SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is a series of practices taken to increase your website’s visibility and search engine rankings for various keywords and search terms.
SEO covers both on-page, off-page and technical SEO practices.
SEO writing is the process of creating and writing content that is completely optimized for search engines.
It summarizes all the actions writers take to make their content aligned with user intent and search engine requirements.
There are several reasons why your content might not be ranking on Google, including:
- Content quality
- Crawlability errors
- Indexing errors
- Duplicate content
- Wrong keywords
- Incorrect user intent
- High competition, and so on.
SEO writing is important because it increases organic traffic, gets your content, products, and services to the right people, boosts online visibility, and establishes trust.
Ideally, your blog posts should be between 1,200 – 1,500, and if you are going for long-form content, it should not be more than 2,500. If it has to be more, you might want to consider splitting the content into two different topics.
Pixabay and Unsplash are the best when it comes to free, high-resolution stock images. If you are ready to spend, I will recommend iStock and Shutterstock as the best sites for your stock images.
No, having optimized posts alone won’t automatically increase your domain authority.
To increase your domain authority, you need to work on all aspects of SEO, including your off-page SEO and technical SEO strategies.
Note that your domain authority will not increase overnight, so you need to have a consistent long-term SEO strategy in place.
Here are the steps to create fully optimized posts:
- Research topic ideas
- Research your keywords
- Optimize your headlines
- Make sure your focus keyword is in your heading
- Create an outline
- Create an irresistible introduction
- Insert your focus keyword naturally in the first 10% of the post
- Include your focus keyword in your H2
- Insert the focus keyword naturally through the post
- Word count <2,500 but >1,000
- Insert your other keywords naturally through the post
- Insert high resolution images with alt texts
- Use short paragraphs throughout your posts.
- Maintain sentence flow between paragraphs
After getting a topic idea, here’s how to optimize it:
- Take the idea to Google and type it in.
- Check already published posts and select a keyword.
- Optimize this keyword on UberSuggest
- Go to your headline analyzer.
- Create your headline using the focus keyword.
We do not have a specific course on SEO writing but we have an SEO course for beginners, a blogging course for business owners and a detailed blogging book titled ‘Mastering the Art of Blogging’ which are dedicated to showing students how to navigate the world of blogging and SEO.
There is no exact average number of links for a post, but to avoid overstuffing your posts with links and sending wrong signals to search engines, it is advisable to use a minimum average of 6-10 internal links and/or 3-5 external links.
This is for at least a 2,000-word blog post.
The key to writing alt text is:
- Be descriptive
- Use keywords appropriately
- Your alt text should be a meaningful sentence
- Be specific
- Keep your alt text in context to your subject line
SEO is very straightforward, and it is easier than people agree. SEO writing may sound complicated, but it is easier if its processes are well-understood and you have the patience to see the results grow over time.
On average, an SEO writer makes about $21/ hour and $42,726 annually.
Though the average earning of an SEO writer can vary based on certain factors like experience, level of skills, opportunities, etc.
You can get SEO writers for your website from freelance platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, etc. that offer you the opportunity to hire credible SEO writers for your website with secure payments and affordable fees.
Practicing SEO is free, especially if you’re doing it yourself. But if you are outsourcing or hiring someone to do it for you, then you have to pay for their services.
Basics of SEO writing;
- Define your goal
- Understand your target audience
- Research and write for your audience
- Write captivating headlines
- Stricture your posts
- Add the primary or focus keyword in the title, URL, and 10% of the post
- Use the keywords naturally
- Include internal links
- Include the focus keyword in the meta description and image alt tags
- Write 1000+ words and quality content
- Incorporate short sentences and paragraphs
- Monitor your performance
SEMrush SEO writing assistant is one of the best SEO writing assistants.
This writing assistant checks for the tone of voice, readability, SEO, originality, etc. it also checks for pepper distribution of keywords and recommends related keywords to you.
However, there are some other good SEO writing Assistants out there including Frase, Yoast, Outranking, Clearscope, etc.
Keyword research is the process of identifying the right keywords, languages, and search terms related to your target audience. It is the process of finding the relevant search terms your target audience are entering into search engines.
You can include up to 5 keywords for your blog post. This includes your focus keyword and four other keywords that are related to your main keyword.
You can carry out good keyword research like this;
- Define your goals
- Identify your target audience
- Research related search terms
- Analyze the user intent
- Analyze keyword strength
- Use good keyword research tools
- Integrate keywords in your content
- Write longer content
- Write naturally
- Avoid repetitive keyword phrases
- Make use of synonyms.
