28 tips to improve your SEO
SEO is an essential part of any good marketing strategy, yet these three famous letters have often been associated with a somewhat obscure science.
But in recent years, SEO has evolved a lot: it has become a logical science, necessary to improve the experience of web users. By following certain tips and knowing a few technical optimizations, getting a blog post in the first results of search engines is within everyone's reach.
With the help of this list of SEO tips, you will be able to improve your visitors' experience on your blog posts and increase your natural traffic. But first, here's a quick reminder of the importance of SEO.
What is SEO?
1 - Do a keyword research
Impossible to start writing an article without first doing a keyword research.
Keyword research helps you understand the expectations and needs of your potential visitors. By analyzing the different keywords and their volume of traffic, you can choose a subject for your article that will match the searches of Internet users.
To rank your article at the top of search results, choose a unique topic per article to be sure to provide your visitors with a complete and targeted solution.
Google keyword suggestion
To do a keyword research, use tools like Google Adwords or SEMRush. It can also be very useful to type the keyword for which you want to rank your article in the Google search bar: you will be able to identify the different suggestions and variations that users are looking for and adapt the angle of your article.
2 - analyze the competition
When you have identified a targeted and sufficiently researched keyword, analyze the competition in the search results for that keyword. By typing your keyword into Google, you will get a very good overview of the competition.
You must take into account the authority of the websites that are referencing for the targeted keyword. Over time and with your research, you will be able to develop your sense of intuition regarding your SEO possibilities in relation to the competition.
For example, if you are an owner of a small hotel in Lyon, it will be particularly difficult to get your website referenced for the very competitive keyword "hotel Lyon" because very high authority sites like trivago or Booking are already arguing. the first places. Then choose a long tail keyword such as "bed and breakfast in Lyon Fourvière" for which there will certainly be less searches, but also much less competition. This will allow you to get quality traffic more easily.
3 - produce quality content
Now that you've identified and targeted the topic of your blog post, it's time to get down to writing. Do some research on forums, analyze online discussions and use your customers' feedback to answer as many questions as possible that your readers might have on the topic of your article.
You need to come across as an expert who answers in depth the questions that your readers are asking.
Do not forget that Google tracks the activity of an Internet user on the web: if your visitor leaves your site, then consults the following site without modifying his search, Google will deduce that you have not provided the answer sought by the internet user. Your page will then be demoted by the search engines, since your article does not seem to provide a solution to visitors.
So do everything you can to provide as many responses as possible to your readership in a quality article.
4 - pay attention to the length of your content
To provide visitors with all the answers, it is often recommended that you write an article of a substantial length. Depending on the keyword targeted, a blog post should be 800-900 words on average to get good SEO.
But be careful, this is not about writing to simply meet this quota, quality always takes precedence over quantity.
5 - Make the article readable
If your article is long enough, make it readable for easier reading and to avoid a high bounce rate, which could again penalize your SEO.
To do this, ventilate the text, add colors and avoid using a font that is too small or a color that makes it difficult to read. Your reader shouldn't have to make special efforts to read your blog post. There are probably many resources online on the same topic, so don't give it an excuse to leave your site and check out an article written by your competition.
6 - Add images
To make reading easier, nothing better than adding pictures to illustrate your explanations or each of your paragraphs. Well-chosen images will make it easier for the reader to remember your content and can add real value. Better yet, you can create infographics to illustrate your articles.
Indeed, if a travel agency writes a blog article on "the 20 most heavenly places in the world" but does not include any photos, it is highly unlikely that its article will obtain a good referencing because it does not. will not meet the needs of an Internet user in search of escape.
7 - Compress the images
Images are essential to a blog post, they help give readers more context.
However, the images have a negative impact on the lives
esse loading the blog post or website. To avoid this, be sure to compress the images. To compress your images, use TinyPNG.
8 - Add the alt attribute to your images
In a blog post, it is necessary to add the alt attribute to your images. This is because search engine crawlers cannot see or understand the content of an image. It is therefore necessary to add an alt so that the crawlers receive an indication of their content.
