
When determining a page’s prominence, search engines use measurement metrics, and the website’s backlink profile is highly considered.
The quantity and quality of backlinks that point to a website are important ranking signals for most search engines, including Google.
There are different factors to consider when determining if a backlink is good quality. These are the features that differentiate a regular backlink from a quality one.
They are:
Relevance: The link should be related to your content.
Authority: It should come from a respected source.
Trustworthiness: From a reliable and trustworthy website.
Natural: Earned naturally, not bought or forced.
Diverse: From different types of websites.
Editorial: placed by editors or authors.
Contextual: Makes sense in the content.
Follow Link: Preferably a follow link for SEO.
Traffic Potential: Can bring visitors to your site.
Low Spam: Avoid links from spammy sites.
Anchor Text: The clickable text should make sense.
Consistent: Build them over time steadily.
How to build quality backlinks to your website in 2024
1. Identify relevant websites.
The first and most crucial step is identifying relevant websites if you want to build quality backlinks.
Relevant websites are websites in the same niche or industry as yours and with a similar target audience.
When you get a backlink from a relevant website, it tells Google that your website is also relevant to that topic and is a trusted source of information.
There are a few different ways to identify relevant websites for link building:
Search engines
Search engines like Google can help you find websites that rank for keywords related to your niche.
For example, a simple search like ‘SEO blogs’ if you are in the SEO industry can give you more than enough relevant websites.
However, focus on lesser known websites to increase your backlink chances.
Industry directories
Many industry directories list websites by niche. These directories can be a great way to find relevant websites you may not have found otherwise.
Social media
Using social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, you can look for relevant websites, bloggers, and influencers in your industry.
Competitor analysis
Look at your competitors’ backlink profiles to see which websites link to them. These websites are likely to be relevant to your business as well.
Here are some additional tips for identifying relevant websites:
Consider the website’s topic and niche. Is it similar to yours?
Look at the website’s target audience. Are they the same as yours?
Check the website’s quality and authority. Is it well-designed and informative? Does it have a good reputation?
Review the website’s backlink profile. Does it have backlinks from other high-quality websites?
Once you have compiled a list of relevant websites, contact the site’s owners and editors. This strategy increases the likelihood that they will link to your website.
2. Create valuable content.
Another way to build quality backlinks is to invest in quality content creation.
When you create informative, engaging, and valuable content, other websites are likelier to link to it than ‘ordinary’ content because they want to provide visitors with the best possible resources.
Here are some tips to consider when creating valuable content:
Write about topics that are important to your target audience.
What are they interested in? What problems do they have? Write content to help them solve their problems or learn more about the topics they care about.
Do your research.
Your content must be accurate and up-to-date. Be sure to reference your sources so that readers can learn more about the subjects you are covering.
Write in a clear and concise style.
Do not use technical terms or jargon that your audience might not understand.
Make your content visually appealing.
Make your content more engaging by breaking up the text with pictures, videos, and infographics.
Promote your content.
Share your content on social media, other websites, relevant online communities, and forums. Ask other bloggers and industry influencers to share your content by contacting them.
Create different types of content.
Create content such as blog posts, articles, infographics, and videos. This will give you a more comprehensive range of content to promote and help you find websites that are interested in linking to it.
Make sure your content is search engine-friendly.
It will help people find your content when they search for relevant keywords.
3. Network with bloggers and website owners.
When you contact other website owners and bloggers in your industry, you can build relationships with them.
Here are some tips for building backlinks through outreach and networking:
Identify relevant websites and bloggers.
Make a list of websites and bloggers in your industry relevant to your target audience and likely to oblige your request.
Personalize your messages.
Personalize your messages when you contact website owners and bloggers via email or direct messages on social media.
Address them by name and reference something specific about their website or blog.
Offer value.
Don’t just ask for a backlink; instead, suggest a backlink as a reward for a favor you are willing to offer them. Offer to guest blog for them, share their content on your social media channels, or promote their products or services to your audience.
Be persistent.
Keep going even if you don’t hear back from everyone you contact. Just keep following up and building relationships.
Create link roundups or request to be in one.
Link roundups are blog posts that list links to other websites and articles on a specific topic.
You can create link roundups to which the websites mentioned will link back. Or, you can reach out to other bloggers in your industry and ask them to include your website in their link roundups.
4. Guest post.
Guest posting is one of the best ways to build quality backlinks, mainly when writing for relevant websites with a significant audience in your niche.
When you guest post, you write an article for another website in your industry.
It is a great way to get your content in front of a new audience and build relationships with other website owners.
To build backlinks through guest posting, you need to follow these steps:
Identify relevant websites.
Make a list of websites in your industry that are relevant to your target audience. You can find relevant websites by using search engines, industry directories, and social media.
Target high-quality websites.
When you’re guest posting, focus on targeting high-quality websites with a good reputation. This strategy will help you build more valuable backlinks.
Research the websites.
Once you have a list of relevant websites, take some time to research them. Read their content, see what topics they cover, and identify the authors who write for them.
Pitch your guest post ideas.
Pitch topics relevant to the website’s audience that you can provide value on.
Write a high-quality guest post.
Writing a high-quality article is crucial once your guest post pitch is accepted. Make sure your article is well-written, informative, and engaging.
Include a link back to your website.
Include a link to your website in the author bio of any guest posts you write. It is a crucial step for building backlinks through guest posting.
Write high-quality content.
The quality of your guest post is essential in determining whether it will be accepted and published. Your guest posts must be well-written, informative, and engaging.
Promote your guest posts.
Once your guest post has been posted, share it on your website and social media. It will help you get more exposure for your content and build more backlinks.
While you want to guest post for relevant websites in your niche, you can also focus on reaching out to prominent bloggers to either guest post on your website, collaborate on a post, or create a crowdsourced blog post with experts in your industry.
5. Broken link building.
Broken link building is a link-building strategy that entails locating broken links on other websites and notifying the owners.
They might agree to replace the broken link with a link to your website if you can offer a working link to a resource of a similar nature on your website.
To build quality backlinks using broken link building, you can follow these steps:
Find broken links.
You can use various tools to find broken links on other websites, such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and SEMrush.
Identify relevant websites.
Once you have a list of broken links, you need to identify the websites they are on. The websites should be relevant to your industry and have a good reputation.
Reach out to the website owners.
Once you have a list of relevant websites with broken links, you need to contact the website owners and let them know about the broken links. Personalize your messages and offer to provide a working link to a similar resource on your website.
Follow up.
If you are still waiting to hear back from a website owner, follow up with them. You might need to send a few emails before they respond.
Be polite and professional.
When you’re reaching out to website owners, be polite and professional. Address them by name and explain why you’re contacting them.
Make it easy for them to fix the broken link.
When you offer a working link to a similar resource on your website, make it easy for the website owner to fix the broken link. You can do this by providing them with the exact URL of the resource on your website.
Broken link building is an efficient method for obtaining high-quality backlinks from other websites because it demonstrates your interest in the content and your keen eye, increasing your credibility with the website owner.
6. Directory listings.
Directory listings are an excellent way to develop quality backlinks, particularly for local businesses.
Directories are websites that list businesses in a particular industry or location. When you create a listing in a directory, you typically need to provide your website address. It is a great way to get backlinks from high-quality websites.
To build quality backlinks using directory listings, you can follow these steps:
Identify relevant directories.
Make a list of directories that are relevant to your industry and location. You can find directories by searching online or asking other businesses in your industry for recommendations.
Create listings in the directories.
Once you have a list of relevant directories, create listings in each directory. Also, include your website address in your listing.
Optimize your listings.
Once you have created listings in the directories, optimize them. This means including relevant keywords in your listing and ensuring your listing is complete and accurate.
Submit your listings.
Once you have optimized your listings, submit them to the directories. Some directories may review your listings before publication, while others may publish your listings immediately.
Be complete and accurate.
When creating directory listings, include complete and accurate information about your business. This includes your business name and address, phone number, website address, and email address.
Use relevant keywords.
When optimizing your directory listings, use relevant keywords. It will help people find your listings when they search for those keywords.
Monitor your listings.
Once you have submitted your directory listings, monitor them. Your listings must be accurate and up-to-date.
Directory listings are a way to build high-quality backlinks because they practically put you out there and increase your chances of being mentioned in a roundup post. It could be a post of local businesses in a specific area or a roundup post of your type of service in a geographic location.
7. Press releases.
Press releases are a great way to get your company in the news and build backlinks simultaneously.
When you write a press release, you announce a newsworthy event by your business or website, such as a new product launch, a partnership, or an award.
You then distribute the press release to journalists or help a reporter using platforms like HARO.
Journalists may write about your press release if it is engaging and well-written, exposing you to a new audience and generating backlinks to your website.
8. Local SEO strategies.
To build quality backlinks using local SEO strategies, you need to focus on getting backlinks from websites that are relevant to your local area.
This includes websites such as:
Local news organizations
Local chambers of commerce and business associations
Local government websites
Local universities and colleges
Local tourism websites
Local directories and listing websites
You can build backlinks from these websites using a variety of strategies, such as:
Guest blogging:
Write guest blog posts for local websites and blogs. In your author bio, mention your website with a link.
Sponsor local events and charities. It is a great way to get your name out there and build relationships with local businesses.
Local outreach:
Contact other local businesses and ask if they want to link to your website. You can also offer to link to their website in return.
When constructing backlinks using local SEO strategies, it is crucial to concentrate on obtaining backlinks from websites with a solid reputation and relevance to your local area.
Here are some additional pointers for building high-quality backlinks while utilizing local SEO techniques:
Optimize your website for local search.
This includes incorporating relevant keywords into your website’s title, meta descriptions, and header tags. Your Google Business Profile should be complete and up-to-date.
Get involved in your local community.
Attend local events, join local business associations, and support local charities. This strategy is a great way to build relationships with local businesses and get your name out there.
Create high-quality, locally relevant content.
This could include blog posts, articles, infographics, or videos. When you produce high-quality content, other websites are likelier to link to it.
9. Ask for mentions.
Google has stated that social media relevance is not a ranking factor; however, some noticeable trends in social media mentions and SERP rankings indicate this might be a good use.
Having your business mentioned across the web, including on social media platforms, can signal search engines like Google that your website is relevant in your niche.
To build quality backlinks by “asking for mentions,” you need to:
Focus on high-quality websites and influencers.
Not all websites and influencers are created equal. Target high-quality websites and influencers with a good reputation when asking for mentions. It will help you build more valuable backlinks.
Research the websites and influencers.
Once you have a list of relevant websites and influencers, take some time to research them. Read their content, see what topics they cover, and identify the authors who write for them.
Reach out to the websites and influencers.
Personalize your messages and explain why mentioning your website or product would be valuable to them and their audience.
Make it easy for them to mention you.
You can do this by providing them with a link to your website and a brief product or service description.
Don’t be pushy.
When you ask for a mention, it’s important to remember that you’re asking for a favor. Don’t be pushy or demanding. If a website or influencer says no, don’t take it personally.
Be patient.
Building backlinks through the “ask for mentions” method can take time. Keep going even if you don’t see results immediately. Just keep reaching out to websites and influencers and building strategic relationships.
Here are some specific examples of when to ask for mentions:
If you have a new product or service, contact relevant bloggers and influencers and ask them to review it. In exchange, you can offer to send them a free sample or to give them exclusive access to your product or service.
If you have published a new blog post or article, contact other bloggers and influencers in your industry and ask them to share it. You can also reach out to websites that compile lists of the best blog posts or articles on a particular topic.
If you have been featured on another website or publication, you can ask your audience to share the news. You can also contact other websites and publications and ask them to mention your feature.
Asking for mentions is a great way to build quality backlinks, but doing it professionally and respectfully for the websites and influencers you’re contacting is essential.
When deciding on the exact strategy to build high-quality backlinks, it is crucial to understand that what works for one website may not work for all websites.
Link building is not a one-size-fits-all process. Hence, it is crucial to understand how a website works and conduct proper research before deciding on any link-building strategy. Niche, website structure, and marketing strategy can affect your link-building success rate.
What link-building strategy have you used before, and how well did it work for you?
In 2014, Google announced it would give websites the ‘mobile-friendly’ label and possibly make mobile-friendliness a ranking factor. Since then, mobile optimization has been an essential part of SEO.
