When it comes to search engine optimization, effective keyword research is a must… it will help support your well-written content to allow you to be found in the search engine results pages for those searching for your product or service.
If you have been following this site for a while, you will know that I preach to write for the ‘human reader’, not for the search engine algorithms.
You can write the highest quality content, but if it doesn’t contain keyword phrases that people are searching for, your article will not be found in the search engine results pages by the searcher.
The opposite is also true… you can write content that is filled with keyword phrases that searchers are typing into the search engine’s Search box, but if the content isn’t useful for the reader, the search engines will see the pattern through the use of a factor in their algorithm known as ‘User Experience’, and rank you accordingly… you can also get penalized for over optimization if you’re not careful.
Also, some people may lose their creativity for quality content if they base their article around keyword phrases that they have selected. There is nothing wrong with trying this technique, but if the content is NOT considered problem-solving or adding value to the reader, you need to try another method.
One method that may work is to put your brilliance into words first, then place your keyword phrases within your content where it looks natural, makes sense and allows the wording to flow smoothly. I personally have done this many times, and I also suggest this to my SEO clients.
I recommend to them that they write their article and submit it as a draft on their blog, I will then find the most suitable, effective keyword phrases to match their topic and place the keyword phrases for them using the best SEO practices.
Just keep in mind that inserting keyword phrases where they really don’t make any sense, just for the sake of attempting to increase website rankings is not a good idea, and won’t score you any points with the search engines.
After a person has read your information, this person should be inspired enough to browse for more. One thing you can do to influence the person to read more is to provide a link to a related post at the end of your article.
Once the person finally leaves your site, they should have the feeling that you have solved their problem and they have found the information they were looking for.
Closing Comments – Effective Keyword Research Supporting Quality Content!
What you need to understand is that the search engines don’t rate your website as a whole, but the rating is based on each individual page.
In a nutshell… in order to be considered an authority in your Niche, you need to provide high-quality content all the time… all pages must be informative and useful for the reader, but also contain keyword phrases to get the people to your site from the search engines.
If you can plan your content to include a compelling topic to write about, do your proper keyword research and selection, then be diligent with on page optimization, you will be well on your way to a strong and successful SEO campaign.
There have definitely been mixed reviews lately in the world of SEO and blogging when it comes to the value of having guest posts on your website. While some say that it has become an unnecessary task, there are others that strongly believe in the benefits that can come along with having someone do guest posts. There is not much proof that stands behind the argument that guest posting is no longer effective, but the proven results of guest posting remain the same: it works.
Guest posting can simply be described as writing an article or a blog post for another website or blog than your own. If you own a website and need content written, you can have someone write guest posts for certain parts of your site or have them write for you in any area a certain number of times per week. Either way, the guest poster does the content writing for your site. If you are a writer and do not have a site, you can also do guest posting for other people that need help developing content but do not have the time or staff to do all of the writing themselves.
Not only are you increasing the amount of useful information on your website, which makes it valuable for the user, but you are posting useful backlinks that are not spam. This sends a positive signal to the search engines and will help your page rank higher in the SERPS.
Get to know people in the same niche.
One of the most important things to do when developing a blog is to get to know the other people in your niche. While they are your competition, they can also be helpful to you. You can also establish partnerships that will make it easier for you to post your backlinks on other blogs.
Get to know people in new niches
While it is always an excellent strategy to involve other people in guest posting that have the same niche as you, it’s also helpful to get to know people who are involved in other niches that are also popular and successful. If you become involved with them you could incorporate information from their niche into your blog or website and this could bring you more opportunities for profit as well as giving you an opportunity to guest post on their blog.
Takes some of the workload off of your coworkers.
A huge part of developing your website is having an adequate amount of content so that your viewers have something that makes them find your website more valuable than others in your niche. If you have people who are working on other areas of your site, such as optimizing your SEO, then they simply do not have the time to do the content writing as well. Having someone else come in and do a guest post service can save your team the extra time that takes and give them the opportunity to invest that time elsewhere!
If you have a website or blog that you are trying to rank then there are some techniques you need to implement. Using SEO techniques such as keyword optimization and other methods will be just the starting point, but developing your content can be hard without help. Bringing in the help of other writers to do guest posts can give you the bulk of content you need while also giving you the aforementioned benefits as well. And the best thing is, it doesn’t hurt to try it out. You can always bring in someone to do guest posts, and if you find that your ratings or viewers are staying the same, you can eliminate the guest post service from your website. But in the end, it could be something that could make the most out of your business!
