SEO (at its core) is about creating great content that people want to share, but if you're just starting out or you're looking at content and wondering how to optimize something that's already great and shareable, then read these ten tips.
1. If you don’t read anything else in this article, remember this: the most important thing that you can do for SEO is get links back to your site (preferably from highly reputable sites). So reach out to your partners and ask them to reference your work together and link back to your site, post articles on relevant blogs or online publications and link back to content on your site, ask your clients to credit your work and link to your site. You can influence SEO from your website, but the most important cues for SEO bots will come from the sites that point back to you. Sites like HelpaReporterOut can be useful for this.
2. Do your keyword research. This advice could take up a whole class’s worth of content, but let’s boil it down to basics. Think of the words that should lead a person to your site (say “social impact agency”). Make a list of at least 50 of these keyword phrases and use a tool like the to prioritize your top 10 keyword terms (prioritizing based on things like traffic, click thru, etc). For the top 10 terms, you’ll need to build or assign pages that align to each of these keyword terms, but when you write content to go on these pages, you’ll want to validate this term by using other terms like it in your copy. So find related words by looking at similar searches, what comes up when you let predictive search do its magic, etc. So if I’m optimizing for “social impact agency,” I should make sure that the rest of my content includes the phrases “social impact design” and “social change agency” on the same page. Phew! That’s a lot!
3. Your SEO copy should be AT LEAST 300 words, 500 words is better. Try to use your keyword phrase in the opening paragraph, closing paragraph, in the middle of the content, near a link to another page, in a page heading, and in the page title.
4. Include local information. If you care at all about being sourced locally – say you want to come up in agency results for Texas, you’ve got to remember to NAP. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. It should be included on the footer of every page. If you don’t have this, then you can forget about being represented in local search results, which is especially bad for businesses that rely on local traffic like restaurants or salons. It’s even better if you make sure your location and business are listed on Google Places pages and Yelp pages, as well.
5. Use meta data. All websites (particularly those hosted on content management platforms like Wix and SquareSpace) have a space for you to fill in the site’s metadata – this the information that is surfaced on the results page of search engine’s so make sure your title and meta description include the relevant keywords, but also accurately describe the page’s contents so site visitors will know what to expect. Pages that don’t include meta data are unlikely to surface in the top results pages. Titles should be 60-80 characters long and page descriptions should be about 155 characters.
6. Include links to relevant external sites (but not too many). SEO bots are looking for relationships between subjects and linking to other sites is a good way to show these relationships. Every search engine optimized page should have one link to an external property – but don’t include too many or you might increase your site bounce rate!
7. Include links to other internal pages. You’re also looking to show the relationships between all of the content on your site and, of course, want to highlight the pages that are most important to your site. Make sure that ever search optimized page links to another relevant page on YOUR site, as well.
8. Don’t forget the URL! The URL is also one of the most powerful ways to signal page content and relevance, so don’t forget to include your keyword in the URL, as well.
9. Make social a part of your strategy. Because link backs to your site are one of your most potent indicators to search engine bots of your page’s relevance and importance, social shares can be a powerful way to gain link backs. One of the best ways to share your content socially is to find a thought leader and re-package their advice into an infographic or blog post that might resonate with your audience (maybe you use an app like WordSwag to layout a quote from them or summarize a few key takeaways from their book in an infographic made on Piktochart). Then, share that content on social media and @mention the thought leader that you’re quoting. Those influencers will often re-share the content out to their own audience. It's a virtuous cycle of co-promotion: the thought leader gains exposure and validation from your audience and you get eyeballs from their audience when they share links back to your site.
10. Write like a person! It’s important to keep all of these rules that I’ve mentioned in mind: link to an external site, link to another page, write more than 500 words, use the keyword numerous times throughout your copy – but if it’s a choice between writing like an SEO-zombie and writing like a human being – always opt to write like a human being. Google, Bing – all of these search engines continue to update their algorithms as time goes on and although we don’t know where they’ll tweak the formula, we do know that they want authentic, valuable content written by real humans. So don’t try and game the system, your content could get significantly downgraded with the next Google update.
Of course, these are just the basics that are meant for those just getting started with SEO. Search Engine Optimization is more of a mindset than it is a checklist of tasks, so if you want to learn how to create a long-term strategy to be found on the internet, start by doing your research and reach out to me for more information.
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