You can choose the right keywords for your content, in the following ways;
- Understand your target market
- Look for keywords relating to the product and services you offer
- Study the competition
- Use long-tail keywords
- Use keyword research tools
- Monitor and analyze your keywords
Keyword research is important for the following reasons;
- Speak the same language as your audience
- Increase organic traffic
- Create content for targeted audience
- Create relevant content
- Competitive advantage
Yes, keyword research is relevant to any SEO strategy. It helps you have a sense of understanding of what your target audience wants and what they are searching for.
These are what you should look out for when selecting a keyword;
- Keyword relevance
- The competition
- The search volume
- The user intent
The conversion value
The difference between regular keyword research and local keyword research is;
Regular keyword research focuses on keywords that are largely generic and are widespread or worldwide.
While local keyword research focuses on a limited region or location,. It refers to keywords that are targeted at a specific region.
No, there are no alternatives to keyword research.
The most crucial factor in keyword research is relevance.
The relevance of a keyword is the importance of that keyword or search term to a web page and your target audience.
Yes, you can do keyword research for free. There are many free keyword tools, like Google keyword planner, Ubersuggest, etc. They help you discover keywords related to your target audience.
Content creation is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage and grab the attention of an audience by creating different forms of content. It is a process of gathering topic ideas that appeal to you, your brand, and your target audience and creating different forms of content around that topic idea.
Well-detailed content that focuses on a keyword and is relevant to a target audience is the best kind of content for SEO.
Content creation cannot fully be automated, it needs some human involvement. The majority of content creation needs some human activity, but some things can be automated to make the process a lot easier.
Here are some parts of content creation that can be automated;
- Planning and organization
- Writing of short-form content
- Post drafts
- Editing
- Content formatting
- Scheduling
- Publishing and posting
- Distribution and promotion
- Templates creation.
- Analytics
Automating any aspect of your content creation depends on the tool you are using.
However, here are some ways you can automate content creation:
- Think of the aspect of content creation you would like to automate
- Employ a content strategy.
- Promote your content
- Automate your email newsletter
- Share your content across social media platforms
- Monitor the performance of your content.
You can generate content ideas from;
- Google search suggestions
- Social media platforms
- Online content idea generators
- Comment sections
- Google Trends
- Communities and online forums
- Quora
- Your competitor’s website
- Your audience or clients
Yes, content creation can be classified as a marketing strategy.
It is targeted at attracting, engaging, retaining, engaging, and grabbing the attention of the target audience.
The best tone to use when creating content is one that reflects your personality and aligns with your business image preferably, an interactive, simple and friendly tone.
You can learn how to create content from;
- Online courses
- Offline courses
- Learning platforms
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Linkedin learning
Here are the various forms/ types of content;
- Blog posts/ articles
- Ebooks
- Images
- Videos
- Infographics
- Case studies
- White paper
- Emails
- Guides
- Webinars
Content creation is the process of creating brand new or original content for a specific purpose.
While content curation is the process of taking content from other sources that align with your brand purposes and reposting it on your social channels or website.
Here are what you should create content about;
- What will be helpful to your target audience
- What you have properly researched on
- What you are an expert on
- What is unique to you
- What will entertain, inspire and educate your audience.
Here are ways you can create SEO-friendly content;
- Conduct a proper keyword research
- Employ a content structure
- Write compelling titles
- Use small paragraphs
- Use related keywords and avoid stuffing your content within your focus keyword
- Link to previous and existing content
- Optimize your images
- Write high-quality content
- Make your content shareable
There is no rule as to when you should update old blog posts. It depends, you have to choose the frequency depending on the type of blog posts and the need for updating.
You can look at factors such as:
- the type of content.
- Traffic inflow through that content
- Outdated images
- Broken links.
- Outdated timeline
But most SEO professionals recommend updating old blog posts every three months or yearly.
It is not advisable to change your URL after updating a post because it breaks off any existing or built up SEO authority linked to that post.
If an update affects the context of your post such that the URL must be changed, consider creating a new blog post with a new URL and linking it clearly to the old post for context and SEO continuity, or redirecting from the old post to the new one. so that it keeps some of the link value.
You do not need to change everything in a blog post while updating it except need be, but here are a few things you can modify;
- Rewriting your title to be more catchy
- Adding fresh content and deleting the outdated ones
- Improving readability
- Checking for keywords that are being used recently
- Reconsidering user intent
- Correcting grammatical and typographical errors
- Adding recent graphics and images
- Updating the links to a newer one.
