I think it’s safe to assume we all know what SEO is and how important it is for a marketer. Understanding SEO is crucial for any business to increase traffic and awareness. What did you type into the search engine to arrive at this page? Or did you click through a previous blog post of ours? Both practices implement SEO, also known as search engine optimization. It is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Understanding and implementing SEO is a consistent practice as Google’s algorithms are constantly updated. Among this, we have 11 other modern SEO tips for your blog and website!
First, let’s discuss the types of SEO:
- On-page SEO: Focuses on the content on the page, and how to optimize it to help boost ranking for specific keywords.
- Off-page SEO: Focuses on the links that are directing to the website from elsewhere on the internet, also referred to as “backlinks.” The number of backlinks and publishers carrying those links help you build trust in the eyes of a search engine.
- Technical SEO: Focuses on a website’s architecture, examining the backend of that website to see how each webpage is “technically” set up, such as the code of the site.
11 Modern SEO Tips For Your Blog
1. Complete an SEO Audit on your website
Completing an SEO audit on your website will lend you reasons as to why you might not be getting enough traffic as sales as you’re expecting. Performing an SEO audit is done to understand where you stand and how to make smarter decisions moving forward. This is a technique that will help you attract and retain customers. We’re looking at the performance of our site and then creating goals and ways to reach them.
When performing an SEO audit, start with looking at your website pages.
- Do they have SEO meta titles and descriptions? If not, that’s priority number one. Ensure that you are using your keywords in titles and descriptions for optimization, but avoid keyword stuffing!
Next, take a look at your URL structures. They should appear as this blog’s does: https://powerhouseaffiliate.com/blog/13-modern-seo-tips-for-your-blog.
- Just by looking at the URL, a reader will know exactly what the page is about! This is structuring a URL for search engines to help in determining the topic of the post.
You should then take a look at the formatting of your pages and blogs.
- Do they have headings and subheadings? How about 2-3 sentences per paragraph? And please tell me yes to a CTA?! Blog posts are often skimmed, so it’s important that they’re easy to read!
Moving on, let’s take a look at the creatives!
- Making sure that all images and creative assets have keywords in their ALT tags is super important. ALT tags, also known as alternative text, are scanned by search engines in an effort to describe and explain the image.
Lastly, are you using links in your content?
- When writing a post or creating a page, link to your own content and other websites, as well. We will cover this later in further detail.
There are services and platforms that can perform an audit for you, but it’s very doable on your own. We recommend the WordPress plugin Yoast SEO for assistance when writing a blog post.
2. Make a list of topics.
What is a website without topics?! Unorganized.
After we’ve audited our site to see what we’re missing, let’s begin with creating a list of topics to cover for the next few months!
Let’s gather a list of words and terms that are associated with your product or service. Use a keyword tool to identify their search volume and come up with variations that are relevant for your business.
Then narrow down the list of these short-term keywords (also known as Pillars), use the data regarding monthly search volume and relevance, and rank this list in order of importance/priority.
3. Make a list of long-tail keywords based on these topics.
Continuing on with topics and keywords, now is where we begin to optimize our pages for these specific keywords. Using the list of pillars we’ve created in the previous step, we’re going to create long-tail keywords. Because short-term keywords are highly competitive to rank for, we focus on sub-topics. Sub-topics break down the larger topic into smaller pieces. With our sub-topics, we will then use our keyword tool to identify a list of long-tail keywords to write our content around.
Long-tail keywords allow you to create a ton of content regarding one topic without targeting highly competitive keywords or even worse, competing with your own posts. Together, sub-topics create a cluster.
We’re using long-tail keywords to support our short-term keyword (pillar). So for example, with 5 pillars, we should have one cluster per, each with 5-10 subtopics. This model is referred to as a “topic cluster” and is an extremely important method, as algorithms use this to connect users with what they’re searching for.
To sum it up, the more specific your content is, the more likely you’ll convert traffic into leads. Google needs to find value in your website, and your website needs to prove as a source of providing the best answer to a query.
4. Build pages for each topic.
Taking topics *one* step further to really squeeze all the juice from the orange, create a page for each pillar topic. This ties back into organization. Each pillar page serves as a table of contents. Use this page to tell the readers what they can find within the blog posts associated to the topic.