As crucial as mobile SEO is, some website owners are still not getting it right with their optimization. There are essential mobile SEO best practices you must follow. For example, mobile SEO strategies for regular blog websites differ slightly from mobile SEO practices for e-commerce websites.
In this blog post, I will show you how to optimize your website for mobile devices while still maintaining a balance with other devices like desktops and tablets.
What is mobile SEO optimization?
Mobile SEO optimization is the entire process of optimizing your website to improve its performance in mobile search results.
It includes ensuring your website is easy to use and navigate on mobile devices and that your content and technical elements are optimized for mobile search engines.
Mobile SEO optimization is important because more people use their smartphones and tablets to access the Internet.
Also, mobile search accounts for over half of all internet search traffic, so if you haven’t optimized your website for mobile, you are missing out on many potential visitors.
Google now uses the mobile version of a website to index and rank, including desktop searches; this is why it’s called mobile FIRST indexing. This means it is more important than ever to ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
ii. Improved search engine rankings
When your website is optimized for mobile, it will likely rank higher in search results, both on mobile and desktop devices, because Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its rankings.
iii. Increased traffic
When your website is mobile-friendly, it will be more accessible to a broader range of users.
iv. Improved user experience
Improved user experience is essential for any website, but it is crucial for mobile websites. Mobile users have smaller screens and shorter attention spans, so it is important to make your website easy to use on mobile devices.
Reduced bounce rate measures how many users leave your website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate indicates your website is not providing a better user experience. Mobile optimization can reduce your bounce rate by making your website more user-friendly on mobile devices.
vi. Increased conversions
Increased conversions are the ultimate goal of any website. Mobile optimization can increase conversions by making it easier for users to find the necessary information and take the desired action.
vii. Local searches
Local searches are more likely to be conducted on mobile devices, which means that if you are a local business, mobile optimization is essential for appearing in local search results.
For example, a local restaurant that optimizes its website for mobile will likely appear in search results when a potential customer searches for “restaurants near me” on their smartphone.
Here are some of the best practices for mobile optimization:
1. Use responsive web design.
Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach that makes websites look good and function well on all devices, regardless of screen size. It is important for mobile SEO because it ensures your website will be easy to use and navigate for mobile users.
Here are some benefits of using RWD for mobile SEO:
Improved user experience:
RWD websites are easier to use and navigate on mobile devices because the content and design adapt to the screen size. Mobile users won’t have to zoom in and out or scroll horizontally to view your website.
Improved search rankings:
Mobile-friendly websites are given priority when it comes to ranking. This goes for Google and other search engines. If your website is responsive, you’ll rank higher in mobile search results.
Increased traffic:
By making your website responsive, you’re ensuring it’s accessible to a broader range of users.
To implement RWD for your website, you need to use a responsive theme, or you outsource a web developer to create a custom responsive design.
Once your website is responsive, you’ll need to test it using several mobile devices to confirm it looks good and functions well on all of them.
The time it takes for a web page to load is called page speed. It is an important factor in mobile SEO because mobile users have shorter attention spans than desktop users. If your website takes too long to load, mobile users will likely bounce back to the search results.
There are many things you can do to optimize your page speed for mobile SEO, including:
Optimize your images:
Resize and compress your images for mobile devices. It will help to reduce the size of your web pages and improve their loading speed.
Use a content delivery network (CDN):
A CDN is defined as a network of servers that delivers the content of your website to users using the closest server to them. This can help to improve your website’s loading speed for mobile users all over the world.
Minify your code:
Minifying your code involves removing unnecessary whitespace and comments from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This can reduce the size of your web pages and improve their loading speed.
Enable browser caching:
Browser caching allows users’ browsers to store copies of your website’s files on their devices. It means when users return to your website, their browsers won’t have to download the files again, improving the loading speed of your website.
Use a lightweight theme or template:
If you are using WordPress or another CMS platform, choose a theme or template that is designed for mobile and is lightweight and fast-loading.
You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to test your website’s loading speed and identify improvement areas.
3. Use mobile-friendly navigation.
Mobile-friendly navigation is a critical component of mobile SEO. Mobile users have smaller screens and shorter attention spans than desktop users, so it is crucial to make your website easy to navigate on mobile devices.
Here are some tips for creating mobile-friendly navigation:
Use a hamburger menu:
A hamburger menu is a small icon with three horizontal lines. When users tap the hamburger menu, it reveals a list of navigation options. Hamburger menus are an excellent way to save space on mobile screens.
Use large fonts and buttons:
Ensure your navigation fonts are large enough to be tapped with a finger rather than having to zoom in first.
Use clear and concise labels:
Avoid using jargon or technical terms in your navigation labels. Use clear and concise language that users can easily understand.
Use a consistent navigation structure:
Keep your navigation structure consistent throughout your website. It will make navigation easier for mobile users.
Test your navigation on real devices:
Once you have created your mobile navigation, test it on real mobile devices to ensure it is easy to use.
Mobile devices generally have small screens and slow internet connections compared to desktop computers, so your images and media should load quickly and look good on mobile devices.
Here are some tips for optimizing images and media for mobile SEO:
Resize images:
Resize your images to the appropriate dimensions for mobile devices. This will help to reduce the size of your web pages and improve their loading speed.
Compress images:
Compress your images using a lossless compression format that allows them to retain their quality after compression, such as PNG or JPEG 2000.
Use lazy loading:
Lazy loading is a technique used to delay the loading of images until they are needed. It can help to improve the loading speed of your web pages, especially for pages with several images.
Use responsive videos:
Responsive videos automatically resize to fit the device’s screen they are viewed on. This ensures your videos look good and function well on all devices.
5. Use structured data.
Structured data is a way of marking up your website content so that search engines can better understand it. Structured data can provide information about your website’s content, such as the type of content, the author, the publication date, and more.
Search engines use structured data to improve the accuracy and relevance of their search results. This means that if you use structured data on your website, you’re more likely to rank higher in mobile search results.
You can also use structured data to generate rich snippets, which can make your website’s search results more appealing to mobile users and encourage them to click on your website.
Rich snippets are enhanced search results with additional information, such as star ratings, reviews, and event listings.
6. Include jump links.
Jump links allow users to jump to a specific section of your web page. They are also known as anchor links or table of contents links.
They are typically placed at the top of a page and are often used on long pages to help users quickly find the information they seek.
Jump links are an essential mobile SEO best practice because they can improve the user experience for mobile users.
To implement page jump links on your website, you can use the following HTML code:
<a id=“section-1”></a>
<h1>Section 1</h1>
<a id=“section-2”></a>
<h1>Section 2</h1>
<a id=“section-3”></a>
<h1>Section 3</h1>
You can then create links to these sections from anywhere on your page using the following HTML code:
<a href= “#section-1”>Section 1</a>
<a href=“#section-2”>Section 2</a>
<a href= “#section-3”>Section 3</a>
You can also use JavaScript to create jump links. This can be useful to create more dynamic and interactive jump links.
Here are some tips for using jump links for mobile SEO:
Use clear and concise labels for your jump links. It will help mobile users to understand what each link will take them to.
Place your jump links in a prominent location at the top of your page so mobile users can find them effortlessly.
Use a consistent style for your jump links to show your website as professional and polished.
Once you have created your jump links, test them on real mobile devices to ensure they are easy to use.
Here’s SARMLife’s Table of Content with Page Jump Links
7. Use mobile-friendly pop-ups.
Pop-ups are an effective way to capture email addresses, promote special offers, and generate leads. However, it’s best to use mobile-friendly pop-ups optimized for mobile devices.
Mobile-friendly pop-ups are designed to look good and function well on mobile devices. They are typically smaller and simpler than desktop pop-ups, and they are easy to close with a single tap.
Here are two major reasons for using mobile-friendly pop-ups for mobile SEO optimization:
Improved user experience:
Mobile-friendly pop-ups are less intrusive and annoying than traditional pop-ups. This is important for mobile users, who have smaller screens and shorter attention spans.
Increased conversions:
Mobile-friendly pop-ups can be just as effective as desktop pop-ups at converting users. Some studies have shown that mobile-friendly pop-ups can be even more effective than desktop pop-ups.
8. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source initiative that aims to create web pages that load quickly on mobile devices. It provides a better user experience for mobile users, increasing engagement and conversions.
AMP pages use a stripped-down version of HTML and CSS, as well as several other optimizations, to load significantly faster than traditional web pages.
Google now gives preference to AMP pages in its mobile search results. If your website has AMP pages, it increases your chance of ranking higher in mobile search results.
9. Avoid Flash.
Flash is a multimedia platform for creating animations, videos, and interactive content.
However, many mobile devices do not support Flash, so it is best to avoid using it on your website to improve your mobile SEO.
Several alternatives to Flash include HTML5 and CSS3.
If you have Flash content on your website, consider using a fallback option for mobile users. This could be a simple text-based explanation of the content or a link to a non-Flash version.
10. Test across devices.
Once you have made changes to your website to improve its mobile SEO, you should test it across various mobile devices to ensure it looks good and functions well on all devices.
Regarding your website’s responsiveness, Google expects an optimal website where users across different devices can have a smooth experience.
Google’s primary focus is on user experience, and all other direct or indirect factors that affect this smooth experience, as seen in all recent Google algorithm updates.
Hence, the importance of understanding all mobile SEO best practices and implementing them cannot be over-emphasized.
Optimizing your website for mobile devices is another way to improve the user experience metrics on your website because, when you optimize for mobile devices, you indirectly optimize for mobile speed. It can also impact the bounce rate of your website and the average time per session.
What other mobile SEO best practices do you implement on your website?
READ ALSO: How to quickly improve your website loading speed (Coming soon)
Are you looking to increase your click-through rates on your website? Do you feel your headline isn’t enough? Meta descriptions are the solution for you!
Some people may think writing meta descriptions for SEO is a useless and time-wasting task because Google often replaces manually written meta descriptions with automated ones generated from your content when presenting search results to users.
So why do you need to learn how to write meta descriptions?
Well, there is no such thing as too much SEO.
If you’re trying to build your online presence on search engines, you should be willing to exploit all avenues to increase your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) and direct more traffic to your website.
There have been constant updates in Google’s search technology, including how meta descriptions appear in different search queries; what happens when Google goes with your meta description instead of one generated from your content? You’re left with no meta description, significantly reducing your chances of searchers going to your website for answers to their queries.
If you are still interested in learning how to craft attractive meta descriptions for your website, this is your cue to stay and read on.
What Are Meta Descriptions?
Meta descriptions are summaries or snippets that provide insight into a web page’s content.
They typically appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) beneath the page’s title and URL. These meta descriptions give users a preview of what they can expect to find on the linked page and play a crucial role in attracting clicks from search engine users.
Do you still need clarification?
See that tiny body of text under the URL and title; that’s a meta description!
There are different benefits of having a meta description for your posts. Here are some reasons you need to have a meta description:
a. Improved search engine visibility
An engaging and relevant meta description can entice users to click on your link, increasing your click-through rate (CTR). Meta descriptions can include keywords related to your content.
Search engines often highlight these keywords in the search results, making your listing more attractive to users searching for specific terms.
Think of your meta descriptions as the welcome sign to your website, almost like a shop’s front door; people see them first on search engines, so make them catchy!
b. Increased click-through rate (CTR)
Click-through rate is one of the most important metrics to monitor, and an increase in this leads to more traffic for your website, which is the goal of any website. Meta descriptions are a great way to raise your click-through rate by grabbing your reader’s attention on SERPs.
c. Enhanced user experience
Meta descriptions help readers quickly assess whether your page has the information they want, improving the overall user experience. When users find your content relevant to their search query through an eye-catching meta description, they are more likely to stay on your page, reducing the bounce rate (the percentage of users who leave your site immediately after arriving).
What Makes a Great Meta Description?
a. Length and character limit
Like many other search engines, Google typically displays meta-descriptions between 150 and 160 characters, including spaces in search results. However, it’s important to note that search engines may truncate longer descriptions, so it’s best to aim for 155 characters.
b. Keyword placement
Include relevant keywords that users are likely to search for. Place important keywords toward the beginning of the meta-description, but avoid keyword stuffing, as it can negatively affect your SEO. Doing keyword research on platforms such as Ubersuggest may help when trying to put keywords into your meta descriptions.
c. Clarity and relevance
An excellent meta description is concise. It should provide a clear and brief summary of what the page is about, allowing users to understand its content quickly.
