- Optimize your blog’s anatomy
Your blog must be suitable both for people and search engines. Let’s start with the title. It must include 40-59 characters and be as catchy and relevant as possible. It should attract attention and display the main idea of the article/post.
Not anyone can write catchy titles, it’s not easy to attract users by 3 or 5 words, that’s why you can have a second chance. Try to do your best and describe the main idea by writing a great introduction.
To make users click on the title and go to your blog doesn’t mean that you gain the aim. You need to encourage them to read the blog and don’t let him or her close the tab after reading one sentence. So, the Lead must be the most attractive and informative part of the whole article. Read this article to learn how to write a perfect lead: How to Write a Lead: 10 Dos, 10 Don’ts, 10 Good Examples
Remember about Keywords. Don’t overdo this as it can both spoil your article, make it unreadable and make the blog visible, attracting new users. So, let’s follow some rules:
- Preferably place them at the beginning of the passage. Put them neatly in the intro and within 100 words in your core. Repeat them in conclusion as well
- Don’t use too many keywords, the era when everybody considers phrases like “we will show you how to earn money and how to earn money quickly, learn with us how to become rich” aren’t a winning strategy anymore. Search engines can easily determine the quality of such articles for readers and won’t rank the blog at all.
- Use keywords for describing the images. Fill in ALT text and replace unwinnable “picture56837” with “TravelLondon”. Your images will be visible to search engines and will help you to rank higher.
The conclusion of the article must be as interesting and catchy as its beginning, so summarize the main idea and leave the useful links to the other your blog posts or articles that can be useful for these readers.
The problem of choosing the right keywords is always in the blogger’s mind. You don’t need to target 1,500 keywords at the same time. Depending on the niche you are working on, try to focus on a few dozens firstly. If you see that this tactic doesn’t work, try to get new ideas from the tool. For this purpose, I use the Keyword Finder section at RankBrew as it always gives me necessary insights.
2. Spy on Competitors
Your “enemies” can bring you a lot of value, so try to figure out what SEO strategies they are using, what keywords they are targeting, etc. Ideas on introduction, title and description can come to your mind after the competitors’ exploring. Tools can help you with this a lot as you may see how many visits your competitors get, how visitors reach out to their blogs (paid, organic, social visits). Use extension of Similar Web or Competitor Inspector and Top Analyzer sections from RankActive, the group of these tools always help me to get comprehensive information regarding my project’s competitors
3. Become a part of the community
Don’t stand apart from your audience and the community like-minders. Cooperate with other bloggers, try guest posting and take part in different projects. In other words, be active. To gain popularity doesn’t mean to write an article and add keywords to it. The popularity often depends on your activity behind just the blog posts, so respond to the comments, be active on social media and try to show your audience that there is a personality behind the blog.
See Also: LTR magazine