It is very important to update older blog posts. Here are some of the benefits of updating old blog posts;
- You gain more traffic.
- You produce fresh content with little effort
- Increased rankings on search engines.
- It builds authority
- It increases trust in your audience.
Yes, updating content on your blog increases your page rankings.
Updated content is seen as fresh content by Google and is preferred to old content.
Also, certain things, like broken links, grammar errors, keywords, and images, are modified during updates. So it helps your content appeal more to both search engines and readers.
The rate at which Google indexes updated posts depends on how big of a change is made to the post.
For example, if you make minor changes like dates, or a few points, Google recognizes these changes as minor updates and maintains the ranking.
However, if there are major changes that affect the context and shift focus from the main topic of your content, the algorithm might need more time to understand the context, leading to a drop in your rankings.
These are the things that should be updated in a blog post ;
- Keywords
- Images
- Broken links
- More content to thin blog posts
- Pinterest pins
- Internal and external links
- Media content
You can update old blog posts by;
- Adding new images and videos
- Targeting new keywords
- Adding internal links to new content
- Removing broken links
- Updating the blog post with new information
- Changing the alt texts of your images
- Improving your title and introduction
- Improving your call to action
- Improving your on-page SEO
- Including a last modified date and publish
- Promoting your updated blog post.
It depends on the stage of your blog. If it is a new blog, then you should focus on creating new content rather than updating old ones.
But if you have gained authority or have posts that are still relevant no matter how long it has been posted, then it is better to update than create entirely new content from scratch.
There could be a lot of reasons why your updated content is not reflecting in your website’s frontend.
Here are some of the reasons:
- Browser caching issues
- Server caching issues
- Incorrect file paths
- Outdated CDN
- Minor changes
Content creation is the process of creating brand new or original content for a specific purpose.
While content curation is the process of taking content from other sources that align with your brand purposes and reposting it on your social channels or website.
Here are what you should create content about;
- What will be helpful to your target audience
- What you have properly researched on
- What you are an expert on
- What is unique to you
- What will entertain, inspire and educate your audience.
Here are ways you can create SEO-friendly content;
- Conduct a proper keyword research
- Employ a content structure
- Write compelling titles
- Use small paragraphs
- Use related keywords and avoid stuffing your content within your focus keyword
- Link to previous and existing content
- Optimize your images
- Write high-quality content
- Make your content shareable
A blogging platform is a software that lets you create, manage, and publish content in personalized blogs as posts which can be delivered through lone websites, emails and other social platforms.
The blogging platform I recommend is WordPress.org. Here are some of the reasons why;
- It gives you full control of your blog and website
- It is search-engine friendly
- It is easy to use because of its drag-and-drop feature
- You have access to free themes for your website
- You have access to thousands of free plugins.
- It makes it easier for you to create and publish content
- It makes it easier for you to optimize your content on search engines
- It allows you to manage your website from your computer
WordPress.org is one of the best blogging platforms that you can use on your mobile devices. There are responsive themes that allow your content or blog posts to be readable even on small screens, it has a beginner-friendly interface and allows you to have enough control over your website.
WordPress is one of the best free self-hosted blogging platforms. It not only allows creating and publishing of content, but it also allows using plugins to add more features to a website and it is optimized for search engines.
- WordPress
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Blogger
- Medium
- Blogger
- Drupal
- Weebly
- Wix
- Ghost
- Medium
Most blogging platforms offer free themes for website owners. eg. WordPress has over 4000, Squarespace has over 100, Wix has over 100+themes, etc.
- The ease of use of the blogging platform
- The themes and templates options that they offer
- How affordable is the blogging platform
- If the blogging platform is free or self-hosted
- What monetization opportunities are available
- How SEO-friendly the blogging platform is.
- Ease of use and customization
- The blogging platform should be mobile-friendly
- A great content editor
- Easy to manage and low maintenance
- Nice design themes and templates
Wix is the easiest blogging platform. It is simple and easy to use. Its drag-and-drop functionality makes it the perfect choice for beginners.
Yes, a blogging platform is important for bloggers. Because it allows the blogger to create, and publish posts and content. It also allows the blogger to customize, manage and control their websites. So yes, a blogger needs to use a blogging platform.
SEO stands for Search Engine OptiBusiness blogging is a process of blogging to drive more visibility to a business and increase sales. It is a marketing strategy used to increase the growth of a business through blogging.mization, and it is a series of practices taken to increase your website’s visibility and search engine rankings for various keywords and search terms.
