Search engine optimization (most commonly known as SEO) is one of those things that makes most authors want to groan. We look at it as one of those techie things that we need to do, but would rather that it just did itself.
SEO do not have to be difficult. In fact, I want to share 5 simple steps to help you optimize your rankings and increase your SEO with very little effort.
1. Update Your Website Content Regularly
Did you know that just blogging weekly will help you rank higher in the search engines? It’s an easy way of telling Google that your website is still active and not expired. It also gives Google more content to choose from when looking for results for your niche.
On the flip side of that, you don’t want to duplicate any of the content on your website. Each post or page on your website should be original to your website. Duplicating website content can actually hurt your rankings. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use PLR or pre-written posts by other people, you just want to make sure that if it’s on your website, it’s only there once.
2. Customize the URLs to Your Blog Posts and Web Pages
While you are updating your blog, take an extra moment to customize the URL. Instead of having it listed as YourWebsiteUrl.com/year/date/post-title-here, change it to something quick and easy. If you can do it naturally, you can even use a keyword here, just remember that you will want to customize and shorten all of your links, so make sure that you use something that describes the post accurately and not something that is generic.
3. Use Keywords In Metadata
We all know that keywords are a huge part of SEO, so much so that some authors have begun to loathe them – however, I’m not an advocate of stuffing your blog posts and web articles full of keywords. Instead, I recommend using keywords wisely. Your metadata is the best place possible for your keywords.
Make sure you have your post tagged with keywords. Be sure to re-name/title any pictures you upload to your blog with relevant keywords – again, not keyword stuffing, just using them wisely. Instead of having a picture on your blog labeled with a string of numbers or what not, take an extra second or two to re-name it with a more descriptive title that includes a keyword. Once you’ve done your original keyword research, why not get the most out it?
4. Add Your Blog Feed To Your Homepage
Just like updating your website content regularly helps improve your SEO, so does updating the actual homepage of your website. Most of us don’t have time to re-do our homepages on a monthly basis, so an easy solution to this is just having your blog feed somewhere on your homepage. This can be in a small widget on the sidebar, in a larger portion of the main page, it doesn’t matter. Anything that updates the links and/or content of your homepage counts as updating it. This is an easy, automatic way to increase your SEO.
5. Use Backlinks As Often As Possible
Above all else, backlinks are probably the easiest and most effective way to increase the SEO of your blog or website. You can create backlinks by posting the link to your website on your social media profiles, including it in your author bio when doing guest blogging, and even by commenting on other peoples blogs and leaving the link.
Note: DO NOT SPAM. Only leave comments with a link to your website if your comment is relevant to the place you are posting it. More often than not, if you post a spam comment with your link it will be deleted and not only not help your SEO, but it will also lower your credibility as an author.
So there you have it, 5 simple steps to increasing your SEO. By applying the above steps you should see an increase in your SEO – and the best part? You won’t be wasting hours of your time, these are things that you can accomplish in no time.
Before you go I highly recommend checking out Brian Dean’s infographic about the Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page here: http://backlinko.com/on-page-seo
To your success,
~ Heather
The blog was absolutely fantastic! A lot of great information which can be helpful in some or the other way. Keep updating the blog, looking forward to more content. Very informative!