Avoid using technical jargon or industry-specific terms that might confuse users. Use language that the average person can easily comprehend.
Also, ensure the meta-description aligns with the user’s search intent. Your description should hint at informative content if a user seeks information. If they seek a product, emphasize its features and benefits.
Great meta descriptions strike a balance between clarity and relevance. Clarity ensures that users understand what the page is about, while relevance ensures they find the information or solutions they want.
d. Call to action (CTA)
A CTA provides clear instructions to the user on what to do next. It can guide them toward the desired action, whether clicking on the link, signing up, making a purchase, or any other action you want them to take on your website.
A well-crafted CTA can make your meta description more engaging and persuasive. It encourages users to interact with your content, increasing the likelihood of a click-through. Using words like “Now,” “Today,” or “Limited time offer” in your CTA can create a sense of urgency, motivating users to take immediate action.
Ensure your CTA is directly related to the content and purpose of the page. Misleading CTAs can lead to high bounce rates and damage your website’s credibility.
How to Write Meta Descriptions for SEO
a. Research your keyword.
Keyword research is the backbone of any SEO strategy. Researching what your readers are most likely to type in a search engine’s search bar using tools such as Ubersuggest, Google Trends, Google Search Console, AnswerThePublic, etc., is crucial to forming a good and attractive meta description.
Knowing what your readers will most likely want and putting it front and center for them to see in your meta description will increase your website’s traffic for that particular query.
However, it can be highly detrimental to include keywords unrelated to a potential user search query as they may interpret it as you do not have content on your website relevant to what they want.
b. Use action-oriented language (use active voice).
Using action-oriented language in an active voice is an excellent approach for meta descriptions. It can make your meta descriptions more interactive and encourage users to take whatever action your website wants them to.
When creating action-oriented meta descriptions in an active voice, focus on verbs and phrases that drive users to take specific actions.
Ensure the language aligns with the content and purpose of the linked page, and keep the descriptions concise within the character limit to maximize their impact on search engine results.
c. Evoke curiosity.
Although your meta description gives a brief insight into your website’s description, don’t forget that the primary goal of a meta description is to get the searcher to click on your URL and consume your content. Curiosity plays a role here.
Eliciting curiosity in your meta descriptions is a powerful strategy to entice users to click on your search results. When users are curious about what lies behind the link, they are more likely to click through to your page.
Here are some tips for crafting meta descriptions that evoke curiosity:
I. Make it a question format.
For example, “How do you write a meta description?” Or “Do you want to know the secret to financial success?”
ii. Give a hint of what the page entails.
Let your readers know what your page is about. For example, “Find out the simple hack to increase your website traffic” or “Discover the trick that will elevate your productivity.”
iii. Use captivating language.
Use descriptive and intriguing language that makes your readers want to know more. For example, “Explore the amazing world of ancient civilizations.”
iv. Emphasize the unusual or unique.
Try to capitalize on unexpected and unique things about your content. What makes your content stand out? Why should your readers click on your content and stay glued to it?
d. Avoid using clickbait.
It’s important to avoid using clickbait tactics in your meta-descriptions. Clickbait may initially attract clicks, but it often leads to a poor user experience and can damage your website’s credibility.
Here are some guidelines on how to create compelling meta-descriptions without using clickbait:
i. Be accurate and honest.
Ensure your meta description accurately represents the content of the linked page. Don’t promise something the page doesn’t deliver.
ii. Avoid exaggeration.
Refrain from using exaggerated or hyperbolic language that misrepresents the content. Maintain a realistic tone.
iii. Don’t mislead.
Avoid misleading users with false claims or sensational statements. Honesty is vital to building trust with your audience.
e. Do A/B testing for your meta descriptions.
A/B testing, or split testing, is an effective way to optimize your meta descriptions for improved click-through rates (CTR) and user engagement.
A/B testing for meta descriptions can help you adjust your messaging to better resonate with your target audience. It allows you to make data-driven decisions to improve user engagement and ultimately drive better results for your website.
A/B testing for meta-descriptions involves creating two or more variations of a meta-description for a specific web page and comparing their performance to determine which one is more effective regarding click-through rates (CTR) and other relevant metrics.
Meta Descriptions Templates
Here are some examples and templates of meta descriptions for different types of content:
– For a Blog Post
“Discover expert tips that work for improving your SEO strategy in our latest blog post.”
“Learn how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookies just like your mum with our step-by-step guide.”
– For a Product Page
“Dazzle your friends, shop the latest collection of stylish sneakers for ultimate comfort and style.”
“Upgrade your home theater experience with our high-definition 4K TV deals that take viewing to a whole new level.”
– For an About Page
“Learn about our company’s mission to provide sustainable solutions for a greener future for future generations.”
“Meet our dedicated team of professionals committed to helping you achieve your success.”
– For an Event Page
“Join us for an unforgettable night of live music and entertainment at our annual event of the year.”
“Be the first to get your tickets now for the must-attend tech conference of the year.”
– For a Service Page
“Our professional plumbing services ensure your home’s water systems run smoothly.”
“Experience top-notch car detailing services for a showroom-worthy vehicle.”
– For an E-commerce Category Page
“Explore a wide range of our new outdoor gear for your next adventure in one place.”
“Find the perfect gifts for your loved ones on any occasion in our diverse gift ideas collection.”
You can edit and swap the above examples as needed for your website SEO, but remember to stick to the guidelines above.
Common Mistakes When Writing Meta Descriptions
a. Stuffing keywords
Website or blog managers stuff many relevant keywords into their meta description to appear relevant to the searchers’ query. The downside is that it may make your website seem spammy. Instead, use keywords naturally and create a meaningful description that entices users to click.
b. Duplicating meta descriptions
Each page on your website should have a unique meta-description. Using the same description for multiple pages can confuse search engines and users.
c. Ignoring character limits
Search engines typically display meta descriptions in search results with a specific character limit (usually around 150-160 characters).
If your meta description exceeds this limit, it will be trimmed, and users will see an incomplete or disjointed description, making your website appear unprofessional and less trustworthy.
On mobile devices, character limits are even more critical because screen space is limited. Ignoring character limits can lead to severe truncation issues on smaller screens, affecting the mobile user experience.
It’s crucial to adhere to character limits to ensure your meta descriptions are compelling and provide a positive user experience.
Keeping your descriptions concise, within the recommended limit, and well-structured will help you convey the most relevant information to users and improve your website’s performance in search engine results.
Writing compelling and eye-catching meta-descriptions is vital for anyone looking to boost their website’s visibility in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.
By avoiding common pitfalls such as stuffing keywords, duplicating meta descriptions, and ignoring character limits, you can create meta descriptions that entice searchers, improve your site’s click-through rates, and reduce bounce rates.
Remember that meta-descriptions are a technical SEO element and your virtual elevator pitch to potential visitors. Each click and visitor could turn into a customer or a client, so ensure you go all in with it.
And there’s no such thing as too much SEO, so go ahead and revisit your website’s meta descriptions, make the necessary improvements, and watch your click-through rates rise.
The power to boost your site’s visibility is in your hands. Seize the opportunity and make every meta description count!
How often do you optimize your meta descriptions for SEO?
We’ve had over eight clients with over 140 optimized posts since SARMLife became an SEO agency and launched her do-it-for-you SEO writing services in 2021.
Using proper SEO content writing strategies, we now have several posts ranking on the first page of Google and even some making it to the featured snippet spot!
We have posts ranking for keywords like ‘Challenges of an African blogger,’ ‘Ways to Build A Christian Home,’ and ‘Woman Evolve Quotes,’ among others.
Four years ago, SEO was an alien term. So, how did I go from knowing nothing about SEO to writing blog posts that are doing well on search engines? What is my SEO content writing process? And how can you optimize old and new posts to rank well on search engines?
I’ll cover these questions and more.
First, I want to explain the difference between content writing and copywriting because most website owners are unsure if hiring a content writer or a copywriter is the next best step for their site.
SEO Content Writing Vs. SEO Copywriting
Is content writing any different from copywriting?
Yes! The main difference is the search intent and content goal, although both involve SEO and content.
SEO copywriting uses SEO techniques to convert site visits to leads and sales through targeted content.
SEO writing can also generate leads and sales, but the primary purpose is to write content that satisfies a user’s query, i.e., answer questions on a particular topic.
Both content writing and copywriting involve having a form of content; however, the endpoint of SEO copywriting is conversion, usually in the form of sales.
Why SEO Content Writing Is Important
SEO content writing is the process of writing content that is fully optimized for readers and search engines.
SEO should be a part of your content writing process because you need SEO practices to get in front of your audience.
Remember, there are billions of blog posts on the web, and even for certain queries, hundreds of specific and related posts are in the search result.
Despite this number, the average searcher only reaches the first ten search results. The competition is even fiercer for voice searches.
So, SEO content writing aims to ensure your content appears as the first ten (10) search results.
Here are my top reasons why SEO content writing is essential:
It helps to increase your ranking.
Competing against thousands and millions of blogs for a single keyword is doable only with SEO in your writing.
You can increase your rankings on search result pages for most search engines through SEO content writing, which will help you become a go-to in your niche.
It builds domain authority.
When you consistently appear in top searches for niche-specific keywords, other website owners and bloggers in your niche will start to link to your content. You will also get quality backlinks from authority websites, helping to increase your website’s domain authority.
It builds brand authority.
Talk about being your niche’s go-to for information, products, and services. Not only will your business be profitable, but you will succeed in branding what you do. The mere sighting of your name on blog posts, webinars, and so on will automatically attract people to you because you have built enough authority in your niche, and it starts from writing optimized content.
SEO Content Writing Process
My content writing process is straightforward but takes a lot of intentional effort, from the idea generation to the final draft and editing.
The SEO content writing process involves the following:
1. Idea Generation
Consistently generating blog post ideas is one of the sure ways to grow your business.
It can be challenging to develop niche-relevant ideas that can be optimized.
Sometimes, your topic idea might not be voluminous to be a blog post, but there’s always a way to ensure your ideas are relevant and optimizable for SEO.
How to get blog topic ideas
Here are the ways you can get topic ideas consistently:
(I) Customer feedback.
One of the most effective ways to develop blog post titles relevant to your target audience is to get feedback from them.
They know what they want, and what better answer than from the horse’s mouth?
This step will help you to align your content to the needs of your audience.
There are ways you can get customer feedback.
Through social media platforms
You can create polls on Instagram or keep your DM open to your audience for topics they wish you would discuss.
You will get your audience’s pain points and challenges.
It could be information they’ve searched for and not gotten answers to.
When you create a blog post in response to feedback, alert them.
Also, your comment section is a great place to get topic ideas.
Your followers will probably ask a couple of follow-up questions in the comments.
Check your comments now and then to know what your followers want.
Conducting surveys
Create short, straightforward, and fun surveys.
Usually, with surveys, you ask the questions; all you need from your audience are the answers.
However, creating a survey and providing a blank section for your audience to write freely is better because your questions might not be satisfactory.
Your target audience might have other ideas, observations, and questions you didn’t include in the survey.
You can create surveys using Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, or online surveys, but always keep your surveys simple and short.
Direct inquiry
You can inquire from your audience directly, online or offline, from friends and family.
You may have noticed a handful of your consistent followers who engage with your content online.
Go to their DM and ask them direct questions like:
Is there something you want me to talk about?
What do you wish we do that we don’t?
What are your primary concerns when it comes to (niche)?
Do you have any topic suggestions or collaborations? And so on.
(ii) Content gap analysis.
What keywords are your competitors ranking for that you aren’t?
These are tons of blog post ideas that are relevant to your niche.
A content gap is a topic your audience needs or is searching for but isn’t on your website.
Neil Patel describes content gaps as “missed opportunities” because these are topics your audience wants but are not in your content. The next step they’ll take is to check out your competitors’ websites.
Content gaps occur due to outdated information, keyword fluctuations, ignorance, and new updates in your niche.
Content gaps can be in the form of keyword, topic, or media gaps.
Keyword gaps concern the type of keywords you use for your posts.
Are they short-tailed, medium-tailed, long-tailed, or conversational keywords?
