I’ve mentioned before how Google change their algorithms over time – and that there are various free SEO (search engine optimisation) tricks to perform to ensure your web pages rank high-up in the lists of search results.
One trend at the moment is to write informative articles about your area of expertise and to publish these as blogs or new pages on your website.
That’s not as easy as it sounds, though, and there are further SEO tricks to perform to ensure that Google quickly recognises your new content and ranks it highly. Here are the three best free SEO tricks for your website or blog.
1. Ensure your content is well written
Write about topics that you know about, and structure the article so it answers the questions that people may have.
If you’re a flower arranger, for example, write about which flowers and greenery are in season, where to find them, which styles of arrangement suit them, how much water they need… If you’re a plumber, write about a successful job you just completed. Maybe it was difficult to access, or required a new tool you’ve recently purchased, so include tips and advice. Include a few photos as well, properly formatted of course.
By answering real-life questions, you not only help your readers, you help Google to understand your subject matter. This helps a lot with your rankings, as Google wants to place the best businesses and the best advice at the top. So don’t shy away from using questions in your <h2> headings. For example:
How do I write well for the web?
or
How do I write good SEO content?
It also pays to know how Google users phrase their searches. Many searches begin with ‘how to…’ and ‘where can I buy…’, but there are other common phrases as well. For example, to help this blog, I could have used the <h2> heading:
How to write good SEO content
As you can see, then, it’s not just about writing grammatically correct and interesting content. You really need to format it well, so that Google will reward you with a good ranking.
And if you’re stuck at the stage of not knowing what to write about, there are some good online tools to help you think about blog topics and to help with your keyword research.
2. Ensure you set your metadata
Before publishing your new page or blog, set a unique ‘SEO title’ and ‘Meta description’ for it, describing what you have written about. Keep the ‘SEO title’ to under 60 characters and the ‘Meta description’ to no more than 156 characters.
Note, if you are a WordPress user, the Yoast plugin is very helpful with this. It will encourage you to think about a unique ‘Focus keyphrase’ for the page, and then include this in the ‘SEO title’ and ‘Meta description’, as well as in the opening paragraph and at least one Heading.
If you’re a WIX user, for instance, you’ll still be able to set a unique ‘SEO title’ and ‘Meta description’, and then consider ‘Custom Meta Tags’ within the Advanced SEO settings for each page.
3. Ensure you tell Google where to find your new content
Ok, you’ve felt inspired, you’ve written the most informative blog possible about your precise field of expertise, and you’ve published it with optimised headings, images and metadata. But it’s not showing in the Google listings. Why not?
First of all, have you verified your site with Google Search Console? This is an essential step, helping Google to identify you as the owner of a ‘trustworthy’ site. The verification process is free and doesn’t take long. Once verified, Google will crawl your site faster and is more likely to rank your pages higher.
Secondly though, as soon as you publish any new content, do re-submit your sitemap via Google Search Console.
You’ll need to be patient. Remember, SEO is a long-term strategy and your page/blog won’t show up in Google’s listings overnight. Also, the more competitive your market, the harder it is to rank on the first page.
Note: I’ve focused on Google here, but I’d also advise doing the same with the Bing Webmaster Tool, to help Bing users find your pages.
If you’d like to know any more about writing good SEO content, do get in touch.
If you run a website for any small business/organisation and require help to get you started with any of these steps, please ask for an affordable no-obligation quote. Site Review UK provides professional and personalised reports that explain everything. And there are many more easy-to-implement free SEO tricks of the trade to help your website – and your most important content – stand out.
Thanks for reading,
Simon Anderson
Site Review UK
