There is a very basic formula for creating good blog content, which can enable you to get better reader rankings and SEO performance for your blog. First, you need to have good content; after all, that is why people read blogs in the first place. Effective design is an important branding and retention tactic for keeping readers on your blog. Strong visuals 0r clear, high resolution images, will also get you extra points with your readers.
Good bloggers also invest in community building to ensure they have a loyal following. Otherwise, who is going to read, share and promote their content? Blogs that perform well are also shared on social networks to enhance shares and comments. But there is even more you can do to improve your blog posts’ performance.
Internal linking
The big reason you need internal links is that they make it easier for people and spiders to read and index content. A side bar with links to previous posts can help to reduce your bounce rate as it offers people quick links to find what they want quickly. Word Stream recommends the following:
Do use descriptive anchor text when linking internally. Hyperlink the words ‘Upstream Color review,’ not arbitrary words like ‘reviewed last week.’ This tells readers what they’ll get when they click the link. There is, theoretically, a risk of over-optimizing your anchor text, but that’s unlikely to happen if you’re not abusing automation or buying links.
As far as SEO value is concerned, there are a lot of optimization benefits available through the practice of internal linking. Internet Marketing Source explains the importance of using the right wording for your anchor text:
If these links are set as anchor links with relevant text used as the hyperlink, it further strengthens the SEO for the site since relative words are the actual link and terms like “click here” are not hyperlinked (which tells search engines nothing about the content that is linked to).
Don’t Neglect Image Optimization
Effective images have much appeal for blog readers but they can also be used to attract the attention of search engines as well.
Allow your images to be pinned by readers for easy social share functionality. The file name and alt text should be optimized to ensure your blog images appear in the news feed. Also, make sure the pictures are relevant to the content of your post. Do not be tempted to use keyword stuffing techniques in your categorization.
The Role Of Long Tail Keyword Research
Reading comments and feedback on your blog posts can provide you with valuable feedback in terms of what people want to read, without the need for using keyword tools.
However, keyword tools can help ensure you are making the most of feedback mechanisms. Use the Google Adwords tool to find this kind of information and validate the feedback you harvess manually from your blog.
Long tail research enables you to expand on your content and also to find other topics and points of interest about which to write. Long tail phrases should also be used in your image file names, sub headings and meta descriptions. Again, avoid any temptation to keyword stuff.
Remember To Be Human
While there are lots of tools and plugins you can use to manage your blog, nothing can be as good as genuine human interaction. Reading and responding to comments is an essential way to build your community reputation and encourage others to keep up with you.
Keep Outbound Links To A Minimum
Too many outbound links are going to send traffic away and dilute your reader engagement levels. If you need to embellish on anything you write about it is good practice to upload relevant content to your site and link to that instead.
Take A Look At Your Competition
If you really want to know what works and what doesn’t, and ensure you consistently improve the standard of the content you publish, your competitors can also help you out with some ideas. Have a look at how other blogs in your niche perform and take a look at what encourages reader interaction and feedback on their blogs. This is especially useful when you are first starting out and have lots of questions that need to be answered.
Take a very popular blog and analyze it. Read the content, review the optimization techniques applied to it and see where you can model your own blog. Participate in conversations and comments and engage the blog’s readers. This is a useful step to creating your own online community and becoming known online.
Retarget Your Online Leads With Remarketing
Bloggers Central explains how cookies can be invaluable to your blog strategy and success rate, and how you can bring leads back to your blog:
Cookies allow your website to follow visitors whenever they go online. It is expected that as more and more people use mobile devices to connect to the Internet, mobile devices will have local targeting tools that will make targeting more efficient. Take advantage of cookies in 2014.
Maybe you are just starting out with good content and are still trying to communicate properly with your audience. Perhaps your first few blog posts were not all that well written, or off-target, and didn’t get the response you expected? Well, the good news is that if you use cookies on your website you still have a chance at luring those leads back to your blog.
Is Your Blog Mobile?
With more and more consumers making use of smart devices to access the internet, mobile accessibility has never been more important. To take full advantage of technology and how far it has come it is essential that your online presence be optimized for mobile access. Not allowing this could see you cutting off a very large percentage of your target market. Be sure to adopt a responsive theme for your blog so that whether your audience is viewing it on a desk top, smart phone or tablet, the view is consistent.
An online presence means nothing if it isn’t building your business. And while it is something of an ego boost to see your personal profile or business online, it has no value if it is not bringing you business. Gone are the days when a website could just be considered a calling card. Today’s markets are so competitive that just having a website is not enough to get you noticed. Let’s have a look at some of the essential ways you can develop more leads through Internet marketing.
The way that people receive their information is rapidly changing. For example, an increasing number of people surf the internet from their mobile phones. Furthermore, because of the increase in broadband speeds the usage of videos has increased in recent years. Some websites actually prefer to market their content using videos as opposed to text, and website visitors are responding well to that. However, what you might be surprised to find out is that the kind of videos that customers are responding to are not the typical sales videos. You will find that videos filled with educational or entertaining content with subtle call to actions can add a lot more value to your marketing campaign. Read on to find out why the soft sell is the way to go.
It can be a big disappointment when any marketing campaign you execute does not get the desired return on investment. With SEO, this problem is typical among small business owners because they read all the hype and believe they can do a bit of SEO for huge floods of traffic. Unfortunately, the reality is a lot different. It is not as easy as it sounds to get a reliable source of traffic from the search engines. Nevertheless, it isn’t all bad. You can make a success of your business through SEO. You just need to use the right approach and set your expectations at the correct levels.