Topic gaps have to do with your content.
Are your topics/content relevant to your users?
Do they cater to all levels of knowledge?
For example, an advanced post about image optimization that only talks about technical and advanced tips will be useless to someone just getting to know about image optimization.
Does your content structure align with search intent?
These are all content gaps.
Media gaps are the multimedia on your posts.
Are your audience interested in infographics? Do they want to see a video explanation or just read texts?
What kind of images do top-ranking posts have? What type of videos are your competitors using?
After identifying your content gaps, you want to take active steps to rectify them.
The content gaps you discover (mostly keyword and topic) are ideas you can use for your next posts.
The media gaps will show you the multimedia you’ll add to your posts.
(iii) Industry trends.
It is essential to stay updated about industry trends because new industry updates = new blog post ideas.
In my guide to Google algorithm, I mentioned that one of the best ways to stay updated is to follow industry experts. Identify your industry experts and follow them on their social media platforms. If they have official information sites, it is also good to follow them.
For example, When ChatGPT rolled out, I noticed that many SEO experts were talking about its use for SEO, and I knew this would be valuable to our audience, so I wrote a blog post on ChatGPT for SEO.
The same goes for your blog. When new updates will be valuable for your audience, be among the first to share them.
You can also stay updated on industry trends through niche-specific communities, Google Trends, and subscribing to expert newsletters.
(iv) Personal idea.
You might have some personal experiences in your business that can be useful to your audience, and you can share these ideas.
However, when sharing personal experiences or branded strategy with your audience, relate it to an existing term in your niche.
For example, the skyscraper technique, developed by Brian Dean of Backlinko, helps with link building and traffic. To share this with his audience, he related it to link building in the post’s title and wrote it as ‘Link building case study: How I increased my search traffic by 110% in 14 days.’
If he had written a blog post titled ‘My skyscraper technique,’ no one would know what he was talking about, and the CTR for that post would be low.
So, in sharing your branded solutions with your audience, include a term they are familiar with.
For example, suppose you use a technique to keep your wigs tangle-free and brand this solution by giving it a name. When you write a post on it, you want your readers to know what solution your branded technique is giving.
In Brian’s case, it was link-building.
(v) Question and answer forums.
There are different types of question-and-answer forums on the internet today. Some have even been made into apps, valuable places to get your audience’s questions.
Question forums like Quora and Reddit have groups for specific interests.
So, depending on your niche, you can search for groups or communities your audience will likely be in and read the questions being asked.
These questions are content ideas you can optimize as blog posts on your website.
The main difference between blog writing and SEO content writing is Research.
When it comes to blog writing, all the ideas generated in the first step are good to go, but with SEO writing, you need to ensure these ideas are optimizable by verifying them on search engines.
This step is optional, but I prefer to crosscheck each of my ideas against existing blog posts. It assures me my content is niche-relevant and gives me an idea of what type of content ranks in the top results.
This step is fast and easy.
Steps to optimize your topic ideas
To optimize my topic ideas, I use one or both of these tools:
(I) AnswerThePublic.
AnswerThePublic is a great SEO tool Neil Patel took over in May 2022. With AnswerThePublic, you see visualized data showing you the questions that Google Search users are asking.
To verify your content ideas, you can input the keyword in this tool’s search bar, giving you a concise list of related questions.
All you need to do is check if your topic idea is similar to any of the questions asked on Google.
The questions are organized into:
Most searched
Average searched
Least searched
The premium version will show you the search volume for each question, which is essential to know if you are optimizing your content for voice searches.
If you don’t get a question similar to your topic idea, it does not mean it is not optimizable; you can check Google to see if similar blog posts exist.
(ii) Google.
You can search on Google to check if blog posts are already written about your idea to optimize your ideas.
You will be surprised that only a few posts about your idea exist. It could mean your idea is not valuable to your audience, so it is better off as part of a post or a new topic in your niche.
If it is not something your audience wants, there is no need to write about it, except if you wish.
If it is better off as part of a post, you can create an umbrella post and add the idea as a subtopic.
If it is a new topic in your niche, ensure you understand it so you don’t post erroneous information for your readers. Or, you can wait till industry experts talk about it, read their posts, understand it, and then write yours.
If your topic idea exists, it means your audience needs it, and your competitors are talking about it—viable content.
The next thing to do is to take note of the top 5-8 ranking pages and check their content structure, title, word length, and even the keyword used (usually in the URL or introduction).
This information will help match user intent and tell you what you can do better!
3. Keyword Research
After verifying that the idea is one you can work with, the next step is to find the keywords you will use for your post.
Types of keywords
Here are the different types of keywords:
(I)Short-tail keywords.
Short tail keywords are one-word keywords that cover a wide range of topics. For example, SEO, branding, chatGPT, SEO writing, etc., are short-tail keywords.
Sometimes, short-tail keywords can also be two-worded. E.g., image optimization, voice optimization, Google algorithm, etc.
These keywords usually have a high search volume and SEO difficulty.
Short-tail keywords are inappropriate for your primary keyword, even with a high search volume, because they are too broad. Except if you are writing a guide, you may be unable to cover the entire topic.
Also, searches are now more streamlined, meaning people hardly go online to type in one or two words. They know what they want, and they are specific in their searches.
Short-tail keywords also reduce your chances of ranking because it is too competitive.
(ii) Long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are more specific and streamlined. These keywords can form complete sentences and usually have a low search volume and SEO difficulty.
These keywords usually contain more than five words and can form standalone sentences that leave you no doubt about what the searcher wants.
For example, ‘$40000 a year is how much per hour’ is a long-tail keyword that tells you what the searcher wants.
SEO experts frowned at using long-tail keywords for a while because searchers usually opt for short-word queries.
However, long-tail keywords are returning with the prevalence of voice searches and their infusion into voice assistive devices.
Does this mean you should use the long-tail keyword as your primary keyword?
Not really.
However, you can use long-tail keywords in your content as FAQs or subtopics.
(iii) Medium-tail keywords.
This is the best option for your primary keyword.
Medium-tail keywords are between 3-4 words that give a bit of context to your keyword without being too streamlined.
These keywords allow you to cover a broader range than long-tail keywords while still being specific to a particular audience.
For example, if you want to talk about on-page optimization.
A short-tail keyword like ‘SEO’ or ‘SEO tips’ is too generic; a long-tail keyword like ‘on-page SEO strategies for businesses’ is too specific, but a medium-tail keyword like ‘on-page SEO strategies’ or ‘on-page SEO guide’ is just spot on.
(iv) Conversational keywords.
These keywords are similar to long-tail and are mainly used for voice searches.
They are long-tail keywords but more conversational—as if you are asking a friend a question.
SEO experts will advise you to use conversational keywords in your content so that your content can rank for voice searches.
For example, ‘How can I prepare tomato sauce’ is a conversational keyword used mostly in voice searches.
Conversational keywords should be a part of your content but shouldn’t be added as a part of your keywords.
The ideal number of keywords per post is 3-5 words. Usually, I create a balance of short, medium, and long-tail keywords. If I focus on one type of keyword, I will miss the benefits of having others.
Here’s how I structure keywords per post:
1 short tail keyword
2-3 medium tail keywords
1-2 long tail keywords
Tips for keyword research
(i) Understand search intent.
Search intent is a big deal for search engine optimization because search engines are now more focused on the searchers than the search engines themselves.
What are the searchers looking for? If your focus keyword is ‘on-page SEO tips,’ are searchers interested in listicles, images, guides, or short-form content?
When it comes to search intent, it includes what your searcher wants and how they want it.
Search intent is generally classified into four, namely:
Informational: This intent shows that the searcher needs informative pieces that give them specific answers to what they want.
Transactional: This shows the intent of people searching to buy at that exact moment. These searchers are usually specific because they know what they want to buy.
Commercial: These are more like transactional intent but usually to buy later. These types of searchers need a list of related products they can choose from instead of information on a single product.
Navigational: Navigational intent has to do with people that are searching for specific brands. With polysemic words like Apple, sometimes, Google can understand if a searcher wants the fruit or the company’s website.
(ii) Do a keyword gap analysis.
Keyword gaps imply the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you do not have on your website.
You can carry out keyword gap analysis using keyword analysis tools like Ubersuggest.
(iii) Know your keyword metrics.
Knowing and understanding your keyword metrics is essential for deciding the keywords to settle for. These metrics include:
Search volume is the number of searches made for a particular keyword. Usually, most keyword analysis tools give the average monthly search for a keyword.
CPC (cost per click) is the amount advertisers pay to get a pair of eyes on their ads. Even if you do not run ads, knowing how competitive a keyword is is crucial.
A high CPC shows that ranking organically will be more difficult.
Paid difficulty shows how difficult it will be to rank high for a particular keyword in paid searches.
SEO difficultyshows the difficulty of organically ranking for that exact keyword.
Trends show the searcher’s behavior for that keyword over time. Do searches increase during an exact period? Is it an active search?
It shows you the keyword’s relevance and if it is still relevant.
Other keyword metrics depend on the tool you use. However, these are the most important metrics to take note of. If you are focused on ads, you will want to dwell more on paid metrics like cost per click, paid difficulty, and trends.
(iv) Carefully select your primary keyword.
You should carefully select your primary or focus keyword to align with your content goals. I focus more on organic results, so my focus keyword is based on the search volume and SEO difficulty.
When writing for businesses with new websites, I go for lower SEO difficulty keywords so they can rank.
I focus more on the search volume when I write blog posts for more advanced websites.
(v) Understand keyword placements.
There are certain places you must input your focus keyword in your content:
URL: Your focus keyword must be part of your URL. URL optimization is one of the best practices for SEO; it gives web crawlers an understanding of your website and your content.
Title: Your focus keyword in your title is a must for SEO. It has to be intact with no dividing word, i.e., if your focus keyword is ‘voice search optimization,’ your title shouldn’t be ‘optimization practices for voice search;’ instead, it should be in any of these formats:
Prefix – (focus keyword) – suffix: You can insert your focus keyword between a prefix and a suffix to make your headline meaningful and provide context.
(focus keyword) – suffix: You can insert your focus keyword before a suffix to give it more meaning because some keywords cannot make meaning on their own, except support words are added.
Prefix – (focus keyword): You can put a prefix before your focus keyword so it makes sense.
(focus keyword): If you are using a conversational keyword, your entire headline can be your focus keyword.
First 100 words: Your focus keyword should appear in your introduction, preferably the first 50-100 words.
Headings: At least one of your header tags aside from your title should have your focus keyword.
Meta Description: Having your focus keyword in your meta description increases your ranking chances.
Images alt-texts: At least two of your images should include your focus keyword.
Your content should not be keyword stuffed; to do this, ensure your keywords appear as natural as possible. Also, leverage the use of semantically related keywords in your content.
Make your headlines or titles compelling to readers.
Your headline should tell a reader the content of your post in a straightforward way.
When a searcher types a query on the search engine, they get millions of results in a split second. They search through the search result and click on a web page.
They haven’t seen the post’s content yet but are deciding it seems better than the rest of the results. Why?
The headline.
The headline is your first chance to make an impression on your audience and should clearly state what the reader will learn upon clicking on your page—the more specific the benefit, the higher the chance of a clickthrough.
Best tools for headline optimization
Here are the best tools to use for headline optimization:
Usually, your headline analyzers will give suggestions to improve your headlines. However, to save time, you can use some helpful tips to develop the most compelling headlines.
Include your unique selling point in your headline.
Have a specific focus.
State the benefit of your content.
5. Content Research
This includes the content structure and information that needs to be in your content. What are the points that need to be in your post? What are searchers looking for? How should you structure your content to give you an edge?
With content research, I check existing blog posts using the same focus keyword as mine and look for ways to improve.
If they wrote a 15-list post, I would write a 20-list post or make a 15-list post that’s more detailed. If the word count is 2000, I will try to write more. The goal is to ensure your content is more valuable and up-to-date than existing posts.
You can create a detailed outline by comparing top-ranking results on Google, using the content idea section of Ubersuggest, or using an AI tool like ChatGPT.
Types of blog posts to write
How-to’s: These blog posts show how to perform a specific task.
Tutorials: These are similar to how-to posts but will mostly contain videos and graphical illustrations.
Industry studies: These are posts designed around industry research that you make. Industry studies are costly, but you can start with basic research that won’t exhaust your budget.