SEO covers both on-page, off-page and technical SEO practices.
These are the reasons why businesses use blogs;
- To drive long-term results
- To grow online traffic
- To build stronger customer relationship
- To pave way for opportunities
- To grow email lists
- To expand and grow the business
If you want to go into business blogging, it is usually best to register your website as a business by creating a Google Business Profile.
Yes, blogging is good for businesses.
Because it will help expand your business, build trust, engage your audience, generate leads, and drive more sales to your business.
Business blogging is important because:
- It drives organic traffic
- It increases online visibility
- It builds authority
- It increases your customer engagement
- It builds brand awareness
Here are some of the benefits of blogging for business;
- It helps to convert traffic into leads
- It establishes authority
- It Increases brand awareness
- It builds customer trust in your business
- It makes you a leader in your industry.
Yes, blogs are still working and are very much active and relevant.
Blogs still work and will still do for a long time. It is being used by a high majority of marketers and business owners as their primary mode of content distribution. Also, the percentage of people who read blogs keeps increasing year by year.
- Choose a blogging platform
- Pick a domain name
- Purchase web hosting
- Set up your website
- Choose a theme and design your website
- Create a content strategy
- Brainstorm ideas
- Start writing.
You can blog about your business, you do not need a specific business category to start blogging.
Your blog could be educational, it could be to promote your services, or it could even be about the latest trends in your niche.
Here are a few ways you can write a
- Set and establish goals for your business
- Brainstorm potential ideas and solutions
- Conduct a proper keyword research
- Utilize the use of a captivating title
- Let your audience be your sole focus when writing
- Create relevant content
- promote your blog posts
Business blogging works by;
- Increasing the online visibility of your business
- Increasing website traffic
- Drives readers to purchase your products and services
- Distinguishing you from other businesses
Yes, there are a lot of business blogging courses. There are business blogging courses that help teach ways to drive more traffic, gain authority in your field, and also ways to increase brand visibility and awareness.
You can start with this SARMLife’s course on business blogging.
On average, you can spend around $50 to $500 to get your blog set up. But it can differ depending on what you want. If you are employing the services of a website builder or you are setting it up yourself.
- Increase in traffic and visitors
- Increased page views
- Active readers comments
- The number of social media shares you get
- Your SERP rankings
- Low bounce rate
This solely depends on what works for you and what you can remain consistent with. But I advise posting new content twice to four times a week depending on you.
You have to try and figure out what frequency rate you can follow and stick by it. There are no rules.
- Use compelling titles and headings
- Do proper keyword research and incorporate them into your blog
- Have a unique and professional blog design
- Create high-quality content
- write with your unique style
- Incorporate media into your content creation. E.g videos and image
- Interact with your audience and build a great relationship with them.
These are the characteristics of successful blogs;
- Unique voice and content
- Consistency
- Passion for the blog
- Niche specific
- Unique visuals and design
- Loyal community
- Regular content
- How-to’s and tutorials
- Listicles
- Interviews
- Ultimate Guides
- Case studies
- Product Reviews
- Comparisons
- News
- FAQs
- Tips
- Share your blog across your social media channels
- Utilize email marketing
- Network with other bloggers
- Guest blog
- Make use of SEO
- Utilize online paid advertisement
- Give relevant answers to questions asked in online forums and communities.
- Use a strong call to action
- Utilize lead magnets
- Mini-email courses
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Online webinars
- Exclusive contents
- Content updates
Yes, you can earn money online through blogging. Blogging is one of the sure ways to make money online. You get to work from home, work on your own time, become your boss and also make money while doing what you love.
- Through affiliate programs
- Sell digital products
- Offer services
- Sell advertisement spaces
- Sell physical products
- Thorough sponsored content and posts
There is no set time as to when you can monetize your blog. Because how intentional you are about your blog can influence a lot of things. But on average, it is said that it takes over a year to make a substantial income from blogging.
But if you sell products or services it will be a lot easier to monetize your blog quickly.
There is no set amount of monthly visitors you should have before you can monetize your blog.
you can monetize your blog from day one, you can wait till you have over 1000 or 10,000 monthly site visitors, you can wait till after 6 months or a year. It is up to you to decide.
Blog monetization is the process of making money or generating revenue from the content, product, and services displayed or promoted on your blog.
- Create and publish at least 15 to 20 original blog posts
- Regular and consistent posting of content
- Create SEO- friendly blog posts
- Authoritative backlinks
- Unique website design and structure
- Selling products and services.