Once you’ve installed WordPress and logged into your dashboard (also known as “admin panel”), you should spend some time familiarizing yourself with the features.
You may run into terminology (as well as features themselves) that are unfamiliar. The following are some of the most common features and terms:
- Themes: A blog theme is just another word for your blog design. WordPress comes with a default theme, which is fairly bland. However, you can find thousands of themes (both free and paid) simply by running a search in Google for “WordPress themes.”
You’re sure to find something that’s the perfect color, includes the perfect graphics and otherwise “fits” with your site. If not, many of these themes are customizable. That means if you find one that’s close to what you want but not exactly, you can tweak it. Alternatively, you can hire a WordPress theme designer and coder to create an exclusive theme according to your specifications.
- Plugins: Plugins are tools that give your WordPress blog more features, benefits and functionality.
The reason plugins exist is because the WP developers realized that if they included every cool feature possible in WP’s core, the software would become “bloatware.” Plus, most people would have no need for all the additional tools.
The solution? All these additional tools are separate. That way you can just install and use the ones you really want, and ignore the others.
Now, there are plenty of plugins you can use. Some of the best ones are the sitemap tools, the anti-spam tools, the SEO-related tools, the monetization-related tools and a whole lot more.
- Widgets: Widgets work the same as plugins, in that they give you more flexibility and functionality on your WordPress blog. The difference, however, is that widgets reside on the sidebar of your WordPress blog, which is why they’re often referred to as “sidebar accessories.”
The other catch is that only WP themes that are “widget enabled” will allow you to install and use these tools.
- Posts: A post is the content you submit to your blog. It could be an article, a link to something interesting, short commentary on someone else’s blog post, etc.
- Categories: When you post, you can post to a certain category of your blog – that is, a specific subtopic on your blog. These subtopics help you organize your blog better, helps your readers find what they’re looking for, and can even help your search engine rankings.
- Comments: When you make a post, you have the option of enabling comments for your posts. Just as the name implies, enabling comments gives your visitors the ability to comment on and discuss your post. And that makes your blog “sticky,” as readers will return repeatedly just to watch the discussion unfolding.
- Tag: A tag is just another name for a keyword. You can use tags to help your blog readers find posts that they’re interested in. for example, if they search your blog for a particular keyword, then every post that includes that keyword – either in the content itself or as a tag – will turn up in their search results.
In addition, tags are useful for search engine purposes. If you use certain keywords in your content, in the title of your post, and then again as a tag, it may help with your ranking for that keyword.
Finally, tags are useful for when you notify blog directories (like Technorati.com) that you’ve updated your blog. Blog directory users often search for posts that interest them using post tags, so choosing the right tags can increase your traffic.
Which brings me to the next term: - Pinging: Pinging has multiple meanings in blogging. You may hear about a “pingback,” which is similar to a trackback in that you notify another blogger that you’ve discussed his article on your blog.
More commonly, however, you’ll hear bloggers talking about “pinging” a blog directory. This is when you inform a blog directory or search engine that you’ve made a new post… that way they can send a bot to crawl your site and index this new post. You can ping the top blog directories with one click using a free service like pingomatic.com. However, if you’re using WordPress, then you don’t need to use those services. That’s because WP automatically pings the directories the moment you post.
- RSS: RSS refers to “Really Simple Syndication,” and it comes standard with WordPress. The benefit is that people who have RSS readers can subscribe to your blog “feed.” Whenever you make a new post on your blog, the updated feed is sent to the person’s RSS feed reader – that means they can read your blog comment from their desktop, without the need for actually visiting your site.
In addition to giving individuals the ability to subscribe to and read your blog in another format, RSS allows you to share your content with other websites. If they have a feed reader on their site, they can pull your content into your site (with your permission, of course). (That’s where the Really Simple Syndication name originates.)
The spot where a website ranks in the search results is all about how the search engines interpret a variety of different factors. Some websites have made it a point to take risks and implement dishonest tactics in the hopes that it will affect how that website will compete against other websites in their category. These kinds of tactics are known as Blackhat SEO. Most major search engines have worked to weed out these websites in the hopes that their search results will be more honest. After all, nobody wants to have to sort through a series of fraudulent entries in order to find the website that they’re looking for.
