Blogging is one of the fastest emerging niches in today’s global commercial market and it has to do with all things online and all things digital. Literally, every niche in the world today, every kind of market and every segment of the audience for every sub-niche has thousands of bloggers the world over who are busy chronicling the evolution of that niche, driving engagement and helping those markets and businesses within them as they strive to leave a legitimate footprint online.
The blogger is also one who is constantly on the lookout for effective and less time-consuming methods that can drive engagement and secure a new reader or follower. This is usually called organic traffic. With SEO or Search Engine Optimization and SMO or Social Media Optimization, there are a number of tools now available to the blogger to drive organic traffic and make them stay!
Here are some SEO tips for increasing blog traffic.
Keywords say it all
We cannot stress on this enough – keywords are the main foundation of all your SEO efforts. Without keywords, you may as well skip the SEO gamut completely because you will soon find yourself arriving at the derelict station called “blogging fail!” If you really want to up your SEO game and gain some organic followers, week after week, month after month, and year after year; you need to stay strong on your keyword game.
When you think of a topic that you want to write on, you need to first of all look for keywords in that niche. If you are a blogger who is new to the field or a blogger with a following that is still in the growth phase, you may want to steer clear of the keywords that are right on top of the keyword generation tool for your niche and topic. Why? Because these are the keywords that automatically guarantee a great ranking for very well established brands, bloggers and other portals. Instead, try the keywords that would have less competition.
Do not go down to the bottom of the list, but stay somewhere in the middle because these will give you topics that not many other brands and bloggers would be out to cover. Which means unanswered questions that you can easily fit into! Make a name here with great keyword backed content and continue to write about such keywords and topics.
Automate your Content generation Method
Every blogger worth his or her salt knows this – topics and especially unique takes on the same topic are not easy to come by. This process can get easier with a little faith in automation. Do not merely wait for inspiration to strike because that could mean a delay in your publishing and posting schedule and it could also result in a lack of interest from your followers who will have no dearth of other bloggers to follow SEO content writing tips.
Remember, most topics and hashtags also go out of fashion within a few days and weeks or even a season or two. So merely using those keywords and hashtags in the same topics would not be enough. You would have to find a unique spin on the same topic, like the World Cup season, or Summer fashion, or other related topics. In order to do so, you can simply turn to an automated platform like BuzzSumo which helps you in curating content marketing and understanding what you need to report on and what others in your niche may not have reported on already.
This will also narrow down and properly define your keyword research in an efficient way to drive traffic. With such unique and automated content, so that you do not end up wasting time over needless research, you can actually be sure that your audience will have something new to look forward to each time. This is how you can build a strong and loyal following.
Link Building
This is an SEO function that many bloggers end up ignoring with many claiming that they do not have the time to indulge in the same. Now, here’s the breaking news – link building is just as important as keyword research for all your content.
If you want to boost your organic audience and make sure they convert into your loyal followers and spread the word about you, then you need to show them that your links are available on other relevant and even reputed platforms and portals as well.
Granted, this may take time and several attempts, but it is well worth the effort. The effort towards link building and link exchange has to be consistent, just like the schedule and frequency at which you post content on your blog. And when you have good content with good internal links to boast of, there would be very few other brands and bloggers who would turn down the offer to feature you and get featured on your portal as well.
Internal and external link building are both required for good SEO and for your audience to find you and remember you from more than one or two sources. Also, a good way to go about link building would be to venture towards guest posting which can feature you as an expert in your niche so that you can also link back to your own blog and give your traffic an organic boost.
Varied Content
For good unique spins on the automated content suggestions and the efficiency of link building, you would have to come up with good yet varied content. Repeating yourself would do no good if you are looking to boost your organic traffic.
As a blogger, you need to consistently show what all you can write about so that your monetization game reaches various kinds of clients and customers, and for you to be able to show a wider plethora of audience as well.
If you want to show how efficient you are in reaching out to various segments of your niche and its audience, your content has to be just as varied as their realities and questions. Think of that when you plan your content. Do not merely write lengthy features.
Make your content more discoverable for people looking for exact steps to get something done (with a listicle style post that google can pull up), or cater to some infotainment with a quick video, and remember to regularly post reviews so that someone looking to procure a product or service can stumble upon your authentic view and come back each time he or she needs such a review before a purchase. Remember – varied needs, varied content, and varied organic audience!
Are You Paying Attention to your Images
Now, this is a little known fact of SEO and one that many bloggers end up ignoring. Your images can be optimized for SEO as well. If you did not know that as yet, now is the time to learn! Each time you upload an image to go with your post or your article, there are attributes and fields on the right side asking for a caption and for you to add the picture credentials and courtesy.
There is a small field called Alt Text, which many people tend to ignore because they simply may not know what that means! When you enter your keyword for that piece in the alt text field, you are amplifying your SEO signals because a lot of readers and people on search engines go to the images first when they search for a topic or a keyword.
So, you would do well to remember this and add alt text in the form of your keywords for that post. Remember to look for the stock free imagery sign when you download and use images from external sources.
Plagiarism Alert
Always be sure to create unique content in your own voice. But also remember to proof read and put each post through a plagiarism software so that you do not inadvertently end up sounding like another blogger in your niche, or someone you may have based your research on.
This may be especially true in case you have quoted someone else, in which case, quotation marks and a clear reference within the post and at the end would be mandatory. You could also leave a hyperlink to this source for good backlinking right here! Remember to check for these things before you publish your work.
This is especially important if you are writing for a topical issue like an Awards show or the World Cup, in which case many bloggers may end up voicing the same thoughts in a hurry. So always remember to reword and rework your piece or the parts of the piece that may sound like someone else’s.
The confusion of who the original writer is, can throw off your SEO efforts and keep your audience from coming back to you in case they read the same words on another portal or a different blog.
I am a passionate blogger and developer sharing business tips. I Help others solve programming problems on various online forums.
You must follow these marketing tactics to promote your business online.