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SEO For Blogs or How To Make Your Blog Rank In Google

SEO for blogs includes many aspects like thorough keyword research, writing awesome content, link building, technical SEO, etc. Each of these aspects deserves a separate blog post. So we won’t try to hit all the hot buttons at once and focus on the On-Page SEO at first turn.

Do you agree? Then we begin.

Like to watch videos more than reading walls of text? This one is definitely worth your attention: “13 SEO Tips That Actually Work in 2018 and Beyond”.

Quality content is important, but it won’t work without proper On-Page SEO optimization both for Google and users.

Most of the blogs run on WordPress today, so if yours is not an exception, I recommend you to install Yoast’s free SEO plugin. It will help you implement the tips listed below straightforward. For Safari SEO London, installing Yoast is the first step towards optimized metadata for the WordPress website. The plugin allows for greater control and simple accessibility of the crucial on-page elements that affect search engine visibility.

Your Main Keyword Should Appear in Your Page’s Title Tag as Well as Other Important Places

I don’t say that pages never rank without the keyword in the title tag. However, there is a significant correlation between keywords in the title tag and rankings. What you need to do is make sure that every page on your site has a unique title tag and that your main keyword is included once. Please note, once is enough.

I advise you to do the same with your meta description and H1 tags. Ideally, include one meta description and H1 containing your target keyword per page.

Get More Clicks Writing Irresistible Titles

If you want to grab some extra clicks, make your title really cool. I know that you are limited to only 55 characters, but with a bit of fantasy, you can tell so much with them.

Try to make it compelling, attention-grabbing, and triggering emotions.

Do you need inspiration? Browse through some of the viral sites on Facebook. The guys constantly monitor click-through rates and split test.

A good way to come up with a good title is to write down 10-15-25 of them and then test out the best two or three before making a final decision.

I have one more tip as to writing a terrific title for you.

Very often all the page titles in one niche follow a certain format or pattern. Do something different and it will help your titles look different in the SERPs. Standing out is always good and attracts more clicks.

The cool thing is – if you manage to make your click-through rate go up, then your ranking will follow too.

Avoid Meta Tag Truncation

You have 512px in desktop search results for your Title Tags. After that, they truncate and start to look ugly.

meta tag

The same happens to meta descriptions. They truncate at around 923px.

meta tags

But the ugly look is not the worst thing that happens. Truncation can have a serious negative impact on your CTR’s.

The takeaway here is – keep your title tags around 512px and meta descriptions around 923px to minimize truncation in the search results. Let’s try to put it in figures for better understanding – keep your title tags <55 characters and meta descriptions <155 and you’ll be ok.

The Meta Description Is a Good Place to Sell Your Content

You should take your meta description as an ad in the search results. Sometimes Google just picks up some text from your page that seems to better match the query, but sometimes it does show up.  

If you are lucky enough and your meta description shows up, it may get you some extra clicks (if it’s well-written, of course).

You need to write a unique, compelling meta description for each page on your site. May it communicate USPs/value and trap click‐throughs.

I have advice for you. If you aim to optimize CTR, split test and experiment with different meta description formats.

Mind Your Content

People come to your website to see/read your content. It should be accessible. I mean you must make sure that the visitors can find whatever they are searching for in an instant, right after hitting your page from a search.

Your title should be visible without scrolling. Please also minimize the use of anything that takes away the user’s attention from your content. What may it be?

  • Annoying ads. Google hate everything that irritates the users.
  • Pop‐ups. If applied right, pop-ups increase the conversions. But don’t use too many of them as they stir only one desire – go to the back button. You can opt for delayed and/or exit intent pop‐ups.
  • Interstitials. These are full-screen ads. Google may even penalize your site if you display interstitial ads to users on mobile devices. The ads mustn’t block users from reading content as soon as they enter your page.

Your Website Must Look Great on All Devices

Optimize your website for mobile devices. It must perform correctly across a wide range of modern devices, operating systems, and screen sizes.

And don’t forget about the users with disabilities. It should be accessible to them.

Remember about Google’s mobile‐first index and that the responsiveness is a priority.