Responding to Competitors in the Right Way
Trying to improve website SEO on a dime to respond to what your competitors are trying to accomplish is a challenge. A good way to approach this situation is to find what you want to do and do it well. Spending too much time trying to anticipate what your competitors are doing will detract from important areas of your business. That being said, it’s a fool’s errand to try to eliminate this way of thinking from your thought process. You have to know what your competitors are doing. All you need to do is limit your efforts when it comes to predicting the future
One red flag that you need to watch out for when you’re trying to choose an SEO agency is how they approach the task of getting your website to the top spot in the search rankings. Every SEO firm attacks the situation in a different way. Some of them are willing to take unnecessary risks in order to get their clients as high as possible in the search results. They provide their clients with lofty guarantees that seem absurdly unrealistic at face value. Every so often they come across a client that’s willing to take them at their word. That’s when their clients end up getting penalized more than they necessarily should have.
Knowing and Understanding the Consequences
Risking a search engine penalty for a shot at short term success comes with the potential of being relegated to what can best be described as Internet’s version of oblivion. Every search engine has a different version of the consequences that it imposes on the websites that choose to violate the rules. Rather than trying to bend the rules, it’s best to operate within their confines. The search engines will be more likely to look upon your website favorably if you take this approach. When your web property has been penalized, it will become increasingly more difficult for it to rank anywhere near the top spot in the future.
How to get to the top of Google search results
Once you have determined that Blackhat SEO techniques aren’t for you, the next step that you need to take is to come up with a plan for the future. Resigning yourself to the fact that your website will grow gradually over an indefinite period of time is a lofty proposition for many aspiring Internet juggernauts. We want our websites to rank in the top position without us having to do any work to get them there. Being faced with the proposition that it will take an extended period of time for us to reach the success we want is often too much. In the moments where we’re considering if it’s time for us to result to desperate measures, we should take a step back and remember that any website that chooses to take this approach will have to deal with the consequences that comes from it. Instead of going this way, we must come up with a plan for how we want our website to grow leading into the future. Using this plan, we can get a sense of the moment when our website will become as successful as we anticipated.
Staying Out of Trouble
The Internet is a landscape that seems like it’s more out of the Wild West than anything else. Anyone who tries to make a name for themselves in it is subjected to a never-ending free-for-all battle for supremacy in a particular category. The difference between the websites that reign supreme for years to come and the ones that will fall by the wayside sooner rather than later is the amount of patience they exhibit during their lifespan. Most websites have to wait for at least six months before they have a chance of getting to one of the top spots. Some of these websites have less of a shot at reaching this level of success unless they’re featured in a category that has a low level of competition. Maneuvering your way into a category that has too many players in it is harder than you might realize.
The spot where a website ranks in the search results is all about how the search engines interpret a variety of different factors. Some websites have made it a point to take risks and implement dishonest tactics in the hopes that it will affect how that website will compete against other websites in their category. These kinds of tactics are known as Blackhat SEO. Most major search engines have worked to weed out these websites in the hopes that their search results will be more honest. After all, nobody wants to have to sort through a series of fraudulent entries in order to find the website that they’re looking for.
Responding to Competitors in the Right Way
Trying to improve website SEO on a dime to respond to what your competitors are trying to accomplish is a challenge. A good way to approach this situation is to find what you want to do and do it well. Spending too much time trying to anticipate what your competitors are doing will detract from important areas of your business. That being said, it’s a fool’s errand to try to eliminate this way of thinking from your thought process. You have to know what your competitors are doing. All you need to do is limit your efforts when it comes to predicting the future
One red flag that you need to watch out for when you’re trying to choose an SEO agency is how they approach the task of getting your website to the top spot in the search rankings. Every SEO firm attacks the situation in a different way. Some of them are willing to take unnecessary risks in order to get their clients as high as possible in the search results. They provide their clients with lofty guarantees that seem absurdly unrealistic at face value. Every so often they come across a client that’s willing to take them at their word. That’s when their clients end up getting penalized more than they necessarily should have.
Knowing and Understanding the Consequences
Risking a search engine penalty for a shot at short term success comes with the potential of being relegated to what can best be described as Internet’s version of oblivion. Every search engine has a different version of the consequences that it imposes on the websites that choose to violate the rules. Rather than trying to bend the rules, it’s best to operate within their confines. The search engines will be more likely to look upon your website favorably if you take this approach. When your web property has been penalized, it will become increasingly more difficult for it to rank anywhere near the top spot in the future.
How to get to the top of Google search results
Once you have determined that Blackhat SEO techniques aren’t for you, the next step that you need to take is to come up with a plan for the future. Resigning yourself to the fact that your website will grow gradually over an indefinite period of time is a lofty proposition for many aspiring Internet juggernauts. We want our websites to rank in the top position without us having to do any work to get them there. Being faced with the proposition that it will take an extended period of time for us to reach the success we want is often too much. In the moments where we’re considering if it’s time for us to result to desperate measures, we should take a step back and remember that any website that chooses to take this approach will have to deal with the consequences that comes from it. Instead of going this way, we must come up with a plan for how we want our website to grow leading into the future. Using this plan, we can get a sense of the moment when our website will become as successful as we anticipated.
