If your site is currently not ranking well, and is made up primarily of short, generic articles, it may be time for a revamp of your current content.
We can lead, demonstrate or teach you and your collaborative business team (via workshops) simple consistent techniques to reach your Content Marketing goals.
If you paid attention to the last SEO article; “SEO: You Can Do This“. I promised you your SEO score would improve from what it is today if you consistently followed those simple concepts. Believe me. If not, call me.
Action: Do This —
On-Site SEO you can take control of RIGHT NOW
You have a Website Blog that you frequently update with Awesome Content:
Since 2009-2010, this has been on Ronin Studios’ radar as the thing to pay attention to. I was advocating for Dynamic Websites way back then in a culture of Static Websites1 that were ruled by some web developers who as part of their Business Model would hold you or your work hostage in many ways.
If you haven’t noticed, There’s been a paradigm shift
Back then, it wasn’t accepted Company Culture for companies to publish content, build their brand, grow their audience, and don’t even think about Social Media to build authority in their professional field by this new Web 2.0 thing. Now, its an absolute necessity.
Lesson: Be careful who you listen to, Not Them (pretenders) — Someone who knows what they’re doing with a proven track record.
Here’s what happened to me (I’ll write about it in meaningful detail later). Last fall I had to use Facebook to help promote some of my Civic Responsibilities. As a result, my business website, Ronin Studios received enough Website Traffic for me to realize that Social Media really works, and even more so when your message and strategy are working in tandem — go figure. Another assumption tested (via analytical data) — I’m a Believer!
Google Authorship Integration:
Who are you collaborating with and how is their Internet Klout? 2
Google Authorship is Google’s way of verifying authors of content, curating that content, and establishing a sense for how much expertise (and authority) should be awarded to any individual author by Google.
Author rank stems from the idea that authors with Google Authorship integrated gain credibility or “rank” based on their publishing history. It’s currently unknown whether author rank currently exists, but it’s a safe bet that Google will eventually implement it as a ranking factor if it hasn’t already.
Another way to consider this, if your Website is referred to by the local community newspaper blog, is it going to have the same Authority Rank as the Wall Street Journal if they link to your article? — Something for you to think about.
Optimized URLs
Preferred status is still given to static, Keyword-RICH URLs, and no change anytime soon 3
Best practices for URLs include:
- Under 100 characters in length
- Words separated by hyphens or dashes
- URLs should include no more than 3 subdirectories
- If you’re looking to rank for location-based keywords, be sure to include those in your URLs
- E-commerce sites should append tracking or product numbers at the end of the url (and should certainly not use numbers as a replacement for keywords)
Hint: Have you registered your NAME as a Domain Name — Have you claimed your place and space on the Internet? e.g. http://www.scottsakamoto.com/ .
Title Tags
The title tag has consistently been one of the most critical ranking factors and remains so for 2015. Your title tag is likely going to the be clickable text that appears in search results, making its optimization important for reasons far beyond SEO; it’s one thing to rank highly in search results, but if your title tag isn’t enticing, it won’t get clicked = end of story = be creative or hire someone who is.
For internal pages, include your company name at the end of your title tag rather than at the beginning. This helps with branding.
Common sense title tags
Try to include your keywords naturally and strategically. It’s usually a best practice to use your company name as part of your homepage’s title tag but not necessary because Google already assumes you’re going to use it. For internal pages, include it at the end of your title tag rather than at the beginning; this helps with branding.
Your title tag should ideally be less than 65 characters, and again, if you’re targeting local keywords, be sure to use these here as well.
Heading Tags
Heading tags are still one of the key factors Google uses to decipher what your page content is about. Fortunately, if you already have a good handle on how to use proper headings to improve reader experience, the same principles hold true in terms of what the search engines like to see.
Each page should have one – and only one – H1 tag. Your H1 tag indicates the main topic of your page and should be the first element on your page. In fact, your H1 tag will often automatically become your title tag, depending on what CMS (Content Management Software, e.g. WordPress) software you’re using, and what custom SEO plugins you have installed. This is generally considered to be a best practice.