Google index

Optimize Your Images and Get More Traffic from Google

Many people research web browsing through Google images. But Google is not smart enough yet to figure out what’s in your images. Tell them by adding descriptive alt text to your images and yield extra traffic from Google image search.

Furthermore, you can give Google an indication of what’s depicted by using descriptive filenames. Here is a good and a bad example for you:

  • Good: img src=”photo-of-an-imp.jpg” alt=”photo of an imp”
  • Bad: img src=”1660777.jpg” alt””>

The hack is really simple but necessary.

What’s more, compress and optimize your images for quick download. Loading speed is one more ranking factor not only in Google Images but also regular search.

To make this easy I recommend you using a WordPress Imagify plugin. This plugin will automatically compress your images as you upload them.

If you need to compress the existing images by 50%, use their bulk optimization tool.

Keep your URLs Short and Descriptive

For instance, we, at Ahrefs tend to go for 2–3 word URLs separated by hyphens. Here is an example for you – ahrefs.com/keyword-difficulty.

Choose a Cool, Branded Domain Name

The SEO benefit of having your keyword in your domain name is almost next to nothing today.

We can prove the above statement with our on‐page SEO study, which found some correlation. But branded keywords skewed the figures a bit.

I advise you to go for a cool, branded domain rather than something like this:  yourexactmatchkeyword.com.

Even if we set the SEO value aside, it looks much better.

Implement Google Recommendations to Improve Your Site’s Load Speed

Nobody will argue that page load speed is a ranking factor. To put it simply, a faster loading page will outrank a slower loading page if all other characteristics are equal.

Do you know how to optimize your load speed?

Check the current speed of your site first. You can use Google Pagespeed Insights for this.

The tool will give you some recommendations to implement (if they make sense for you).

Pingdom or Google Analytics are two other alternatives that can help you measure current load speed.

It’s important to note the importance of having a good hosting provider. Here is a useful and comprehensive review of host performance that will help to make the right choice.

Install a Caching Plugin if your blog is running on WordPress

Why installing a good caching plugin? Because it will make a huge difference to your site’s speed.

WordPress is rather heavy on database calls without a caching plugin. This quickly slows down your site when you’re having a good traffic day and want things to be fast.

A caching plugin serves static HTML versions of your pages to visitors. They load instantly, which means your server can deal with much higher traffic volumes.

I would recommend installing WP Rocket. It’s not free, but it’s the best from my viewpoint.

Set Up AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages

What are accelerated mobile pages? In plain English, they are stripped down versions of web pages that load super fast on mobile.

Google is likely to give a ranking boost to AMP ready pages in the future as they have already started marking accelerated pages in search.

Do you see the AMP flag below?

AMP

Again, if your site is running on WordPress, you can use the free plugin to set up AMP hassle-free.

Find High Ranking Keywords with CTR that Is Below Average and Boost Their Traffic

Do you use Google Search Console? The search analytics report is perhaps the most useful report there.

You can find not only quick wins but use the report to find keywords that have below average CTR for their ranking position.

Order the report by position and look for keywords that rank in the top 5 spots with a low click‐through rate.

Chitika

When you find them, split test different title and meta description variations to boost your click‐throughs and collect some extra search traffic.

If You Will Update Your Content Regularly, You Will Get a Big Traffic Boost

This is obvious, but I will utter the last tip all the same. Update your old/archive content regularly, keep it fresh, relevant and “rank-worthy”.

Check out this case study and get to know how simple updating of the old content can lead to a big boost in search traffic.

pageviews

Over to You

I guess it’s time to wrap this up. Just a few more final tips to keep your SEO curve moving upwards.

Never stop to learn. There are plenty of great SEO blogs that offer free advice… Subscribe to their newsletters and be aware of all latest SEO trends.

Things change lightning fast in the SEO world, so you should be always up-to-date. Read industry studies, this will help.

Never give up. You need to invest your efforts and time to make your SEO effective. But you will never regret that. High ROI will become a good reward.

Don’t let scammers cheat you. Shady tactics that sound too good to be true don’t work, so avoid them.  

Don’t spam as spammers are not cool.

That’s it 🙂

If you have any working SEO tips to add to the list, please don’t be shy to leave them in the comments.

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