- Online courses
- Affiliate marketing
- Offering coaching services
- Guest blogging
- WordPress
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Hubpages
- Tumblr
- Ghost
Any category of blog can be monetized, however, here are some common blog categories that can be monetized:
- Food blogs
- Health and fitness blogs
- Travel blogs
- Relationship blogs
- Parenting blogs
- Finance blogs
Yes, you can monetize your blog on WIX.
The blogging platform is flexible to allow the blogger to do with their blog what they choose to and it also involves monetizing it.
You can monetize your site by placing ads on your site affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and selling products and services.
On average, you can earn about $100 to $2000 in your first year depending on how hard you work, with time these earnings increase.
There is no set amount to how much you can earn from your blog. it depends on certain factors like your monetization plan. Your niche type, the type of traffic you get, and the source of traffic. These factors can influence how much you can earn from a blog.
A blog niche is simply a particular topic area that you will be focusing on and creating content around.
Yes, it is very important to have a blogging niche. It helps your progress as a blogger happen faster. You get to create relevant content for specific people, it will be easier to get engagement and also to monetize your blog.
Here are ways you can choose a profitable blog niche;
- Explore your interests and passion
- Think of ways you can provide a solution
- Research more about your interest and passion
- Identify your target audience
- Brainstorm products and services you can offer
- Find other people in your industry and learn from them.
The food blog has proven to be one of the most profitable blogs, although there are some other niches that are getting enough profit as well, like coaching, lifestyle, and even tech bloggers.
Ideally, having a niche makes it easier for you to establish your authority and garner the trust of your audience.
However, there are people who take time before deciding on a niche, and that’s fine so far your end goal will be to find a niche that works for you.
Pros of blogging without a niche
- You get to experiment and see what works for you.
- Your blog will be versatile and dynamic since you do not talk about the same thing all the time.
- There are no limitations and restrictions to what type of content you can put out.
Cons of blogging without a niche
- It is harder to rank on google if you do not have a niche-specific blog.
- It is harder to define what your audience needs and what type of content they want.
- It is harder to monetize a blog without a niche because you do not have a specific audience.
- It is easier to monetize your blog
- You are targeting a specific audience
- It is easier to create and add content
- It is easier to build a loyal community
- You have a better chance of SEO ranking
- You build authority in that specific niche
- Health and Fitness
- Travel
- Education
- DIY blogs
- Business and marketing
- Finance
- Entertainment
- Lifestyle
- Relationships
- Personal development.
Any category of blog can be monetized, however, here are some common blog categories that can be monetized:
- Food blogs
- Health and fitness blogs
- Travel blogs
- Relationship blogs
- Parenting blogs
- Finance blogs
Yes, you can monetize your blog on WIX.
The blogging platform is flexible to allow the blogger to do with their blog what they choose to and it also involves monetizing it.
You can monetize your site by placing ads on your site affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and selling products and services.
On average, you can earn about $100 to $2000 in your first year depending on how hard you work, with time these earnings increase.
There is no set amount to how much you can earn from your blog. it depends on certain factors like your monetization plan. Your niche type, the type of traffic you get, and the source of traffic. These factors can influence how much you can earn from a blog.
SEO tools are tools (apps, software, websites) that simplify SEO for website owners and also help with advanced SEO strategies that they need to rank higher in Search result pages and increase their domain authority.
SEO tools are used to carry out SEO and help with SEO activities like keyword research, Topic idea generation, content idea research, and backlinking. Some SEO tools like SEOptimizer and PageSpeed Insights help with off-page and technical SEO.
SEO tools work by;
- Providing data about the overall success of a website.
- Providing information on keywords, backlinks, and insights.
- Discovering areas of opportunity for ranking.
- Uncovering the problems associated with low ranking and visibility on Google.
- Helping resolve issues with the efficient functioning of your website
- Suggesting improvements for the optimal functioning of a website.
Yes, you can certainly do SEO on your own provided you get the necessary knowledge concerning how SEO is done. You can also employ the use of SEO tools for effective SEO optimization.
The benefits SEO provides ao numerous but a few of them are;
- It increases web and organic traffic.
- It improves the credibility of your website and you gain trust from customers.
- it helps your content reach your entire target audience.
- It helps improve search visibility.
- It is a long-term marketing strategy.