A simple two to three word sentence is sufficient to complete this attribute. Additionally, the alt attribute will be especially important if your site cannot load the images. Visitors will then have at least one piece of information about the content that should have appeared on your page.
9 - Add videos to your pages
Videos are very interesting and can have a positive impact on the SEO of your blog posts.
Indeed, they make it possible to increase the time spent on the page, which is a referencing criterion.
10 - Optimize your article with a keyword (title, headings, URL)
Once you have defined the framework of your article, it will be necessary to optimize it so that it is referenced for the keyword chosen in the research pages. If you want to reference your article for a long tail keyword containing the term "lead generation", it is necessary that this term appear in several elements of your article. Readers (and search engines) should understand that you are addressing the topic throughout your article.
Insert the keyword for which you want to reference your article in the URL and in the title of the page (title tag). Also, don't forget to mention it in the section titles.
On the other hand, be careful not to over-optimize your blog post, it is not about keyword stuffing, an SEO practice heavily penalized by Google's guidelines. Mention your keyword enough on your page for it to be visible, but not too much so that the reading of the text becomes too heavy and repetitive. It's all about balance.
To avoid keyword stuffing, find phrases comparable to your keyword that will allow you to broaden your SEO reach while avoiding off-topic.
11 - Fill in the meta description tag
The meta description tag allows you to personalize the text that describes a result in the search pages.
metadescription-3.png
A catchy and optimized meta description tag, that is, one that contains a certain number of searched keywords and related to your article, will have a direct impact on your CTR on Google ... so don't forget to complete and optimize it.
12 - Use short and understandable URLs
Search engines don't directly penalize long URLs, but short, understandable URLs make the user experience easier, which impacts your SEO.
Ideally, try to choose URLs that are less than 80 characters. It might sound like a lot, but it's not so much if your domain name is long ...
Do not forget to add to your URL the keywords that define the main theme of your article. However, avoid keyword stuffing in your URL, this practice is heavily penalized by Google guidelines.
13 - Avoid forbidden characters in your URLs
Before you even read your article, the URL gives a clue to your readers about the content of your blog post. An understandable and optimized URL therefore promotes user experience and SEO.
In some browsers, URLs do not support all characters and to prevent them from turning into a string of characters like "% 20", you should not use accents, spaces, or most of the characters. special characters. For a full list, see this article.
14 - watch out for duplicate content
Make sure that all content posted on your site is unique content. Search engines penalize duplicating content!
If you post content from external contributors to your blog, make sure that they are always providing you with unique content. You can easily verify that content is not duplicated by copying and pasting certain phrases from the blog post into the Google search bar. If a similar post shows up in the search results, you'll know you're dealing with duplicate content, which shouldn't be posted on your blog.
If for some reason you still want to post duplicate content on your blog (such as an update to a similar post posted last year), add the canonical tag to your original post to let people know. rec engines
search and avoid being penalized.
15 - Put unrecognized external links in nofollow
With the Penguin update (now fully integrated into its algorithm), Google is hunting down shoddy links, integrated for the sole purpose of influencing SEO. If a link isn't providing value to your readers, reconsider integrating it on your site.
In addition, sponsored dofollow links should be banned from your blog. Only reliable, quality external links that provide users with added value should be added in dofollow.
If you are not sure of the quality of a site but still want to add a link, indicate it to search engines using the nofollow attribute, which will prevent the transfer of authority (link juice) from your blog at the site mentioned.
To identify and differentiate nofollows links from dofollows links at a glance, use the Linkparser add-on.
16 - Add internal links
Getting visitors to your blog isn't always that easy - it takes a lot of creativity on social media and a lot of SEO work to position your blog posts in the top search results. Once your articles get enough visitors, try to keep them on your blog for as long as possible.
To do this, include many internal links in your articles in order to increase internal navigation and the time spent on your site (two Google SEO factors).
Your visitors will be able to discover other articles (perhaps less well referenced but just as interesting) and you will increase the number of your page views.