Award Bait: These posts are primarily about recognizing relevant businesses or blogs in your niche. Award bait posts are suitable for link building.
Guides: This post type shows the reader everything about a particular topic and guides them through everything they need.
Listicles: These are list articles; the significant part is you can create a list for anything.
Infographics: These are graphical illustrations from charts to tables and images. Infographics show important information graphically.
Ebooks: These are downloadable electronic books. You can create blog posts in the form of eBooks for users to re-read at their own pace.
Case Studies: These posts show behind-the-scenes, success stories, and even fail stories.
Expanded list posts: These detailed list posts contain carefully explained actionable steps about a particular topic.
Checklists: This post shows the reader actionable steps to take. It gives you a breakdown of what you need to do and how to do it sometimes.
Industry news: These posts talk about the recent updates in your industry. They don’t have to be lengthy but should accurately explain the new updates to readers.
Crowdsourced manual: This is a compilation of experts’ opinions about a subject in your niche.
6. Content Writing
How do you write posts that are optimized? What practices should be put into writing the content of a blog post?
The main juice of SEO content writing is in the content of your post because Google is working round the clock to ensure they deliver the best results to their users.
No matter how many updates are being rolled out, the main goal of Google is QUALITY.
From the introduction of your post to the conclusion, here’s how to create the best content:
(I) Meta description
A meta description is a summary of the content of your post displayed immediately after the headline and URL in a search result.
It is an HTML element, and you have to include it in your HTML code; however, most content management systems, like WordPress, allow you to type your desired meta description in a designated field.
They are essential to your content because they can directly impact your clickthrough rate.
Tips for writing good meta descriptions
Write short meta descriptions. They summarize your content, so it shouldn’t exceed 120 characters.
Use your focus keyword in the meta description. It tells the reader you stayed true to the context of your title.
Use a direct tone.
Include CTAs in your meta descriptions.
Make it compelling.
Align your meta description to the content of your post.
Note that Google can automatically change your meta description to match the search terms a searcher uses. Don’t be alarmed when the meta description for your posts is not the same as what you see on search results.
(ii) Introduction.
Readers first see your introduction when they click on your post.
It is not enough to have a good title and meta description; if your introduction is bad, it can cause a high bounce rate, bringing down your rankings on a search result page.
Your introduction is your chance to hook the reader on what you are talking about, raise anticipation, and keep them scrolling.
Types of introduction
The main point of every good introduction is to start with a captivating start line. There are different ways you can make your start line captivating. These include:
Statistics: Start with interesting statistics about your topic.
Story: Use a relatable story to keep readers hooked.
Question: Ask a thought-provoking question that addresses their pain point.
Quotes: Start with a famous industry or life quote relevant to your topic.
Comprehensive or long-form content is the best type of content to write.
Your content needs to be as detailed as possible so that a reader doesn’t leave your post with questions. Include FAQs to answer more questions and optimize your post to rank for voice search results.
Word length for a well-optimized post should be about 2,000-2,500 words. With this, you can be sure to cover a wide range of a topic.
However, there are power blog posts that go beyond 2,500-3,000 words; you can convert them into PDFs for easier, self-paced reading.
You should note that comprehensive content isn’t just about the word length; the content itself needs to be valuable and relevant to a query. You should also avoid stuffing your content with keywords or unnecessary words.
To get enough content for your post, you can browse related questions about the topic and answer them comprehensively in the post. You can also compare existing posts and add relevant updates to them.
(iv) Header tags.
Header tags are crucial for SEO, making your content more accessible for web crawlers to understand and easy for readers to go through.
These tags show the hierarchy of your post to both users and search engines.
There are different types of header tags from H1 to H6.
H1 tag: These tags are used for the headlines, although they are often used interchangeably with title tags.
H2 tag: These are used as the main subheading tags.
H3 tag: These are also used as subheading tags.
H4 tag: This shows a subsection of a subheading.
H5 tag: I try to stop my tags at H5 because they indicate a smaller subsection important enough to be tagged.
H6 tag: These tags draw attention to a mini point.
Header tags are like book chapters that give you an idea of the entire content.
(v) Paragraphs.
The readability of your content is also essential, and writing short paragraphs can keep readers on your page longer.
Short paragraphs are easier to read and understand, making your blog post look breezy enough to captivate your reader.
You must break down the entire content of your post into small paragraphs.
How long should a paragraph be?
I’d say 3-5 sentences long. Each paragraph should explain a single concept.
While writing paragraphs, you should ensure each of these paragraphs connects.
There should be sentence flow in your content; it increases the coherence of your content.
(vi) Reading level.
No matter your niche’s seriousness or professionalism, your content should be easy to understand.
Google does not explicitly state that this is a ranking factor, but we know that understandable contents consistently rank high in search results.
(vii) Tone.
Always try to write your content in conversational tones.
User experience is the most crucial ranking factor right now, and if your content is conversational, readers are bound to spend more time on your page and even share your content on social media pages.
Also, conversational tones are perfect for ranking in voice search results.
(viii) Links.
One of the essential SEO content writing practices is to include links in your blog posts.
There are two types of links:
External links: These are links to other websites from your web page.
External links are great for link building, but they also show professionalism and can increase trust.
It is always important to link to authority websites in your niche and include link-building strategies to help you get backlinks from credible sites.
Internal links: These are links to other web pages on your website. You should link each post on your website at least once to another post.
It shows site crawlers the relevance of that post.
With strategic internal links, you can increase the page authority of your blog posts and make it easier for web crawlers to index your posts.
When linking to other websites or posts on your site, take note of your anchor texts. With Google’s updated link practice guide, we see that Google prioritizes natural language anchor texts that make it easy to understand what the page you are linking to is about.
If you can’t use a natural language anchor text, it is best to resort to the focus keyword for that post.
Here are some best practices for linking
Only link to important pages.
Use keyword-rich anchor texts.
Use natural language anchor texts.
Avoid exact-match anchor texts.
Don’t use the same anchor text for two pages.
Avoid automating internal linking.
Link to only credible websites.
(ix) Conclusion.
Your conclusion is just as important as your introduction.
This part is where you summarize your main points so that even if a visitor does not read the entire post, they can get enough value through the conclusion.
Conclusions are usually short but can also be longer depending on how well you summarize your post.
Also, your call to action is a part of your conclusion.
Most SEO content writers should put more work into their CTA.
CTAs are necessary to lead a visitor to take a specific action on your website.
If it’s not specific to an action, it’s not a good CTA.
(x) URLs.
URLs are also helpful for search engines to understand what your web page is all about.
To create an SEO-friendly URL, here are some of the best practices to follow:
Make it short.
Include only your focus keyword.
Do not stuff keywords in your URL.
Use hyphens to separate words.
Avoid long URLs.
Do not include dates in your URL.
Avoid unnecessary words.
Use lowercase.
Include HTTPS in your URL.
Avoid using your post title as your URL.
7. Images
Your blog posts are only complete once you have added relevant pictures. Your posts need images to keep readers interested, give them information at a glance, and provide more context to your words.
Also, as popular as voice search is, Google’s image search is gaining traction among users, especially with the integration of Google Lens, which allows you to search using pictures taken on your phone.
It is a good idea to be able to rank for image searches.
Types of images in a blog post
Stock Images
Charts
Tables
Original Graphics
Screenshots
Ensure that every picture you insert in your blog post is appropriately optimized.
After adding images to your blog, you can upload them to your website.
However, don’t leave all the work to search engines after uploading your posts.
Here are some things to do:
8. Content promotion
No matter how optimized your content is, you don’t leave the fate of your post to search engines.
Ways to promote your content:
Email marketing: Big names in the industry, like Search Engine Journal and Neil Patel, among others, send newsletters with links to their blog posts.
Send strategic newsletters to your email list and add links to your blog posts.
Social media marketing: Social media is a great place to promote your content. You can include images from your post or make a shareable image summary and share it on these platforms.
You can promote your posts on:
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Question forums: Answer questions on these forums and include links to a blog post that explains it in detail.
The fact that you want to link to your post does not mean you shouldn’t answer a question as detailed as possible.
It is best to give a detailed answer to a question and, afterward, offer a link to your blog post.
Users will trust you and click on your link based on how well you can answer the question.
9. Content Updating
Change is constant!
There are always new updates in every niche.
For example, on-page SEO practices three years ago are different now. There have been new updates based on Google algorithm changes, and even old techniques have experienced upgrades.
So, what will happen to the on-page SEO post you made three years ago? You have to update it.
Aside from this, search behavior also changes, so you want to ensure your content stays relevant through the years.
While updating your old content, you should also take note of the links, statistics, and industry updates.
Historical optimization is updating your old content and making it relevant in real-time.
This entire post explains the best practices for SEO writing, from getting ideas and optimizing them to performing keyword research and writing your fire post.
However, here is a summarized list of the best tips for SEO writing.
Understand buyer persona.
Match searchers’ intent.
Have a content calendar.
Invest in a human editor.
Use long-tail keywords in your headings.
Optimize your images.
Include FAQs in your posts.
Optimize for rich snippets.
Optimize for featured snippets.
Avoid keyword stuffing.
Add keywords to your meta description.
Include actionable tips.
Write what you know.
Write in conversational tones.
Update your old content regularly.
Optimize your URL.
Invest in original images, especially infographics.
SEO Content Writing Tools
These are tools that make SEO writing easy for you. Several SEO tools can make the content writing process breezy, from writing tools to writing assistants.
Here are my top picks for SEO writing tools:
1. Grammarly.
Grammarly is a writing assistant that helps to review your writing. It is one of the most used writing tools worldwide because it is easy to integrate into software and devices.
Grammarly is also AI-powered, so you quickly get real-time suggestions that will help to improve your writing.
Features of Grammarly
Grammar checker
Plagiarism checker
Citation generator
Essay checker
Tone detector
Style guides
Snippets
Analytics
Brand tones
Plans
Free Plan
This plan focuses on basic writing suggestions and tone detection.
With the Grammarly free plan, you get help with grammar, spelling, punctuation, conciseness, and tone detection.
Premium Plan
This plan is designed for individuals and focuses on helping with clarity, vocabulary, and tone improvements.
The primary focus for this plan includes everything in the free plan with full-sentence rewrites, choice of words, tone suggestions, and citations.
Pricing is $12.00 per month.
Business Plan
This plan is designed for teams, businesses, and organizations. The features include everything in the premium plan with style guides, snippets, brand tones, analytics dashboard, SAML single sign-on, account roles, and permissions.
Pricing is at $15.00 per member/month
2. Google Docs.
Google Docs is the best tool for writing, especially when collaborating with other writers. Google Docs allows you to write, edit, and collaborate on a document.
My favorite part of Google Docs is you can automatically update your changes. There is no fear of losing your content due to device breakdown or technical difficulties.
You also get to edit your document offline, and once you connect to the internet, your changes are automatically saved to the drive.
3. Hemingway Editor.
Hemingway Editor is a content writing tool that helps you to analyze your texts and revise your work.
With Hemingway Editor, you can revise your work no matter how lengthy.
Here are some of the analyses you can do with Hemingway:
Reading time
Letters
Characters
Words
Sentences
Paragraphs
Readability
This tool analyzes the text, highlighting complex sentences or phrases using color codes. Here are the color codes and their meanings:
Yellow codes show lengthy, complex sentences and common errors that should be split.
Red codes show dense and complicated sentences that need to be reworded.
Purple codes show sentences with shorter alternatives, and you can move your mouse over these highlights to get hints.
Blue codesshow weak phrases that you should replace with more powerful words.
Green codes show that the highlighted sentence has a passive voice or tone.
The online version of Hemingway is free, but the desktop version (Mac or Windows) costs $19.99.
4. NeuralText.
NeuralText is an AI-enabled SEO content optimization software that helps you to create optimized content in half the time. It can analyze top-ranking pages about a topic and create curated SEO-optimized content in record time.
It also gives you long-tail keyword suggestions, clusters semantically related keywords, and uses AI to suggest words to complete a sentence.
Features of NeuralText
Audit management
Competitive analysis
Content management
Dashboard
Editorial calendar
Keyword research tools
Machine learning
Multi-channel campaigns
SEO management
Natural language processing
Plans
Free Trial
$1 for a 5-day free trial.