SEO is evolving and the internet is fast-paced. Ranking on Google is not a single-night process. But these are the following ways to improve your SEO skills and rank faster on google:
- Invest more time and resources to learn new things concerning SEO
- Start practicing when you are familiar with the basics of SEO
- Feed your brain and research often
- Be flexible, since websites are different, and learn to adapt and adopt different approaches for them.
- Update old content often
- Write relevant and authoritative content.
- Learn from other professionals in your field.
Here are ways you can include SEO in your website.
- Employ relevant keyword research
- Create captivating post titles and include your focus keywords.
- Include keywords in the meta description.
- Include heading tags to emphasize important subheadings.
- Include keywords throughout your post but avoid stuffing keywords in your post.
- Link back to your existing or related content.
- Include keywords in your Alt texts.
- Write high-quality content.
- Ghost
- Medium
Search engine optimization (SEO) works by optimizing every aspect of your website and content to make it easier for search engines to crawl, index and display your content in the top results on the search engine’s result pages (SERP) for specific queries.
Yes, SARMLife offers SEO courses for beginners to get familiar with SEO terms, processes, and strategies.
You can get familiar with our SEO courses now.
Yes, we found the need for business owners to learn SEO to upscale the digital market. This SEO course for business owners is specifically tailored to blogging strategies for entrepreneurs to increase online visibility and sales.
SEO is an aspect of digital marketing, and to have a very successful digital marketing strategy by utilizing SEO, you need to also work on your content marketing strategies, social media marketing and also utilize the use of paid advertisements.
Yes, SEO services are worth it.
These services are usually provided by SEO experts, freelancers, or certain agencies who are experts in the areas of SEO. These services are offered not only to increase organic traffic but they increase leads and sales.
The simple answer is yes, SEO can be automated.
Automated SEO involves the use of fully or semi-automated SEO software that implements SEO strategies, and handles tedious SEO tasks like site audits, checking of broken links, and keyword density.
Automating SEO helps you carry out the most time-consuming tasks with little effort on your part.
Yes, you can. You can practice SEO without a website by optimizing your social media platforms.
SEO goes beyond websites and blogs and involves any platform that uses search engine technology.
However, I would recommend that you have a website and integrate other aspects of SEO into it rather than having just your social media platforms optimized.
It depends. You have to first figure out what your business goals are and then weigh your budget. SEO can provide organic traffic long-term while SEM is like a paid version of SEO.
The main difference between SEO and SEM is that with SEM, you are able to pay for the exact placement you want, while for SEO, you need to work for it.
On-page SEO refers to the processes and actions you take on your website’s frontend to improve its ranking. These actions include keyword research, content creation, proper use of heading tags, meta descriptions, and URLs.
Off-page SEO refers to the actions that you take outside your website to boost and improve its ranking.
These actions can include link building, guest blogging, and sharing of content links on social media.
Here are essential SEO tips for beginners;
- Focus on relevant keywords
- Write high-quality content
- Include keywords in your title and meta description
- Use descriptive and short URLs
- Eliminate anything that can make your page slow.
- Include both internal and external links but remember to always link to a credible site.
- Focus on learning from your competitors and trying to do better
- Keep learning about SEO.
These are the parts of SEO you should prioritize;
- Your target audience, industry, and competitors
- Keyword research
- Analytics
- Mobile-friendly SEO
- Technical SEO
- Indexing
- High-quality content
The short answer is yes. SEO is important for any business, no matter the industry or competition. This is because SEO has become a huge part of any company’s marketing strategy, it helps people find you and what you offer easily.
SEO has changed a lot in so many ways and some of the notable changes include;
- High-quality contents now rank higher than quantity.
- Keyword stuffing is recognized and it causes your website ranking to decrease
- Local SEO is now essential and local searches are more common
- Mobile optimization is now essential
- Voice search is becoming very prevalent.
Some of the best practices of SEO include;
- Write a captivating title and meta description
- Optimize your images
- Adopt internal linking in your posts
- Make URLs short and SEO friendly
- Optimize page speed
- Update existing content
- Recreate blog posts into video content or formats.
To analyze your competitor’s SEO you need to;
- Recognize your true competitors
- Evaluate your competitor’s website and their top-performing pages
- Focus on keywords that are missing on your website
- Build an effective content strategy
- Track your progress, you can adopt regular keyword audits.
There is news that Google’s algorithm changes constantly, but most of these changes are minimal as they are trying to give customers the best experience. Google does not mention most of these minor updates but any major update is usually announced by Google.
One thing technical SEO errors do is prevent your website from performing as well as it should. These are ways you can find technical SEO errors;
- Check if the pages on your site are indexed
- Try inputting your sitename.com/robots.txt and checking for the error.