Staying Out of Trouble
The Internet is a landscape that seems like it’s more out of the Wild West than anything else. Anyone who tries to make a name for themselves in it is subjected to a never-ending free-for-all battle for supremacy in a particular category. The difference between the websites that reign supreme for years to come and the ones that will fall by the wayside sooner rather than later is the amount of patience they exhibit during their lifespan. Most websites have to wait for at least six months before they have a chance of getting to one of the top spots. Some of these websites have less of a shot at reaching this level of success unless they’re featured in a category that has a low level of competition. Maneuvering your way into a category that has too many players in it is harder than you might realize.
Once you’ve installed WordPress and logged into your dashboard (also known as “admin panel”), you should spend some time familiarizing yourself with the features.
You may run into terminology (as well as features themselves) that are unfamiliar. The following are some of the most common features and terms:
- Themes: A blog theme is just another word for your blog design. WordPress comes with a default theme, which is fairly bland. However, you can find thousands of themes (both free and paid) simply by running a search in Google for “WordPress themes.”
You’re sure to find something that’s the perfect color, includes the perfect graphics and otherwise “fits” with your site. If not, many of these themes are customizable. That means if you find one that’s close to what you want but not exactly, you can tweak it. Alternatively, you can hire a WordPress theme designer and coder to create an exclusive theme according to your specifications.
- Plugins: Plugins are tools that give your WordPress blog more features, benefits and functionality.
The reason plugins exist is because the WP developers realized that if they included every cool feature possible in WP’s core, the software would become “bloatware.” Plus, most people would have no need for all the additional tools.
The solution? All these additional tools are separate. That way you can just install and use the ones you really want, and ignore the others.
Now, there are plenty of plugins you can use. Some of the best ones are the sitemap tools, the anti-spam tools, the SEO-related tools, the monetization-related tools and a whole lot more.
- Widgets: Widgets work the same as plugins, in that they give you more flexibility and functionality on your WordPress blog. The difference, however, is that widgets reside on the sidebar of your WordPress blog, which is why they’re often referred to as “sidebar accessories.”
The other catch is that only WP themes that are “widget enabled” will allow you to install and use these tools.
- Posts: A post is the content you submit to your blog. It could be an article, a link to something interesting, short commentary on someone else’s blog post, etc.
- Categories: When you post, you can post to a certain category of your blog – that is, a specific subtopic on your blog. These subtopics help you organize your blog better, helps your readers find what they’re looking for, and can even help your search engine rankings.
- Comments: When you make a post, you have the option of enabling comments for your posts. Just as the name implies, enabling comments gives your visitors the ability to comment on and discuss your post. And that makes your blog “sticky,” as readers will return repeatedly just to watch the discussion unfolding.
- Tag: A tag is just another name for a keyword. You can use tags to help your blog readers find posts that they’re interested in. for example, if they search your blog for a particular keyword, then every post that includes that keyword – either in the content itself or as a tag – will turn up in their search results.
In addition, tags are useful for search engine purposes. If you use certain keywords in your content, in the title of your post, and then again as a tag, it may help with your ranking for that keyword.
Finally, tags are useful for when you notify blog directories (like Technorati.com) that you’ve updated your blog. Blog directory users often search for posts that interest them using post tags, so choosing the right tags can increase your traffic.
Which brings me to the next term: - Pinging: Pinging has multiple meanings in blogging. You may hear about a “pingback,” which is similar to a trackback in that you notify another blogger that you’ve discussed his article on your blog.
More commonly, however, you’ll hear bloggers talking about “pinging” a blog directory. This is when you inform a blog directory or search engine that you’ve made a new post… that way they can send a bot to crawl your site and index this new post. You can ping the top blog directories with one click using a free service like pingomatic.com. However, if you’re using WordPress, then you don’t need to use those services. That’s because WP automatically pings the directories the moment you post.
- RSS: RSS refers to “Really Simple Syndication,” and it comes standard with WordPress. The benefit is that people who have RSS readers can subscribe to your blog “feed.” Whenever you make a new post on your blog, the updated feed is sent to the person’s RSS feed reader – that means they can read your blog comment from their desktop, without the need for actually visiting your site.
In addition to giving individuals the ability to subscribe to and read your blog in another format, RSS allows you to share your content with other websites. If they have a feed reader on their site, they can pull your content into your site (with your permission, of course). (That’s where the Really Simple Syndication name originates.)