Starter Plan
This plan supports only one user and allows you to generate 20,000 AI words, write and optimize five articles and get up to 2,000 keyword suggestions.
Pricing is $19 per member/month.
Basic Plan
This plan is also for a single user, and although similar to the starter plan, it can generate 20,000 AI words, write and optimize 40 articles, get 20,000 keyword suggestions, and cluster up to 5,000 keywords.
Pricing is $49 per member/month.
Pro Plan
This plan is available for three users, and it can generate up to 40,000 AI words, write and optimize unlimited articles, get 50,000 keyword suggestions, and cluster up to 15,000 keywords.
Pricing is $119 per member/month.
5. Jasper.ai
Jasper is an AI tool trained to write original and creative SEO content for users; it helps you to write optimized content ten times faster.
Jasper is probably the best AI writing tool out there because not only does it help you to write good blog posts, but it also helps with social media posts, email subject lines, and even product descriptions.
The features of Jasper.ai are so numerous that I can’t possibly list them all!
Features
Text summarizer
Paragraph Generator
AIDA framework
PAS framework
Product Description
Creative story
Content improver
Blog post topic ideas
Blog post outline
Blog post intro paragraph
Blog post conclusion paragraph
Feature to benefit
Sentence expander
Bio writing
Ad writing
Title and meta descriptions
Headline writing
Email subject lines
Text Rephrasing, and so on.
Plans
Free Trial
You get a free trial of Jasper for five days.
Boss Mode
This plan is designed for individuals and small-scale teams and can take up to five users. You get over fifty templates, a tailored brand voice, 30+ languages, browser extensions, Grammarly, a plagiarism checker, and SEO mode.
Pricing starts at $82 per month for 50,000 words/month—the more the number of words, the higher the price. Prices get as high as $500 per month for 700,000 words/per month.
Business Plan
This plan is designed for growing teams and businesses and is open to more than five users. But there is yet to be an exact plan and price for this option.
You get to contact the sales department and get personalized plans and pricing that depends on what you want for your team.
In search engine optimization (SEO), link building is crucial for improving your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines like Google use backlinks as a vote of support, especially if it is from trusted and authoritative sources. Link building is about getting backlinks from these types of websites. Think of it as trusted sites recommending your website to others.
This blog post will explore the best strategies for successful link building, including helpful tools. By following these strategies and using these tools, you can create a solid and sustainable link building strategy that will improve your website’s visibility and build authority.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of increasing the number of links (backlinks) pointing to your website from other sites.
Link building aims to increase a website’s SEO strength or domain authority. Several studies on SEO have discovered that high domain authority is one of Google’s highest-ranking factors.
This doesn’t mean you can’t rank for specific keywords if you have a website with low domain authority.
However, Google counts a backlink to a web page as a vote of support, which signals that your page is trustworthy.
The anatomy of a link
A good link has the following attributes:
1. Start of link tag
The beginning of a link tag is denoted by the “a” tag.
This tag tells the browser that a link is about to begin and should be clickable. The “a” stands for anchor, which is what links are often referred to as.
2. Link referral location
The next part of the link is the referral location.
This is where the link will take the user when they click on it. The “href” attribute within the start tag denotes the referral location.
For example, when clicked, <a href=”https://www.example.com”> would take the user to the website at https://www.example.com.
3. Visible/anchor text of link
The visible or anchor text of a link is what the user sees and clicks on.
This text is usually underlined and has a different color or appearance than regular text to indicate that it’s clickable.
The anchor text is placed between the start and closure of the link tag. For example, <a href=”https://www.example.com”>Click Here</a> would display “Click Here” as the anchor text.
4. Closure of link tag
The closure of a link tag is denoted by “</a>”.
It tells the browser that the link has ended and that any text after it should return to standard formatting.
It is essential to close your link tag properly; otherwise, it can cause issues with your website’s layout and functionality.
Link building is considered one of the most important aspects of any SEO strategy because it can:
i. Improves website ranking
Link building is crucial for improving your website’s ranking on search engines like Google.
When other high-quality niche websites link to yours, it signals to search engines that your website is valuable and trustworthy in your niche, which, in turn, can improve your website’s authority and boost its rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
ii. Boosts your credibility
Link building can help to boost your website’s credibility and reputation.
When other reputable websites link to your website, it is a vote of confidence that shows you are a trusted source of information in your industry or niche.
This can build trust and authority with your target audience and increase their confidence in your brand.
iii. Helps Google crawler to find your page
Link building also helps search engine crawlers find your page more easily.
When you get backlinks from other websites, it creates a web of links that search engine crawlers can easily follow to find your page, which can help improve your website’s visibility on search engines.
iv. Increases website traffic
Link building can also help increase website traffic because backlinks, especially those with the ‘follow’ tag, can drive referral traffic and SEO strength from referring websites to yours.
Link building also helps to increase the number of visitors to your website and improve its overall performance.
How to build links to your websites
There are different ways you can build links to your website; they are:
i. Asking for links
Asking for links means directly contacting website owners and asking them to link back to your site or a particular blog post. Most of the link building strategies I will discuss are under this category.
Here are a few examples: broken link building, skyscraper technique, outreach approach, etc.
ii. Earning links
This type of link building is where you get links without asking for them.
You can earn links when you create high-quality, valuable content that others in your niche need to link to (linkable assets).
People will link to these assets without you asking because they are valuable and relevant to your niche.
iii. Adding links
You can also build links by adding them to sites such as a business directory, social media profile, or niche forum and community. These links have low votes of confidence because it is effortless to set up.
It means they might not make much of a difference, but as I would always say, there is never ‘too much’ regarding SEO.
iv. Buying links
This method involves using money to buy backlinks. I do not recommend this link building method because it is against Google’s policies, and you can get your website penalized for it.
What makes a good backlink?
Link building is not just about getting any website to link to your site; it involves several other factors.
For instance, if you have 100 different backlinks, Google may only identify about five or fewer from those backlinks.
Here are the attributes that make a good backlink:
i. Authority
The domain authority of the referring website is crucial when it comes to link building. Getting a backlink from a site with high domain authority and being recognized as an expert site is of more excellent value and more beneficial to you than a site with low domain authority.
ii. Relevance
The site linking to you must be relevant to your niche/industry. For example, if you are a health blogger, getting a handful of backlinks from another health website is better than getting hundreds of backlinks from an SEO website.
iii. Anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text used to link one page to another. According to Google, your anchor text should give context to the link.
This is another crucial aspect of a link to note because the relevance of your anchor text to the linked page determines the validity of your link.
If you are linking to a page about energy drinks, your anchor text should be ‘energy drinks’ or similar and not something like ‘chip cookies’ or ‘this blog post.’
iv. Placement
The position of your link on the page is also vital.
According to Google Patent, the position of your link and the likelihood of it being clicked may affect the authority being passed to the page.
This means the links in your content’s body or at the beginning of a page will carry more weight than a link at the bottom.
v. Nofollow vs. follow attribute
“Nofollow” is a link attribute that tells Google you are not passing the SEO authority of your page to the linked page, while the “Follow” link attribute implies you are willing to pass on the SEO strength of your page to the linked page.
Two other attributes website owners can use:
rel=“sponsored” should be used when the link is a sponsored post, advertisement, or if there is any form of compensation involved.
rel=“ugc” should be used when the link is user-generated content like comments and forum posts.
vi. Destination/landing page
It’s not enough that you have a good link in the best position; you also have to ensure that the destination of your link is optimized for search engines and great user experience.
Your landing page could be your homepage or a specific page you want to rank on Google. Your landing page could also be your linkable asset. A compelling CTA is one thing you must have on your landing page.
Here are some of the best link building strategies you will see:
1. Create quality linkable content.
There is a relationship between quality content and backlinks. Getting people to link to valuable content is much easier than fluffy content with no depth. Good content is always king.
I know you want to improve your link strategy and get hundreds of backlinks to your website, but first, try creating quality linkable content valuable to your audience and niche professionals like you.
One of the best hacks for creating quality linkable content is creating content for your fellow professionals.
Suppose you are in the blogging industry. In that case, you should create content for aspiring bloggers and blogging experts because even though you want to share valuable information, they do not have the resources to link to you.
The most they can do for you is share your link on social media. However, blogging experts like you will have their blogs; with this, they can easily link to you.
Here are four types of content that are highly linkable:
i. Visual assets
Visual assets are visual representations of a concept. Examples are infographics, charts, images, and diagrams. Including images in your blog posts has always been an effective SEO strategy.
When you create infographics or charts, it becomes easy for other bloggers to link to you whenever they discuss that topic because you have tried to simplify it.
ii. Listicles
Listicles, also known as list posts, are blog posts written in a list format, and they can vary from tips to methods, tools, checklists, trends, etc.
The main reason listicles work is that they are bite-sized, easy to digest, and highly shareable.
iii. Original research/data
Original research/data is blog content that shows new data from original industry studies and surveys. This data helps bloggers back up their points so that when someone cites your research in their blog post, they will link back to you.
iv. In-depth ultimate guides
This content is the go-to format for long-form content. It covers a topic extensively, and it is no surprise that these types of content are highly linkable.
When creating guides, it is important to ensure all the information is correct and include many internal and external links to enhance your points.
2. Analyze competitor’s sites/links.
This link building strategy is about analyzing the backlink profile of your competitors to check the sites that are linking back to them and develop strategies to replicate them.
Here are the steps to analyze your competitor’s backlink profile:
i. Identify your competitors:
Who are the websites that are ranking for the same keywords as you? You can use Ahrefs or SEMrush to find your top competitors.
ii. Analyze their backlink profiles:
Use a backlink analysis tool to see which websites link to your competitors.
When analyzing their backlink profiles, here are some things you need to pay attention to:
The number of backlinks they have
The quality of the backlinks (Look for backlinks from high-authority websites. These websites will positively impact your domain authority.)
The relevance of the backlinks (are they linking to pages similar to yours?)
iii. Find opportunities to replicate their backlinks:
Look for ways to get backlinks from the websites linking to your competitors. It could involve guest posting, creating infographics, or participating in link roundups.
It is important to understand that building backlinks takes time and effort. Don’t expect to see results overnight. Just keep working at it, and you’ll eventually start to see your rankings improve.
3. Become a source.
Journalists, bloggers, and writers are looking for information sources daily. You can become a source by using platforms like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and get quality backlinks for your site.
HARO is a platform that connects journalists and bloggers with sources that can provide valuable insights on various topics.
Big media companies like The New York Times, TIME, REFINERY29, Chicago Tribune, Mashable, and others use this service, so getting featured in one of them is possible.
How to sign up on HARO:
a. Sign up for HARO as a source:
You will need to provide some basic information about yourself and your expertise. You will get a confirmation email after signing into your account.
b. Sign in on the platform:
Sign in and click on “My Account.” And choose the type of email you want to receive under “HARO PREFERENCES.” You will be automatically subscribed to Master HARO, which includes every industry, but you can select a specific industry instead.
c. Be on the lookout for requests that match your expertise:
You will receive daily emails with requests from journalists and bloggers looking for sources on various topics. If you find one that interests you, you can click to learn more about the request, the media outlet, and the deadline.
d. When you find a request that matches your expertise:
Respond to it with valuable insights and information. Look for the request that allows you to include your name, your website link, and any relevant credentials or experience.
The game plan is to respond to as many as possible to increase the chances of getting featured. Ensure you give answers that are valuable and let you stand out.
Here are other platforms you can use to become a source aside from HARO:
The skyscraper technique is a powerful link building strategy developed by Brian Dean that can help you build high-quality backlinks to your website.
This technique involves creating high-quality content that is better than any other content on the web on a particular topic and then reaching out to site owners or authors who have linked to similar content in the past and asking them to link to yours instead.
The main focus of this strategy is to create content that outperforms other content in your space.
Here’s a breakdown of the Skyscraper Technique:
i. Find proven linkable content.
The foundation of this technique is high-quality linkable content that would get you backlinks. The first step is to find linkable content.
Your content will range from listicles to comparison posts, industry surveys, roundup posts, and guides.
These types of content do well because they are extensive and relevant and allow room for constant updating.
Once you have identified the content you can improve on, the next step is to create your outline.
You can use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to find popular content in your niche that has received a lot of backlinks.
ii. Create better content.
