The history of the blog post has taken a fascinating journey, from humble beginnings to its position today as a fundamental aspect of SEO success. Here are 12 things you need to know an Arizona SEO blogger!
As the internet has evolved and grown over time, content has emerged as the most important aspect of internet marketing.
Is it time for you to optimize your blog content to increase your website traffic and sales?
Let’s take a look at twelve Arizona SEO essential tips to create high-performing blog posts.
1. Proper Keyword Research
Keyword research is used by SEO experts and content creators to help discover topics that your users are interested in. This technique used data from search engines to find out what information people are looking for.
You don’t want to be making blind guesses about what kinds of articles to write. When you maintain a blog, you’ll need a steady stream of topics ideas, and you want them all to be as successful as possible.
It can be tempting to simply write about what’s exciting or interesting to you right now. Unfortunately, this isn’t the place for that. Offering your opinions on specific topics is only a good idea if you are already a well-known, authoritative blogger.
If you’re just starting out, you want to talk about what your audience is interested in. Create passive, organic search traffic by writing useful, informative posts about topics with long-lasting interest.
In order to do this, you can use a keyword research tool as well as research what your competitors are ranking for. Don’t feel like you can’t write a blog post for your site that’s the same topic as one of your competitors has done. Rather, use this as inspiration and set out to create an even better, more useful post than that of your competition.
2. Write an Effective Title
The title of your blog post needs to be strong both to optimize your search rankings and to appeal to the reader.
By using your focus keyword in the title of your blog post, you can help make your article more relevant to a search query. Don’t stop here, though. You’re also going to want to make the title click-worth and catchy.
Writing headlines that people actually click on with improve your click-through rate (CTR) which is also incredibly important to your SEO.
Your target customer is ruthless in discerning whether or not they’ll click on an article. The title is what’s going to make or break your CTR. Knowing an effective title will really help with building your Arizona SEO credibility.
How do you write headlines that compel a reader to click?
You’ll want your titles to be unique, urgent, useful, and super-specific. This means that you’ll need to have a deep understanding of your audience in order to understand what will strike them.
3. Utilize Internal and External Links
As your blog grows, you’ll want to be internally linking to keep your audience on your site. This is a win-win, because not only will it drive traffic to your older articles, but it will also improve the SEO for your current article.
Of course, you don’t want to overdo this. Don’t link to your own site more than you link externally to other resources. You’ll want to aim for roughly 2-4 internal links per article.
External links are just as, if not more, important as internal links. In fact, some top SEO experts believe that outbound links are the most important source of SEO ranking power.
When linking to a site other than your own, you want to be linking to a reputable and respected source. It should go without saying, but you also never want to link to another business that performs the same service as you do.
4. Use Images and Videos To help Rank Your Arizona SEO
Did you know that the human brain processes visual images 60,000 times faster than it processes text?
This means that long before your audience has read the first words of your article, they’ve scanned the images (or, gasp, the lack thereof) to determine whether or not they’re going to stick around.
Not only will images and videos help you keep your audience on your site, but it’ll also help them find your site in the first place. This is because search engines tend to rank engaging content higher in their search results. Since images and videos are much more engaging than straight text, this will significantly help your rankings.
When adding images, you can’t just use any image you find online. Be aware of copyright laws so that you don’t end up in legal trouble.
Luckily, there are countless sites where you can access royalty-free images. It’s also completely acceptable to use your own images.
Images can also be optimized for SEO, through their title and meta-data.
Videos are considered to be even more engaging than visual images. Consider including relevant videos or converting your blog posts into videos, You can do this through vlogging, slideshows, or a number of other formats.
As a bonus tip, you could also consider the benefits of advertising on YouTube. Since video content is so engaging, grabbing a bit of your audience’s attention with YouTube advertisements can be an incredibly effective marketing technique.
5. Don’t Skip the Meta Description
The meta description of your blog post is an HTML meta tag that can be added to any page. This meta tag provides a brief description of your blog post to be utilized by search engines and crawlers.
When you see an article posted on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, you’ll see the meta description displayed under the title. You’ll, therefore, want your meta description to be helpful and further encourage your audience to click on the link.
6. Make Your Articles Readable
Writing blog posts is not the place for convoluted or complex verbiage. Your intent is for your reader to stick around, read your article, and stay on your site. If your writing style isn’t easy to read, your audience will bounce.