There have definitely been mixed reviews lately in the world of SEO and blogging when it comes to the value of having guest posts on your website. While some say that it has become an unnecessary task, there are others that strongly believe in the benefits that can come along with having someone do guest posts. There is not much proof that stands behind the argument that guest posting is no longer effective, but the proven results of guest posting remain the same: it works.
Guest posting can simply be described as writing an article or a blog post for another website or blog than your own. If you own a website and need content written, you can have someone write guest posts for certain parts of your site or have them write for you in any area a certain number of times per week. Either way, the guest poster does the content writing for your site. If you are a writer and do not have a site, you can also do guest posting for other people that need help developing content but do not have the time or staff to do all of the writing themselves.
Not only are you increasing the amount of useful information on your website, which makes it valuable for the user, but you are posting useful backlinks that are not spam. This sends a positive signal to the search engines and will help your page rank higher in the SERPS.
Get to know people in the same niche.
One of the most important things to do when developing a blog is to get to know the other people in your niche. While they are your competition, they can also be helpful to you. You can also establish partnerships that will make it easier for you to post your backlinks on other blogs.
Get to know people in new niches
While it is always an excellent strategy to involve other people in guest posting that have the same niche as you, it’s also helpful to get to know people who are involved in other niches that are also popular and successful. If you become involved with them you could incorporate information from their niche into your blog or website and this could bring you more opportunities for profit as well as giving you an opportunity to guest post on their blog.
Takes some of the workload off of your coworkers.
A huge part of developing your website is having an adequate amount of content so that your viewers have something that makes them find your website more valuable than others in your niche. If you have people who are working on other areas of your site, such as optimizing your SEO, then they simply do not have the time to do the content writing as well. Having someone else come in and do a guest post service can save your team the extra time that takes and give them the opportunity to invest that time elsewhere!
If you have a website or blog that you are trying to rank then there are some techniques you need to implement. Using SEO techniques such as keyword optimization and other methods will be just the starting point, but developing your content can be hard without help. Bringing in the help of other writers to do guest posts can give you the bulk of content you need while also giving you the aforementioned benefits as well. And the best thing is, it doesn’t hurt to try it out. You can always bring in someone to do guest posts, and if you find that your ratings or viewers are staying the same, you can eliminate the guest post service from your website. But in the end, it could be something that could make the most out of your business!
When it comes to search engine optimization, effective keyword research is a must… it will help support your well-written content to allow you to be found in the search engine results pages for those searching for your product or service.
If you have been following this site for a while, you will know that I preach to write for the ‘human reader’, not for the search engine algorithms.
You can write the highest quality content, but if it doesn’t contain keyword phrases that people are searching for, your article will not be found in the search engine results pages by the searcher.
The opposite is also true… you can write content that is filled with keyword phrases that searchers are typing into the search engine’s Search box, but if the content isn’t useful for the reader, the search engines will see the pattern through the use of a factor in their algorithm known as ‘User Experience’, and rank you accordingly… you can also get penalized for over optimization if you’re not careful.
Also, some people may lose their creativity for quality content if they base their article around keyword phrases that they have selected. There is nothing wrong with trying this technique, but if the content is NOT considered problem-solving or adding value to the reader, you need to try another method.
One method that may work is to put your brilliance into words first, then place your keyword phrases within your content where it looks natural, makes sense and allows the wording to flow smoothly. I personally have done this many times, and I also suggest this to my SEO clients.
I recommend to them that they write their article and submit it as a draft on their blog, I will then find the most suitable, effective keyword phrases to match their topic and place the keyword phrases for them using the best SEO practices.
Just keep in mind that inserting keyword phrases where they really don’t make any sense, just for the sake of attempting to increase website rankings is not a good idea, and won’t score you any points with the search engines.
After a person has read your information, this person should be inspired enough to browse for more. One thing you can do to influence the person to read more is to provide a link to a related post at the end of your article.
Once the person finally leaves your site, they should have the feeling that you have solved their problem and they have found the information they were looking for.
Closing Comments – Effective Keyword Research Supporting Quality Content!
What you need to understand is that the search engines don’t rate your website as a whole, but the rating is based on each individual page.
In a nutshell… in order to be considered an authority in your Niche, you need to provide high-quality content all the time… all pages must be informative and useful for the reader, but also contain keyword phrases to get the people to your site from the search engines.
If you can plan your content to include a compelling topic to write about, do your proper keyword research and selection, then be diligent with on page optimization, you will be well on your way to a strong and successful SEO campaign.