The next step is to create your skyscraper content.
This content has to be better than what already exists on the web. This means creating longer, more detailed, and more valuable content for the reader. You can also add visual elements like infographics, images, or videos to make your content more engaging.
Here are tips for improving the content so you can outshine your competitors:
Make the content more detailed and longer:
Exhaustively cover the topic, add more than was in the original content, and add unique insights. If they had listed 20 items, make it like 50 or more. You want your content to stand out.
Include optimized, original images:
You can design some text quotes and images. You can also create infographics to simplify concepts.
Structure the post in a way that is easy to digest and navigate. Make the user experience pleasant.
Reach out to websites that have linked to similar content in the past and ask them to link to yours instead.
Export the list of links you got from researching your competitors, remove the ones that are not relevant, and email the remaining prospect.
Email Sample Template for the Skyscraper Technique
Subject: OUTDATED CONTENT ON YOUR WEBSITE
Hello [name],
I was searching for blog posts on [topic] and came across one of your posts: [insert URL].
Your post was intriguing, and I loved how you [talk about something amazing in the blog post]. However, I noticed you linked to this post [insert URL], and on going through it, I discovered that some parts of the content in the post are outdated.
Coincidentally, I just wrote a similar article covering the recent industry updates. How about linking to it instead? Here is a link to the post [INSERT LINK].
Please read through it and let me know what you think.
I am hoping to hear from you soon.
Best Regards.
Name,
Brand,
Position.
5. Resource page building.
A resource page is a page that curates helpful resources, tools, apps, products, services, media, or websites that your audience may find helpful.
It is a one-stop shop for finding information on a particular topic.
Resource link building is where you get backlinks from a resource page.
Since they are already linking to other sites, if you have an excellent resource useful to their target audience, you can reach out to them to include it.
Some resource sites have a section asking for suggestions for resources so you can easily reach out to them.
How to build links from resource pages
i. Use existing resource pages in your niche.
The easiest method is to use Google Search to discover resource pages in your niche.
Here are the best search queries you can use to find resource pages via Google:
[your niche] + “resources”
inurl: [niche] + resources
[niche] + “resources”
Open a spreadsheet and include the results of your research. Then, you can filter through the results and contact the best websites.
ii. Create original resource pages.
This technique involves creating a valuable resource on your website that other websites in your niche will want to link to.
Here are the steps to create original resource pages for your niche:
Identify a resource topic.
The first step in the resource link building strategy is to identify a topic relevant to your niche and that people are searching for.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find popular topics in your niche.
Create a valuable resource.
The next step is to create a valuable resource for your audience.
This could be a comprehensive guide, a list of tools, or a tutorial that solves a problem for your audience. Your resource should be well-researched, informative, and engaging.
Promote your resource.
Once you have created your resource, it’s time to promote it. You can contact websites in your niche and ask them to link to your resource. You can also share your resource on social media platforms and other online communities to increase its visibility.
6. Create roundup posts.
Roundup posts are posts that collate experts’ insights on a topic. The decided topic could be a controversial concept or commonly asked questions in your niche.
In this link building strategy, you will bring experts together to contribute to your post. The whole idea of this strategy is to create an epic roundup of opinions, views, and reviews from industry experts.
Trust me; you don’t need to be told that these experts will also share the link with their audience because they want to promote their opinions even more than you do.
How to create an epic roundup post
Here is a breakdown of how you can create your roundup posts:
i. Choose a topic.
Choose an interesting topic relevant to your niche and conduct proper keyword and topic research.
You want to pick a topic that allows your post to stand out. The most common types of roundups are new year trends and predictions, so you want to do better than that.
ii. Research the questions.
Research the questions you will ask the experts. You can check Google to see questions people ask about your chosen topic. You can also check places like Quora, Reddit, and other forums.
Also, if you have an active social media platform, you can take a poll on the questions your audience would want answered.
Make a list of burning questions in your niche and choose from it.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing the questions:
Choose an area of question that is yet to be answered. If you want your roundups to stand out, you want to do something different and unique.
You want to ask questions that will allow people to give different answers. The beauty of a roundup post is that you can get different opinions from experts.
Avoid asking too many questions. Focus on one or two primary questions and only ask supplementary questions directly connected to your primary question.
Ensure the questions are at most 3-4 to avoid lengthy posts.
iii. Choose the right experts to include in your roundup.
This step can make or break your roundup post. You need the right experts to make it epic. Take some time to research people who can be a good fit.
You can start by reaching out to people within your network. You can post about it on social media and have people recommend experts. You can also check out podcasts or interview sites in your niche to find experts.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing the experts:
Can they give sound and valuable insight on the topic? You want people who will contribute valuable insight to the post to make it epic.
Are they popular? You want to have experts who are known in your niche on your roundup. This will make the post more credible and trustworthy.
How long have they been in the industry? You want advice from experts who have significant experience in the industry.
Will they be willing to contribute to the post? Research the experts to see if they have contributed to a roundup post before, have been a speaker at a summit, or have collaborated on social media. This will help you decide if they will be willing to be part of something like this.
Will they be willing to share the post? You want to have a handful of people willing to share the post when it is published. So, look for experts who create content and share their ideas on social media.
What is the size of their audience? You want to choose experts with different audience sizes to tap into a vast audience pool when the post is published.
When you finish your research, create a list of experts you will contact. The rule of thumb is to double the amount of people you want on your roundup because you might get some rejection.
For example, if you want 30 experts, you should reach out to 60 people to reach your original target, even if some reject you.
If you get a lot of acceptance, you can split the posts and create two roundup posts instead of one.
iv. Build rapport and contact the experts.
Now that you have created a list of experts you want on your roundup, it is time to build relationships and rapport with them before reaching out. This will increase the chances of them saying yes to your request.
Here are some things you can do to build a rapport with them:
Follow them on social media.
Like and leave insightful comments on their posts.
Watch and respond to their stories.
Share their posts and tag them.
Subscribe to their newsletters.
Listen to their podcasts if they have one.
Be genuine in building the relationship. Start building rapport with the experts beforehand (2-3 months prior) before sending the email.
Here is an email template you can use. Ensure to edit and personalize it.
Email Sample Template One for Roundup Post Collaboration
SUBJECT: INVITATION TO COLLABORATE IN AN EPIC ROUNDUP POST ON [NICHE/KEYWORD]
Hello [First name]
My name is [insert name], and I am a [niche expert].
I have been following your space for a while and have learned valuable insights into this industry.
I am writing an expert roundup post on [insert topic] for my website [insert site]. Knowing your knowledge of this field, I would love to include your insight with a “dofollow” link to your site.
My website currently has [number of monthly site visits], and I have a Facebook community and a [X number] Instagram following. It would be an honor to share your expert opinion with my audience.
Here are some questions I need your insight on:
[insert the questions]
Please let me know if you would be interested in this collaboration before the end of the month. My audience and I would love to hear from you.
Best regards.
[Your first name]
Company,
Position.
Email Sample Template Two for Roundup Post Collaboration
SUBJECT: INVITATION TO WRITE AN EXPERT ROUNDUP POST ON [NICHE/KEYWORD]
Hello [First name]
I have been a big fan of your SEO and content marketing work. Your content was beneficial when I started my journey, and I am so grateful for that. [build rapport]
I am writing an expert roundup post on [insert the topic] for [insert the site]. I would love to include your expert insight on this post.
I got a positive response from [mention some big names in your list who are likely or have agreed to collaborate with you], and they have contributed immensely. However, having you on board will be an icing on the cake.
Here are some questions I need your insight on:
[insert questions]
Thank you for considering it. I look forward to your positive response before the end of the month.
Best regards.
[Your first name],
Company,
Position.
Here are some points to note when writing the invites:
Personalize the email.
Build rapport by telling them something you appreciate about their content/brand.
Tell them the purpose of the email.
Tell them why you want them on the roundup post, and name a few experts who have said yes. This part is the social proof.
Ask the question.
Include a deadline.
Appreciate them in advance.
If you don’t get a reply, you can send a follow-up mail after 2-3 days. People are busy and sometimes forget, so it is important to follow up before you give up on that person.
v. Create your epic roundup.
After collating these experts’ responses, it is time to combine them.
Here are some tips to make your roundup impressive:
Choose a captivating headline:
Use a headline that will make the blog post enticing for readers.
Write a good hook:
Use the right hook to reel them in so they can read the roundup.
Include your insight:
Adding your insight to the post is non-negotiable.
Include engaging images:
You can design some text quotes and also include pictures of each expert. Images make it easier to consume and share content.
Include tweetable quotes:
Create snippets of each expert’s opinion that can be shared on Twitter. Do not forget to include the author’s username so they will be notified when people share it.
Create a short bio for the experts:
Include headshots of the experts and their website links to make it easier for readers to check them out.
vi. Publish the roundup post.
Publish and share the roundup post on social media, tagging the experts. You should also send an email to let them know that the post is live. Ensure to thank them for their participation.
Include the link to the post in the email so it will be easier for them to share with their audience.
vii. Promote your roundup post.
Now that your post is live, it is time to promote it heavily so you can gain traction and backlinks. Send a newsletter to your email list letting them know about the post.
Create some captivating social media posts to promote your roundup. Share the images and snippets you created on your social media platforms.
7. Broken link building.
Broken link building is a strategy that involves manually or automatically looking for broken links on other websites in your niche, reaching out, and suggesting that the broken link be replaced with yours.
The goal is to provide value to website owners in your niche while also getting backlinks to your website.
Even if they have a better alternative to reply to the broken link because they are already ‘indebted’ to you, you can get links from them in the future.
Here is a breakdown of the broken link building strategy:
i. Find broken links.
You can use various tools to look for broken links on websites, including Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. With these tools, you can easily find broken links by inputting the website’s URL or page.
Once you’ve identified a broken link, take note of the page’s URL and the anchor text used because you will have to reference them in your email.
ii. Create relevant content.
The next step is to create relevant content that can replace the broken link. You can email the link if you have existing content that can be a replacement.
However, ensure the content is top-quality and updated. You also want the content relevant to the website where the broken link was found.
iii. Reach out to website owners.
Once your content is ready, it’s time to contact website owners. You can do this by sending an email. Explain the process for discovering the broken link in your email and offer a replacement.
Email Sample Template for Broken Link Replacement
SUBJECT: Broken link on your website
Dear [First Name],
My name is [your name], and I own [your website]. I’m writing to you because I noticed a broken link on your website. The link is located at [URL of the broken link] with the anchor text [insert text].
My blog post on [topic], [URL of the page], would be a suitable replacement for the broken link. This post was written [date published] and is up-to-date with the newest trends on [this topic].
This arrangement would be mutually beneficial because it would improve your website’s user experience and help promote my website.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
iv. Repeat the process.
Repeat this process often to get a concise list of other websites in your niche that can link to you.
8. Find unlinked brand mentions.
Sometimes, people might mention your brand without linking to you. It happens, and what you do with this link building strategy is to look for these brand mentions and request the writer to add your link to it.
You can use a tool like Prowly’s Brand Monitoring to find unlinked brand mentions. It allows you to keep track of your brand across different platforms.
When you find these unlinked brand mentions, you only need to contact the writer and request that the mention be linked with the appropriate link.
Here is an email template to reach out to a website owner about a mention of your brand that wasn’t linked and request that it be linked with an appropriate link:
Email Sample Template for Unlinked Brand Mention
Subject: Unlinked mention of [your brand]
Dear [website owner name],
My name is [your name], and I own [your brand]. I’m writing to you because I noticed your website mentioned [your brand] at [URL of the unlinked mention].
I’m glad you know my brand, but I would appreciate it if you could add a link to my website at [URL of the page you want linked] to the mention. This would help your users to access the site if they’re going to, and it would also help to promote my brand.
Linking to my website would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. It would help your users to learn more about my brand, and it would also help to improve the search engine ranking of your website.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
9. Direct outreach.
This powerful link building strategy involves contacting other website owners and asking them to link back to your website. You can do this via email, social media DMs, and other communication channels.
When reaching out, it is crucial to research and find websites that are relevant to your niche and have a good reputation. You can also find out how frequently the site does collaborations and guest posts to know if they will be willing to engage with your site.
Also, personalize your outreach emails and offer something of value in return for the link.