Most users take less than a second to choose whether or not they’re staying on a page.
This means that you have a split second to convince your audience that your content is worth reading. You want readers to be able to scan the article and glean from it the information they’re looking for.
A good way to improve the readability of your content is by breaking up text with images and add white space around the text. You’ll also want to write in shorter paragraphs and shorter sentences. Utilizing headers and bulleted lists also make content much more readable.
7. Organize Your Content With Tags and Categories
Keeping your content organized with tags and categories is helpful to you, your readers, and search engines.
You want to be sure you’re using these tools correctly, though. If you view your site as a book, the categories are like the table of contents and tags are the index.
Use categories to organize your content into the major topics that are discussed on your blog. When you tag an article, you’re tagging the topics touched upon in the specific blog post.
Are you wondering how to know if your SEO is working? There are a number of different tools available online for this express purpose. You can even find free tools like an SEO checker or an SEO analysis tool.
8. Make Sure Your Post Is Comprehensive For Arizona SEO
Rather than addressing a bunch of issues at the surface level, your blog posts should take deep dives.
It can be good to have some posts that are general overviews, but you also want to offer readers comprehensive takes containing lots of details. By creating comprehensive content, you’ll not only be elevated in search results, you’ll be demonstrating your authority to the reader.
Think about it, aren’t there specific websites that you consider “authorities” on certain topics? If you search for a term, wouldn’t you click on a website that’s been helpful in the past rather than some site you’ve never heard of?
When you’re writing articles, it can be easy to just view them as a form of direct online marketing. Don’t limit yourself by only writing about your own products or services, though.
Instead, offer information of value to your readers. Fill your site with blog posts that will genuinely contribute to their lives, rather than just trying to sell them something.
You want to position yourself in their minds as legitimate and authoritative. This means that they’ll keep coming back for more information, which will help your search rankings, which will lead to more traffic and more business.
There is a lot of content out there. You can make yours stand out in a number of ways, and writing comprehensive posts can set you above the competition.
9. Create Content Worth Linking To
According to Google, one of the top three factors that impact their ranking is links.
We’ve already talked about including internal and external links to your site, but how can you get other sites to link to your content?
The most important thing to do in order to earn links on other sites is to create content that’s worth linking to and its no different for your Arizona SEO. If your content isn’t any different from thousands of other blog posts, you’re not going to gain links back to your site. You need to give people a compelling reason to link to your content.
10. Update Your Old Content
If you have a page that’s experienced a steady decrease in traffic, it’s possible that your content has gotten outdated.
Keep your articles relevant by consistently updating them and editing them. Don’t post a blog article and never think about it again. You should think about your site as a library of content, and no matter how old a post is, it should be driving traffic to your site.
It is also a good idea to create “evergreen” content. Evergreen content is content that isn’t regarding a subject that will only be relevant for a short period of time. Create content that has lasting power, that people can refer to for years to come.
11. Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly
81% of Americans own smartphones, and a growing percentage of them use their smartphones as their primary means of internet access.
If your blog isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re not doing yourself any favors. People who make it to your site while using a mobile device will look for information elsewhere when it’s not formatting correctly and instantly.
You’ll need to consider how your article will read on a mobile device. Make sure your sentences are short as well as your paragraphs. No one is going to sit and read a wall of text filled with run-on sentences on their smartphone.
12. Hire a Professional Digital Marketing Service to Handle Your Blog
You’re running a business in Arizona. That means you likely have enough on your plate. Hiring someone to help with your Google ranking could be the key for your business in 2020. Hiring the right Arizona SEO agency is the first step.
Properly handling SEO and running a blog is in itself a full-time job. Why not hand it off to the experts who do this for a living?
Are you wondering why you should hire us here at Go Pheonix SEO? We can boost your search ranking and get you more organic traffic.
Following These Arizona SEO Essentials Will Revolutionize Your Blog
There are so many blogs out there that it can be easy to get lost in the crowd. Using these SEO tips can help your blog stand out and not slip between the cracks of the world wide web.
As the logic behind search engine rankings is constantly changing, it can make sense to hire a professional service to handle this aspect of your marketing.
Are you looking for an Arizona SEO company to optimize your blog and site? Look no further than Go Phoenix SEO. Check out our limited-time offer of $399 SEO services today!
