If you have written a nice blog, you naturally want it to be read. Easier said than done! You can send the link to all your acquaintances, advertise heavily, or post the blog on all your social media channels. Nice for the short term, but in the long term it won’t do you much. Fortunately, we have SEO for that, also known as search engine optimization. In this blog, you can read more about SEO and everything that comes with it.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’ and encompasses everything that is done to make online content (such as images, texts, or videos) rank highly in Google. The aim of this is to reach as many potential customers as possible and to leave the ‘competition’ behind you. Findability is essential in reaching the right target group.
There are a number of steps that must be taken to make your SEO success. If you do this right, it will result in more visitors and better scoring blog posts. First, you determine the keywords you want to be found for. I personally use Ubersuggest for this. This is a paid tool, but well worth the investment. Then it’s time to implement the keywords and finally your online branding.
SEO: determining keywords
More than 88% of all internet users use Google. More than 90% of these searchers will not get past the first page and about 55% will only click on the first three search results. Time to rise to the first page!
It is especially important to map out the main product or topic. We found this to be one of the most difficult topics at Justliveblog. We want to blog about health, but also about our interior or our children. So nice and wide! Once you have determined your main topics, synonyms must be devised. Make this list as complete as possible. A good mnemonic is to think about what you or your target audience will look for.
In our case, the question was whether our visitor searched for ‘chronic illness’ or just ‘chronic illness’. You can then determine the search volumes in a tool like Ubersuggest. The perfect keyword is relevant, has a high search volume and low competition. Unfortunately, this is the very best scenario and very rare. So try to look for low-hanging fruit.
Writing web texts
Good content is extremely important for a good position in Google. So important that we will write a separate blog about this. To help you on your way, I have listed the most important rules:
- Make sure that the text remains legible and make sure that there are not too many keywords in the text;
- Make sure your article is at least 700 words. We advise to be at least 800 words above this;
- Use headers in your blog;
- Determine a focus keyword and use a keyword density of 2.5 to 3 percent;
- Let the keyword appear in your title and a number of subheadings;
- Make sure the content is unique and not copied and pasted.
We use the Yoast plug-in to check whether our texts comply with the SEO rules. Here you can enter an SEO-friendly title, but also enter a meta text. Make sure every page has metatext. This is the text that visitors see on Google. This should contain the keyword and a clear call to action. Furthermore, make sure that the meta text is attractively written and contains the keyword at least once. In addition, a meta-text can be about 156 characters, if you get above this, the text will be automatically broken.
Search royalty-free images
Have you written your blog? Then it’s time to find an image. We set a featured photo for all our blogs. This will appear at the top of the blog, but will also appear on the homepage in miniature when a new blog is put in the spotlight. We always use royalty-free photos for this ourselves. This way we avoid having to pay for photos and we don’t get any claims. There are several sites where you can find stock photos, here are
Some examples:
- Pexels
- Unsplash
- Pixabay
- Depositphotos
- Freepik
- Pxhere
Would you like more information about royalty-free photos? Then read Rieneke’s blog about stock photos. Not only does she provide more information about stock photos, but she also has a list of the best royalty-free stock photo sites.
SEO: Alt texts
An alt text is used to describe an image. This allows search engines such as Google and visitors with a visual impairment to understand what the image is about. We ensure that we always include our focus keyword in this, but make sure you don’t do this too often. Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing. Do you use WordPress? Then you can add the alt texts like this:
- Go to the blog you want to add a photo to;
- In the right bar of the screen, scroll to Featured image or to the photo between the text;
- You click Choose featured image or click on the photo in the text;
- Upload file, here you upload your photo;
- Click on the photo and on the right you go to Alt text.
Make sure the alt text is short but catchy and gives a good representation of the image.
Branding
Branding is essential for a company. This also plays a major role online for achieving a top position in Google. Fortunately, there are many online ways to increase your brand awareness.
Link building
Although its value is gradually decreasing, link building is still important for achieving high positions. Link building means that other websites recommend your website. They do this through
links. Examples of link building include a referral on location pages, forums, blogs, home pages, and websites that offer products in exchange for a blog.
Social Media
Social media is extremely important for online exposure. Every like on a post ensures that more people see the post. So try to like all blogs yourself. By liking every post you not only lift the blog to a higher level, you also become a nicer party for possible collaborations. Google also values what your readers think of you on social media. Think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It is important that your channels are personal, your messages are shareable, and have a strong call to action. Think of beautiful photos and quotes.