Here is a breakdown of the direct outreach strategy:
Find websites that are relevant to your niche.
You need to know the potential websites that will likely give you a ‘follow’ link and a ‘nofollow link.’
You can use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to run competitive or backlink analyses to find websites linking to your competitors. You can also use Google Search operators to find websites relevant to your niche.
Create a list of websites.
Once you have found websites relevant to your niche, create a concise list of the ones you want to contact. You can create a spreadsheet to keep track of the websites, including the website’s URL, contact information, and any other relevant notes.
Craft a compelling outreach email.
The next step is to craft a compelling outreach email. Your email should be personalized and explain why you are contacting the website owner. You should also explain the mutual benefit that the collaboration will bring.
Here is an example of a direct outreach email that we received when we uploaded our blog post on ChatgGPT:
It can also be used as a template for the broken link building strategy.
Email Sample Template Direct Outreach
Subject: Link building opportunity
Dear [website owner name],
My name is [your name], and I own [your website]. I’m writing to you because I’m interested in building a link between our websites.
I’ve been a fan of your website for a long time, and it would be a great fit for a link from my website. My website is [URL of your website] and covers similar topics to yours.
I’m willing to offer you a free product or service for a link to my website. I’m also open to other forms of collaboration, such as guest blogging or social media promotion.
I hope you’ll consider my request. You can contact me via this email address with any other specific requests or questions.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
10. Reclaim lost backlink.
Reclaiming your lost links is another way to build links. It is typical for you to lose some links due to factors such as:
Link removal by the website owner
Expired website
Changed URL
Penalized website
To reclaim your list links, you need to identify your lost backlinks using SEO tools like SEMrush. These tools will show you which websites were linking to your website but have since removed the link.
The next thing you need to do is to know why these backlinks were lost. Understanding why the backlink was lost will help you determine the best approach to reclaiming the link.
Afterward, reach out to the website owner and ask them to reinstate the link, depending on the reason for the link’s removal in the first place.
If the domain name of the website referred to you is expired, you might not be able to do something grand like buying the website or domain. So, instead of contacting the website owner, you can find broken links on another website similar to the one you lost and ask to replace the links with yours.
If the website owner was the one who removed the link in the first place, you could send a mail to ask why the link was removed and try to offer something in return for them reinstating your link back on their website.
For example, you could offer to write a guest post for their website. This strategy can help sweeten the deal and make it more likely that they will add your link back.
11. Guest posting.
Some people say guest blogging is dead, but that is untrue. What is dead is the usual old way of guest blogging to trick the algorithm. Guest blogging still works, but you have to be strategic.
Write for sites relevant to your niche, have good domain authority, and have a similar target audience.
Guest posting tips to maximize your link building strategy:
Select the right websites.
Write high-quality content.
Conduct a thorough topic research.
Understand the brand tone of the website you want to write for.
Have a good author bio ready for use.
Promote your guest post.
Engage in the comments.
12. Backlink gap analysis.
A backlink gap analysis shows the number of backlinks on your competitor’s site.
The purpose of a backlink analysis is for you to discover potential websites that are currently linking to websites in your niche.
When you discover these websites, you can reach out to them directly, find broken links on their website, or any other link building strategy that is more convenient and you feel will be more effective.
When you do a backlink gap analysis, curate an extensive list of potential websites because there is no guarantee that all of them will agree to your requests.
13. Reverse image search.
If you create visual assets like infographics and charts that people are already linking to, this strategy will help you find sites that use your visual assets without linking to you.
With reverse image search, you can see these websites and reach out to them to link the image back to you. It’s similar to unlinked brand mentions, but this is done only for images.
It’s important to know that reverse image search doesn’t always work because some websites do not index their images, and it can also be possible that your data center is not in sync.
However, if you want to do a reverse image search, ensure your images are high-quality, used on several other websites, and original.
14. Relationship-based link building technique.
This link building technique is based on creating business relationships with website owners in your niche, where you collaborate on content and link to each other.
Here’s how it works:
Identify potential partners.
The first step in relationship-based link building is identifying potential partners in your niche. Look for websites and blogs relevant to your industry and with a similar target audience.
Reach out to potential partners.
Once you’ve identified potential partners, it’s time to reach out to them. Send an email or message through social media introducing yourself and your website. Explain your interest in building a relationship and working together to create valuable content.
Collaborate on content.
You can collaborate on content once you’ve established relationships with other website owners. It could involve guest blogging on each other’s sites, creating joint webinars or podcasts, or collaborating on an ebook or white paper.
Link to each other’s sites.
As you create content together, include links to each other’s sites. These links should be natural and relevant to the content. This will help to improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site.
Nurture the relationship.
Relationship-based link building is not a one-time event, so nurturing the relationship is beneficial and important.
Continue to collaborate on content, share each other’s posts on social media, and offer support when needed.
15. Podcast interviews.
This link building strategy is similar to guest posting; it uses a podcast instead.
When you show up as a guest on a podcast, your website link is usually included in the episode description.
When you appear on several podcasts relevant to your niche, you get access to the audience of the podcast host, and the host can also link to your website or social media profiles.
Also, other podcasters in that niche may refer to the podcast interview you had and link to your website.
Here are some tips to help you build links from podcast interviews:
Select podcasts with a significant following.
Ask the podcast host to link to your website in the description.
Guest blog on the podcast’s website.
Promote the podcast appearance on your social media.
Select podcasts in your niche.
Link Building Tools
You can use several link building tools to perform your backlink analysis, competitor analysis, find broken links, etc.
However, here are the ones I think are best for helping with link building:
SEMrush has got to be the best tool for backlink analysis. I love how it is so easy to get detailed data on how healthy your backlinks are and the sites that link to you.
SEMrush shows you details such as:
Toxicity score
Referring domains
Authority scores of referring domains
Anchor words
Anchor word category
Link types
Link attributes
SEMrush also has a link building tool that allows you to see detailed information about your competitor’s website and the websites linking to it. It also includes contact information, social web info, links to your website, and much more.
With this link building tool, you can use an outreach module to send personalized, relationship-based messages quickly.
You can also track all your outreach attempts to know which were successful and which were not.
Using the bulk backlink analysis tool, you can analyze up to 200 domains at once. SEMush also allows you to connect your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts while permitting you to export your results as a PDF or CSV file.
SEMrush Pricing
Pro
$129.95 monthly
$108 if you pay yearly
This plan is best for newbies and small teams.
You can do competitor analysis, keyword research, website audit, backlink analysis, advertising tools, and more.
Guru
$249.95 monthly
$208 if you pay yearly
This plan is best for agencies and mid-size businesses:
You will get access to the content marketing toolkit, historical data, multi-location and device tracking, Looker Studio integration, and more.
Business
$499.95 monthly
$416 if you pay yearly
With this plan, you can also try a custom plan where you get customized features that suit the needs of your business. It is perfect for large agencies and enterprises:
This plan gets you access to all Guru features, including share of voice, extended limits, API access, PLA analytics, free migration from third-party tools, and more.
Ahref is a popular tool for analyzing backlinks and finding link building opportunities. The Ahref Backlink Checker is a free tool that instantly checks for your website’s backlink strength, the referring domains, the anchor words, phrases, and the exact URL used.
Using Ahref’s Site Explorer, you can analyze your backlink profile, see which websites link to your competitor’s sites, and gauge the quality of their backlinks. You can also use the tool to check for broken links on your competitor’s website, which is great if you want to build links through that strategy.
You can use the Site Explorer tool to check for referring domains, link attributes, and anchor words and even browse the outgoing links of your competitor’s websites.
You can get limited access to Ahref’s Site Explorer, but you will need to upgrade to a paid version to conduct an in-depth backlink analysis.
Ahref Pricing
Lite
Starts at $99/month
This plan is perfect for small businesses and hobby projects.
Standard
Starts at $199/month
This plan is perfect for freelance SEO and marketing consultants.
Advanced
Starts at $399/month
This plan gives access to more tools and data for lean in-house marketing teams.
Enterprise
Starts at $999/month
This plan is ideal for agencies and enterprises. However, you can have a customized plan developed for the unique needs of your business.
This great tool allows you to track your backlinks and analyze your link profile.
Here are some ways Moz helps with your link building strategies:
Monitoring inbound links
Moz Link Explorer allows you to review and monitor your inbound links. This will help you understand the reason for your low website ranking.
Researching competitor backlinks
You can compare the backlink profile of your competitor with yours. This allows you to know which sites link to them and the type of content they link to.
Finding broken links
You can use this tool to discover broken sites on your website or your competitor’s website. With this, you can easily find and fix broken links on your site and reach out to other sites to help replace their broken links with your content.
Checking the spam score of backlinks
Reduce the number of spammy links on your website by checking the number of spammy links and removing them.
Discovering link building opportunities
Find out who’s linking to your competitors (but not to you) with Link Intersect.
Seeing new and lost links
Monitor when your content is gaining or losing links.
The free version of Moz allows you to access ten link queries and fifty rows of data every month.
Moz Link Explorer Pricing
STANDARD
$99/month
$79 /month when you pay yearly
This plan is best if you are new to SEO or need the basics, and it is the most popular Moz Pro Plan.
MEDIUM
$179/month
$143 /month when you pay yearly
This plan gives you full access to Moz’s keyword research tools.
LARGE
$299/month
$239 /month when you pay yearly
This is an ideal plan for businesses and agencies serious about searches, offering the best deal.
PREMIUM
$599/month
$479 /month when you pay yearly
This plan is famous for large SEO agencies and in-house marketing teams.
The Ubersuggest Backlink Checker lets you see the number of links pointing to any domain or URL (yours or your competitor’s). You can see data ranging from your total link count to .edu and .gov links to even the exact number of unique referring domains.
You can also conduct a backlink analysis on your competitor’s website to see everyone who is linking to your competition and who isn’t linking to you. You can easily find new sites you can approach for link building opportunities.
This tool provides a feature called Advanced Link Filtering that makes it easy to identify the best link opportunities for you. You can filter links by region, anchor text, domain score, page score, and URL.
You can also choose if you only want to see nofollow links or dofollow links, and you can limit the results to reflect one backlink per domain.
You can export all your results to CSV.
Ubersuggest Pricing
Ubersuggest offers two broad options: paying monthly or once and getting full-time access.
MONTHLY PLANS
Individual
$12/month
This is a good option if you manage one website.
Business
$20/month
This is a good plan if you manage about 2-7 websites.
Enterprise
$40/month
This is a good plan if you manage about 8-15 websites.
LIFETIME ACCESS
Individual
$120 for LIFETIME access with no monthly fees
1 website
Business
$200 for LIFETIME access with no monthly fees
2-7 websites
Enterprise
$400 for LIFETIME access with no monthly fees
8-15 websites
FAQs for Link Building
What is link building?
Link building is the process of increasing the number of links (backlinks) pointing to your website from other sites.
For search engine optimization (SEO), link building aims to increase the quantity of high-quality inbound links to a webpage to increase ranking.
What are the benefits of link building?
There are many benefits to link building, including:
Increased site ranking
Increased traffic
Increased brand awareness
Improved credibility
What are the different types of link building?
There are many different types of link building, including:
Guest blogging
Creating linkable assets
Broken link building
Image link building
Social media sharing
Press releases
Skyscraper technique
Roundup posts
Direct outreach
Finding unlinked brand mentions
What are the best practices for link building?
The best practices for link building include:
Focus on quality over quantity.
Guest blog on relevant websites.
Run link building campaigns.
Monitor your backlinks.
Be patient.
Use good link building tools.
What are the common mistakes to avoid in link building?
The common mistakes to avoid in link building include:
Buying links
Spamming
Over-optimizing anchor text
Neglecting your existing links
FINAL THOUGHTS
Link building is essential to any successful SEO strategy, and you must do it correctly.
Google values a website with a substantial amount of referring links. It can be the primary trigger to increase your website’s rankings on search engines.
However, it is important to remember that link building is just one of many factors Google uses to rank websites. So, ensure you also optimize your website for other factors, such as content quality, keyword research, and technical SEO.
Lastly, remember that link building is not a one-time thing but an ongoing process that requires patience, effort, and dedication. With these strategies, you can take your link building efforts to the next level and achieve long-term success online.
CTA: Which of these link building strategies will you try out?
