However, posting new content is only one way to signal Google freshness. There are plenty of things that you can do with content that you’ve already published to make it more up-to-date. I’ve covered keyword research extensively on Quick Sprout, but if you’ve never done keyword research before, you might want to take a look at Hubspot’s guide for beginners. Since you ideally want to include your targeted keyword in your post’s headline and throughout the article, you need to choose your keyword before you start writing. Even if you’re a complete newbie, you can always take a professional approach to great content by simply committing to make writing a daily habitand work your way up in increments from there. Once you start writing, make sure you include all the important ingredients of great contentin your blog post. You can often start by piggybacking off of content that others have createdand then making it better, longer, and more in-depth.
Naturally, you start gravitating toward the ones with the highest number of searches. You’d be better off picking a different keyword even if it means giving up 990 visits a month. The reason is that something like 90% of SEO often revolves around keyword selection. Matt Cutts, former head of Google’s spam team and often public voice for the latest in SEO and algorithm changes, announced last year that people who were cutting the jargonwould be right on track. While it is important to publish regularly, you can still get great results by posting once a month as long as your content is thorough and in-depth.
After all, it means that you have to become a teacher — and a good one at that. This means that your number one job to do well with drive traffic to web site is to produce great content. Google always tries to give you the best experience possible by directing you to the greatest content it can find. There are three big categories of on-page SEO that you’ll need to take a look at. When a visitor leaves your site after viewing only one page, Google considers that a bounce. The higher your bounce rate, the worse your page will rank on Google.
It’s easy to spot who’s done their SEO homework and who hasn’t by the meta description. Let’s take a look at the four parts of HTML you should optimize for each and every single piece of content you produce. Once you’ve made sure your content is evergreen, the next big chunk you have to take care of is HTML. A venture-backed startup is willing to pay more than a small business, for instance.
Glen points to a single search result page for the ‘Future of blogging’ query as an example. That’s why people like Glenn Alsop have openly admitted to doing gray or black hat tactics like creating their own private cac marketing blog networksdespite Google’s repeated warnings against this approach. So many times, you’re going to have to take your chances. The chances of a journalist linking to your site in a flattering way are slim to none.
If you do SEO this way, you’ll focus on your human audience. While Google guards their search algorithm pretty well and not all of the over 200 determining factors are public, Backlinko did a great job of compiling as many of them as possible into one big list. If you ever need to hide a dead body, you should place it on the second page of Google search results. Therefore, showing up on the front page of Google can be the deciding factor between a business that’s thriving and one that’s, well, bankrupt. No wonder millions of people Google the term “SEO” each month. Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results.
No one will ever see your beautiful masterpiece because you won’t get any traffic. It’s the same if you haven’t optimized your page around on-page SEO. It may have great content and look stunning, but it’s likely that no one will give you credit for it or point to your page. Off-page SEO refers to all variables Google takes a look at, and they aren’t exclusively in your own hands. They depend on other sources, such as social networks, other blogs in your industry, and the personal history of the searcher.
All marketing tactics need to be scalable at the end of the day if they’re going to generate any ROI. That’s what makes online marketing, and SEO in particular, so fun. Other people might disagree with me on this point, and that’s OK. See, Google’s standards aren’t as clear-cut as they’d like you to believe. White hat SEO, on the other hand, is the way to build a sustainable online business.
One of my favorite graphs will even help you segment exactly who’s searching for this. Search for “best marketing automation tools,” and it will break the list down even further. AnswerThePublicis another of my favorite tools to do this because it uses actual search queries to build a list. They’re trying to understand what people are looking for and not just what they’re typing in. First, look at Google’s own suggested searches for that query.
So you need to find different alternatives based on search intent. And it’s the difference between getting a tiny bit of traffic and driving real revenue.