- Try checking for mistakes from web developers that leave your site at no index and make sure it is removed. Some apps can help scan all the pages on your site at once, like the screaming frog.
- Manually inspect the pages on your site and check if they are hiding important information behind an image.
- Check for broken links. You can utilize tools like the Google search console, Moz and Ahrefs.
- Audit and check for site and page speed using auditing tools.
The clear difference between on-page SEO and technical SEO is that on-page SEO is done on the website’s frontend to improve the ranking (keyword research and content creation), while technical SEO is the type of SEO that is done at the back end of the site to improve the performance of the website( page speed, responsive design).
Before utilizing SEO for your business and website, it is important to know the types of SEO that can drive results faster. Here are the 3 main types of SEO:
- on-page SEO: these are actions and processes you carry out on your site that positively impact your website’s performance and ranking.
- Off-page SEO: These are actions or optimization processes that are not done on the site but influence the site’s performance and ranking.
Technical SEO: this refers to the optimization of the site’s backend that helps the site run properly.
Calculating the Return on Investment for your SEO strategies is not a generic thing because it depends on what you have invested and your SEO goals.
The effects of SEO do not have a particular time frame to work, it all depends.
Most experts say it takes websites 4–6 months to see the effect of SEO, but that might not be the case for all sites.
Some websites that have keywords that are less competitive and are SEO optimized might start seeing or noticing results in a few weeks or months but very competitive keywords might take longer up to 6 months or even a year.
The short answer is none is better than the other; they are interlinked.
SEO helps boost the reach of businesses and websites across search engines like google, bing, yahoo, etc.
And SMO, which is social media optimization, helps businesses promote their brand and also reach their potential clients on social media.
Here are some of the very best WordPress SEO plugins;
- Yoast SEO
- Rank math
- Squirrly SEO plugin
- SEO press
- SEMrush writing assistant
- All in one SEO
- Ahrefs plugin
- W3 total cache
Some of the beginner-friendly SEO plugins are :
- All in one SEO
- Yoast SEO
- SEO press
- Squirrly SEO
- Rank math
Yes, you can use more than one SEO plugin on your website.
However, to avoid plugin conflict and/or system breakdown, it is best to limit the number of plugins on your website to be as minimal as possible.
Neither one of these SEO plugins is a bad choice and both are one of the best WordPress SEO plugins but it depends on your individual needs.
One of the best SEO plugins that are very easy to use and less complicated for beginners is the all-in-one SEO plugin. It has been helping people with no SEO experience get their pages to rank higher.
SEO plugins are not enough for website/content optimization, but they are enough if you are just interested in basic SEO. There are times when you have to outsource or manually adjust some of your website settings. For example, SEO plugins can show you that your page has some technical issues, so it’s up to you to seek out the services of a technical SEO expert to fix these bugs.
SEO plugins help to optimize websites and content for search engines.
Here are some of the roles that SEO plugins play in our websites;
- Keyword analysis and optimization
- Readability
- Custom title tags
- Meta description tags
- SEO-friendly title tags
- Add Noindex to low-value pages
Here are some of the most common SEO plugins that bloggers use;
- Yoast SEO
- Monster insights
- Optimole
- Google XML sitemaps
SEO plugins act as add-ons to your websites to increase its SEO functionality and help you easily implement SEO strategies on your site.
RankMath is the best SEO plugin for me right now. It’s beginner friendly and has a simple user interface. However, the best SEO plugin for you might vary depending on what your SEO goal is and its features.
Other good SEO plugins are Yoast SEO, Ahrefs, AIOSEO, and SEMRush.
Plugins are very important for the overall performance of WordPress websites. it allows users to customize the functionality and features of their sites. They bring in functions like increasing site speed, improving SEO, and strengthening site security.
So yes, plugins are needed for the improvement of WordPress functionality.
Yes, it does. Every website owner is interested in having their website rank high on search engines. And that is what SEO plugins help with; they boost page or site speed, augment SEO efforts, improve site security and help in the general performance of the content and site.
Blog marketing is a marketing strategy that helps reach a target audience, direct attention to a business, address potential clients, and advertise a website, brand, business, products, and services using a blog.
Blogs help with marketing in the following ways;
- They drive traffic
- Service and product exposure
- It boosts brand awareness and sales
- It builds authority
- It builds trust and loyalty from customers.
No, blogging and content marketing are different, but they complement each other. They are both methods of creating and distributing content to drive traffic and increase brand awareness.