17 - remove broken links
When you add links to your site, whether internal or external, the URL of the page you are directing your users to may be changed or removed.
To avoid a bad user experience, check your blog regularly for broken links and edit or delete them if necessary.
18 - Add redirects
If you want to edit one of your pages and move it to another section of your blog or just change the URL, don't forget to add 301 redirects to avoid 404 error pages.
In SEO, 301 redirects will transfer authority and traffic from your old page to the new one. However, do not create too many successive redirects as they could increase the loading time of your pages.
19 - Create an article conducive to sharing on social networks
Officially, shares on social networks are not a direct SEO factor. However, if an article receives a lot of traffic and lots of social media signals, search engines will be more likely to improve their position on search engine results pages.
You will therefore need to produce articles that appeal to your audience: this is the best way to ensure good SEO for the keywords you are targeting.
20 - keep an eye on getting links
Of course, link acquisition has a strong impact on SEO. If you get natural links from high authority sites there is a good chance that they will have a positive impact on your article's SEO.
On the other hand, watch for links that could penalize your blog by doing a regular audit of your link portfolio.
21 - Optimize the loading speed of your pages
One of the most important SEO factors is a page load speed. Indeed, what happens if a page takes an unusually long time to load? You will lose patience and leave the domain without even having reached the desired page.
A study by Kissmetrics found that with a load time of 3 seconds or more, 40% of users leave the site before its content has been displayed. Every second counts and to improve the experience of your users and your SEO, you need to optimize the loading speed of your blog as much as possible.
What are the things that are most likely to slow down your page load speed? These are the images so don't forget to reduce their size so as not to penalize the loading speed of your article (on average, 900px is more than enough).
To test your blog's loading speed, rate your site using our Website Grader tool.
22 - Adapt your site for mobiles
For a long time now, mobile has been very important to Google. If your website is not compatible with mobile viewing by default, it will be particularly difficult to rank your article in the first results of search engines.
Adopt a plBlog ateform that can adapt your design to the mobile format dynamically and automatically thanks to a responsive site or in AMP format.
23 - Optimize your article after publication
If you've followed all of the tips mentioned above, you should get good SEO results. However, your work does not end there ...
Monitor the performance of your blog post and perform regular optimization. Determine the keywords for which your article is referencing and adapt its content according to the keywords searched and the competition. A well-done SEO optimization can have significant results on your natural traffic.
24 - Become an expert on a particular subject
To determine SEO, Google also observes the authority of a domain according to a certain theme.
For example, if your business blog has a hundred articles related to marketing, it will be much easier for you to rank well an article on inbound marketing than a blogger who generally writes about the travel industry. . Google will identify you as a subject matter expert and trust your content.
It is therefore necessary to be consistent in the themes chosen for the publication of articles on your blog. You can't write about all topics, focus primarily on the ones you are proficient in.
25 - Create pillar pages
To increase the SEO of your blog posts, create a pillar page and topic groups strategy.
Thanks to the internal networking between several blog articles on the same theme, you can transfer authority to an article that serves as a pillar page.
Find out how to create pillar pages with this article.
26 - Use an HTTPS domain
Domains secured under https: // have better SEO performance.
Indeed, since 2014 Google considers that HTTPS is a referencing criterion. It is therefore recommended to switch from HTTP to HTTPS.
27 - Create a sitemap file
To help search engines rank your website or blog, create a sitemap file.
A sitemap is a file generally named sitemap.xml which lists all the URLs of a website. Thanks to this sitemap protocol, search engine robots can easily crawl the different pages of a website.
28 - Strictly follow Google's guidelines
SEO is evolving very quickly: what was true last month is not necessarily true today. It is therefore very important to inform yourself on a regular basis to avoid applying obsolete SEO techniques. Follow Google's guidelines to the letter and don't try to cheat the system or you risk getting penalized.
To stay up to date with Google updates and the latest marketing trends, check out this selection of Digital Marketing blogs or subscribe to our blog newsletter.
You now have all the elements in hand to write effective articles. To go further, download this free guide and find out which SEO strategies to put in place.
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