Breaking up long chunks of content with relevant headers will ensure your readers can quickly scan your content, and will help Google understand the progression of your content as well. Let’s call this your User Experience that is now or will soon to be measured = pay attention to this.
People Don’t Read, They Scan
Use your keywords in your header tags (H2, H3, etc.), as well as in your H1 tag, when it’s logical and natural to do so. Don’t force it! The key is keeping it natural and helpful.
Hint: How many times have you noticed a sea of grey text when reading a blog post — break it up — use bullet points — people do not read anymore… Google Does.
Alt Image Tags
Here’s where most business owners are missing the boat and the POINT of opportunities to TELL the WORLD what you have on your PAGE or Website. Your image tags are JUST AS important for SEO; not only do they reinforce the relevance of the text content on the page, they also have a chance to rank in Google Image Search. Not long ago, “Alt” image-tags were thought of as just an SEO tool. NOW, Ronin Studios uses them as an image labeling tool for the visually impaired.
Ronin Studios uses Image Alt-Tags as a descriptive tool for the visually impaired — Google Notices
Where appropriate, your images should contain your keywords and phrases. Make sure your alt image tags are highly descriptive and give readers a clear understanding of the subject or of the image.
ALWAYS Write for Humans First: Keywords in Content
Here’s another “Must Follow” that’s not going to change at any point soon in the future. Please note this: If it’s not going to change it must be important.
Proper incorporation of keywords will be a natural result of good copywriting
Proper incorporation of keywords will be a natural result of good copywriting, but it never hurts to spell out the best practices in terms of frequency of use.
Keywords should be used throughout your content. Variations of your keywords known as LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing) are also important4
As with all the elements in this article, following these guidelines will go a long way to attracting both your human visitors as well as the search engines.
Just the Correct Amount of Content
We’re definitely witnessing a move toward Google preferring longer, meatier content, otherwise known as ‘long form’ content. Anyone can slap up a 400-word blog post and optimize it for a keyword or two, and Google is keenly aware of this.
Anyone can slap up a 400-word blog post and optimize it for a keyword or two — Google’s on to you — Stop hurting yourself by being lazy
If your site is currently not ranking well and is made up primarily of short, generic articles, it may be time for a revamp of your current content. Ensure your content is well-written, and keep in mind that blog posts should generally be a minimum of 1000 words. This is particularly true if you have hopes of ranking for Google In-Depth Search (where I’d recommend a minimum of 1500 words).
If you need help creating Meaningful and SEO Optimized Content created specifically for your business, just let us know.
Appropriate Topical Targeting
Organizing your content around topics is not only good for SEO, but is beneficial for improving your readers’ experience, attracting inbound links, and can significantly bump up the ‘share-worthiness’ of your content
Typically SEO practices have focused on “keywords” but lately, we’ve seen a shift towards “topical targeting”. For instance, rather than focusing a page on one or two specific keywords, we should be crafting our page to address a particular topic or theme (Ronin Studios has been doing this since 2008).
This will mean that our pages will be optimized for multiple, related keywords and probably force you to create more natural content instead of trying to “game” your keyword content into your blog post. I never did understand targeting only one or two keywords per page. That’s the reason our clients prosper – we advocate a meaningful and holistic approach that provides rewards in return.
Organizing your content around topics is not only good for SEO, but is beneficial for improving your readers’ experience, attracting inbound links, and can significantly bump up the ‘share-worthiness’ of your content as well via organized Content (categories and tags = more on this later).
What are you waiting for
As you can see, not much as changed with the way you would implement good SEO practices. This is why I advocate for a simple but powerful and meaningful SEO Optimization for your Website.
All you have to do is use common sense, work smart (no short cuts), and be consistent while you’re creating your content and DO NOT BECOME LAZY!
Remember this:
If Google thinks that you’ve stopped your “Best SEO Practices” (gone static from no activity), your SEO Grade will suffer = Decrease until ultimately lost on the Internet.
Bottom-Line:
Do the WORK or Hire Us if you want to stay on top of Search Heap.
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