Content marketing involves creating high-quality content in form of articles, videos, podcasts, and other media to increase brand awareness. It can be shared on social channels, on a website, as an email newsletter, etc.
While blogging is an aspect of content marketing that uses a blog as its primary mode of distribution.
Here are some of the ways you can reach your target audience;
- Identify your target audience
- Create high-quality and relevant content
- Make use of targeted advertisement
- Utilize hashtags across social media channels
- Adopt a referral system
- Consider partnerships
Below are some of the types of blogs;
- Personal blogs
- Business/ Corporate Blog
- Niche blog
- Personal brand/ professional blog
- Guest host blogs
- Affiliate/review blogs
- Media blogs
- Case study blogs
Some of the blog marketing strategies that work include;
- Identify your target audience
- Include Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Guest blogging
- Network with bloggers
- Email marketing
- Leverage social media
- Know and learn from your competitors
The following ways are important in promoting your blog;
- Utilize SEO
- Utilize email marketing
- Share your blog across your social media pages
- Include online paid promotion
- Promote your blog on online forums, communities, and groups
- Guest blog
- Network with other bloggers
You can promote your blog without social media using the following steps;
- Optimize for search terms and results
- Write for online publications eg. guest blogging
- Highlight part of your blog posts in emailings
- Contribute to offline newsletter and publications
- Speak and contribute at conferences
Here are the steps involved in starting a blog;
- Choose a blog name
- Find your niche
- Choose a hosting platform
- Pick your domain name
- Setup and design your blog
- Brainstorm topic ideas
- Write your first blog posts
- Promote your new blog
These steps will help gain more engagement from your audience;
- Create and post relevant engaging content
- Respond to each of your comments
- Always include a call to action( like, comment and share)
- Post consistently
- Start up conversations
- Optimize your content for more engagement
- Share relevant content within your niche
- Host giveaways and referral contests.
Organic traffic is when you get visitors and gain traffic on your website without paying for it. This is an unpaid source of traffic.
These are some of the reasons why your website traffic is not increasing;
- Your website speed is slow
- You are focusing on high-competitive keywords
- Your website is not easy to use or it isn’t mobile-friendly.
- You have broken links
- You do not update your content regularly
- Your content is not SEO optimized
- Write more relevant content
- Promote on social media
- Write compelling titles
- Incorporate keywords
- Focus on your niche and target audience
- Include social sharing buttons and add a call to action
- Write for other blogs (guest blogging)
- Invite guest contributors.
YES, new blogs can get up to 1,000 impressions and even more. If you leverage Google’s ranking factors, use the right blogging platform, build up your site to be 100% SEO friendly, and write a very good SEO-optimized blog post; you can have more than 1,000 impressions.
Organic traffic is only enough for your blog if all you are interested in is visibility but, if you want more sales and a huge online presence, you have to explore other aspects of SEO including link building and email marketing.
Below are some of the powerful tools that can help grow the audience and increase engagement;
- Unum- brand building tool
- SproutSocial – a content scheduling tool
- Hubspot -email marketing tool
- BuzzSumo- monitoring and research tool
- Canva – a design tool
- SEMrush- SEO tool
- Unbounce-landing page designing tool
On average, it is said that it takes 2-6 months to rank on google.
Many factors like proper knowledge of SEO, valuable content, consistency, domain authority, and less competitive keywords can influence this timeline and make you rank earlier.
- Your website is not indexed by google
- Google updated its algorithm
- You are focusing on the wrong keywords
- You do not have any authoritative backlinks
- Seo is not properly utilized
- You are not posting new content regularly.
- You might have made new changes to your website
- There was a significant update in Google’s algorithm.
- There is an incorrect robots.txt rule
- There is an XML sitemap change
- You have so many broken links
- You are being penalized
- Your content is outdated
Some of the most important google ranking factors include;
- High-quality and valuable content
- Keywords incorporated in H1
- Length of the content
- Mobile usability
- In-depth content
- Website domain authority
- Relevant and authoritative backlinks
- Site Security
- Great site user experience
- Schema markup/ structured data
Social media does not directly affect your website ranking but social shares work to bring more brand awareness, visibility, and exposure which in turn drives traffic to a website. Social media plays a huge role in the general SEO strategy but it is not a ranking factor nor does it affect a website’s rankings.
Yes, duplicate content affects your website rankings.
Since there is identical content on the same website, it can confuse search engines and force them to choose which of the identical pages they will rank on its search result page.