Nowadays, everyone seems to be running a blog or two. And there is good reason for them to be doing so. Blogs not only help you to earn money and gain a lot of online popularity, they also aid you in speaking your ‘truth’. They allow you, in other words, to write about the things that you’re passionate about – and to connect with like-minded people. With Spectrum Packages or other ISP subscription, you too can set up your own online personal space, and turn the world into your audience.
An ‘audience’ that is fully captivated by your unique gifts, and how you artistically spin them to make your mark.
Some Blogging Tips and the Need for Ranking Well
Setting up a blog is easy, and often does not require any (or a lot of) money. The internet is currently flooded with a number of free blogging platforms that make this happen. Sites like WordPress.com, Blogger.com and Medium are some good examples. But writing articles or composing multimedia soundbites for your blog is only the first step. In order to make your work go fully public, you need to make use of a number of effective promotional strategies. These include using common SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (paid search engine marketing) tactics to improve blog rankings.
In the search marketing field, ‘Ranking’ refers to the position in which a particular blog or website’s URL address appears in SERPs (search engine results pages). Whenever you run a Google or Bing search, the pages that turn up against your query are the SERPs. On these URL indexes (which are made up of both free/organic and paid advertisement) portions, the first three search results are ‘where the money is’.
Most surfers don’t even bother looking past these first few results. This is why companies consider ranking for these top positions crucial for their online marketing goals. Because they capture the highest levels of surfer attention against every online search. More search interest directly translates into more visitors traveling to their sites, which of course means more eventual sales.
And the fun part about ranking is that most of the effort is free. Provided that you’re familiar with basic SEO techniques, or have a specialist working for you.
Five Popular Blog Ranking Techniques
In this post, I’ll list 5 common strategies for improving your blog ranking game. And in order to make use of them, you don’t have to be an expert search marketer. Just some basic blogging (which obviously includes the art of writing well!) and computing skills will do.
One trait that you should develop fully before attempting to improve your blog rankings is patience. Because this effort takes time to bear visible results – often in the months’ timeframe. And if you’re really interested in increasing site-visitations to your blog, consider running a few targeted Google and social media paid ads.
- Use Low Search Volume & Long Tail Keywords
Keywords form the crucial backbone of any online marketing project. They are the search terms that people enter into browser search fields to conduct their research. Keywords are generally of three kinds: short, medium and long tail – based on their length. Long tail keywords are more converting, in that they are usually associated with targeted customer outreach and instant sales. But they are also generally harder to insert into blog text pieces.
When blogging, it is always a good idea to make use of the low search volume/long tail keywords variety to rank high in SERPs.
- Good Keywords Placement
When writing blogs for your page, it is always a good idea to insert keywords in specific places that allow them to rank well. These positions include the H1 (main title/blog heading) and H2 (subheading) tags, along with the very first paragraph of the piece. Generally speaking, a keyword frequency of 1 per 100 words is usually considered a safe bet. But going overboard this range can result in ‘keyword stuffing’, which sends a negative signal to the search engine.
In addition to deciding on proper positioning, it is important to ensure that keywords are fitted ‘organically’ into the text. This means that they should not seem too obvious or promotional to the reading audience.
- Writing Original, Simple and Lengthy Content
Writing completely original content prevents the risk of getting penalized for plagiarism. But writing in simple language is an even more important concern for the sake of readability.
Search engines generally prefer lengthy content with a lot of links from other websites diverting traffic to them. They consider such content pieces to be more credible sources of information.
- Social Media Postings
Sharing your blog URLs on all your social media feeds the minute they get published is a good way to publicize them. And the more incoming traffic you receive on your blogs, the more their search ranking goes up.
- Blogging Frequently
If you want your blogs to rank well, you need to pen new articles frequently. This sends a positive ranking signal to search engine bots, which then start visiting your site constantly for new updates.
If you’re looking for good, long-term blog rankings, consider putting these five pointers into practice today. Through inserting ‘affiliate links’ for Starbucks Coffee, Spectrum Voice, Warner Bros. Studios, and just about any business enterprise, you can even earn some cash on the wayside. Neat, right?