5. Blog every week to develop page authority.
If you’re a Powerhouse Affiliate Premium member, then you know you’re supposed to be posting consistently!
Being consistent and relevant is key to creating authority with search engines. When writing posts, it’s important to remember who you’re writing for and what they’re looking for. That’s what this is all about: providing information to a user’s search query!
Create a list of the pages created in step 4 and create a list of blog posts per page. Keep your list updated regularly to always stay up to date with content and relevance!
6. Stay current on SEO news & practices.
We’ve said it before, we’ll continue saying it! You are not a marketer unless you’re accepted that the industry will change *just* as you’ve adapted! In all seriousness, to be successful with marketing, you need to stay up to date! Staying on top of current trends and best practices proves to be difficult, but there are a ton of resources that compile the latest news and changes.
A few we suggest:
7. Measure and track your content’s success.
All this work, and for what?! For data and metrics, of course. Set up a tracking platform to measure your effort’s strengths and weaknesses, including keyword performance! Take this a step further and create a sheet to monitor your data. Optimize on what’s working and let go of what isn’t.
8. Regularly update your old content
Just when you’ve reached the point of burnout, the lightbulb in your head goes off and says, “repurpose! Repurpose!”
Repurpose your old content, that is! Take your top performing posts (you should know which these are, given you are utilizing step 7!) and update them. Improving on these posts will leverage their authority for higher rankings.
Steps to keep posts fresh:
- write a new powerful headline
- add testimonials
- update data and images
An easy way to keep track of your top performing content is to create a spreadsheet. Staying organized, (key!), add the following columns:
- Post title
- Post URL
- Topic
- Main keywords
- Last Updated Date
Scan through your list every few months and to ensure that none of these posts are going too long without being updated. Don’t go more than six months without updating one of your performing pieces!
9. Find and use your competitors’ SEO keywords
We call this “spying.” Find out which keywords your competitors are using to rank for Google’s top pages. Using their top keywords, you can create better content! This step relies solely in research.
Using keyword spying tools, such as Ubersuggest (service created by Neil Patel), you’ll find:
- URL for each page in the top 10 of the Google search results
- Top SEO pages
- Estimated number of visits
- Backlink data
- Content ideas
- Domain score
- Number of social shares
Your next step is to create high quality content using those same keywords and the tools listed above to boost your page’s ranking power.
10. Link to external sites with high Domain Authority
Linking to external sites that have high domain authority will pass along their reputation to your content. This will trigger Google to understand your content to be high quality. These sites may not link back to you, but it is worth sending a pitch via email. The worst that could happen is a no!
11. Post valuable content on social media
I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” This applies to marketing, as well. You can use social media platforms to gain credibility and traffic.
Creating meaningful content will increase your search rankings and traffic. Identify what people are talking about, otherwise known as trends. To find content that is on trend, you can look at what people are talking about on blogs and then gear your content towards that topic.
- Quora
- Medium
12. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Most users that visit your blog will do so from their mobile device. Over 60% of search queries are performed on a mobile device. If your site doesn’t perform well on mobile, your bounce rate is going to sky rocket. The mobile site is optimized for the screen width and is easy to read. Using Google’s mobile testing tool, you can ensure that your website is checking all the boxes of being mobile-friendly. If yours isn’t up to par, don’t worry- most CMS platforms come ready with mobile-friendly templates!
To sum it up…
If you weren’t knowledgable on SEO before, you should now have a check list of what you need to do in order to optimize your website, pages, and posts.
Your blog is one of your most powerful marketing tools. This is the place users look for trusted and accurate information. Whether this be for purchasing a product or learning a new skill, search queries are always going to lead a user to a website. Try to make it yours!
These 11 tips will be worth the time and effort that they will take, because in full transparency, this isn’t easy! Nothing worth having comes easy. Using these strategies will help increase your search traffic, but always ensure that your content is providing what they’ve come to your site for.
Your content should always be useful and relevant to your target audience.
Have you tried any of these 11 modern SEO tips before? What results did you get?