Does just the thought of SEO spook you? With over 4 million blog posts being published each day and over 5 billion Google searches being made, how do you stand out?
While it may take hours to write your blog, and find those photos, it’s the fifteen minutes spent on optimizing each post, through the SEO process (Search Engine Optimization) that’s most important. It’s the magic you need to perform on your post to make Google likely to include you as one of the top results when someone searches for the topic you’re writing about.
SEO is the process of optimizing your website using strategies, tactics, and techniques to obtain organic (unpaid) traffic to your site. Doing it well increases the quality of the traffic you bring in as well.
Think about how many searches you conduct each day?
And then the millions of folks, like you, searching on Google (and other search engines) daily, so showing up on the front page of a search engine can make or break a business. The point is, it is common practice for Internet users not to click through pages and pages of search results, so where you rank in the search results is key.
The topic is L A R G E.
To make life a bit easier and make the SEO process a bit less spooky, here's a simplified checklist.
1) Brainstorm. List keywords. Consider how your audience may query verbally (for example to Alexa).
2) Define your audience: Who are they, what do they want, what are their problems?
3) Describe your products: Using multiple words, what do they receive by visiting your site, or buying your product?
4) Describe your site and brand: How are you different from your competition?
Look at your competitor’s websites: What keywords are they using and avoiding?
5) Describe your products and services in a variety of ways: Use synonyms or related words.
Now prioritize
Make sure your keywords are…
BROAD enough that people will actually search for them.
SPECIFIC enough that you could potentially rank in the first page of results.
RELEVANT to your words and avoid those that have a low search volume.
Add keywords
Did you know that search engines look at where keywords appear on your site, and they prioritize some areas over others?
In order of importance, here’s where you should add them to your site:
• Site domain
• Site title
• URL page slugs
• SEO title and page title
• SEO site page and item descriptions
• Headings
• Body text
• Categories
• Captions and titles for Image Blocks
• Gallery Blocks
• Gallery Pages
• File names for files and images
• Alt text
Add compelling keywords to the description meta text that may appear below the site title in search results, and use Tags to help visitors navigate and find things on your site. Although these areas don't affect search engine ranking they do help in other ways.
Remember to add keywords in a natural way that makes sense to people. Try tools such as Google Ads Keyword Planner or Google Search Keywords as well. Did you know Google bolds searched-for keywords in the description that shows in search results to encourage the searcher to click through to your website?
For more information on social media and SEO resources, check out https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-seo/.
Snap your SEO into action for 2020. Contact us today at bbrand@brandmarkstudios.com!
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