It's common knowledge that every blog or website compete for the space to rank among the top ten sites on major search engine results page(s); of Google, Bing, yahoo. But all that can be an effort in futility when content does not provide value in terms of user-experience (UX) to its customers.
NB: Disclosure, "this post contains affiliate materials, contents, banners and/or links; and if you click on any of them we will earn commissions from your actions/activities. But note that revenue earning is not the main aim of this post in any way whatsoever. Opinions expressed here are our own and DOES NOT imply or represent those of any third-party and their associates in this website".
But there are several questions that comes to mind, and that must be satisfactorily answered in terms of analysis - your user-persona analysis; if you really are going to meet your audience's needs.
When you understand your audience is then when the keyword research will be a smooth process, because you now already know the relevant keywords/key phrases to target based on the user intent discussed above.
a) Long-tail keywords.
Most users are known to be using long-tail keywords to do organic search from the search engines, because that approach gives more specific results of what their intent is - what they are looking for.
b) Short-tail keywords.
As opposed to the long-tail keywords or phrases, the short-tail keywords one or two words in length, and are too general that they do not give specific outcome. We will look into the above two areas i.e. (long-tail and short-tail keywords) in-depth in our next topic.
That content will not be relevant to them if you bring in engineering topic and theme into a hotel and tours industry context, if they are looking for specifically travel and hospitality guides.
So, don't go that route, it won't be of value to them (users).
a) the organic way; (which means you place the keywords or key phrases in a natural way as you develop/write the content, organically); and
c). URL.
While meta description is the sites marketing tool, which tells your audience what the entire content is all about, the website URL is like your instant site map. It gives you a clear path and direction; or rather a directory of where the current file/open content page is located.
A good URL needs to be specific, in that, it guides the users to know where separate files or pages are stored within the website.
Note: The above is just an example of a URL, to demonstrate to you what a good URL structure looks like. You can see how I have separated every word of that page's title i.e. (the-great-maasai-mara) - with hyphens, to create permalinks.
Tip: At this point you also need to optimize your URL, by putting at least a keyword or key phrase in it.
d). Image/Alt tags.
So for the browser to read and translate that image, it will use its inbuilt algorithms i.e. (its artificial intelligence or capacity) to read, understand and display that image.
That means you create;
a) large content images.
You can also try the responsive text size, by using the 'vw'; this is short/initials for 'viewport width'. It means the text will also fit in with the respective screen displays of a number of devices like the desktop, tablets or smart-phones.
That way you invite the site visitors to click to the specific text links which will lead them to other pages or websites for more information.
NB: Disclosure, "this post contains affiliate materials, contents, banners and/or links; and if you click on any of them we will earn commissions from your actions/activities. But note that revenue earning is not the main aim of this post in any way whatsoever. Opinions expressed here are our own and DOES NOT imply or represent those of any third-party and their associates in this website".
So as we proceed there are Simple SEO That's Ultimate To SERPs Best 10. And the 7 basic steps are:
1). Customer Persona.
If you are in business or maybe plan to start one today, tomorrow or in the near future; be it a product/service business or even a blog like this one, there is that target audience you will always have in mind. The customer. |
| Understanding your customers.|Courtesy: Unsplash. |
In this stage of SEO you want to segment your users by getting to know which kind of customers are they that you want to serve - before you come up with a relevant content - in terms of;
- How old are they, i.e. what are their age range e.g. are they between 18-24years, 25-35years or 50+years etc.?
- How many are male/female i.e. interms of their gender percentage.
- What are their occupations; are they professionals like doctors, engineers, teachers or business people etc.?
- Where do they stay - their locality in terms of suburban, upcountry etc.?
- What do they specifically want or looking for, in terms of: Is it a holiday destination? Is it a strict vegetarian restaurant in town near them? Is it a nutritionist/fitness center etc.?
So, get to know whatever it is that they are looking for through user-persona analysis, which can be a tough process though; unless you understand their intent.
It doesn't matter if you serve one customer per session or group training; there is always a specific person/people whom the product or service is meant for i.e. the customer. Get to understand them through user-persona analysis view point.
It doesn't matter if you serve one customer per session or group training; there is always a specific person/people whom the product or service is meant for i.e. the customer. Get to understand them through user-persona analysis view point.
2). The User-Intent.
Sometimes we always rush to do keyword research in the process of SEO; which is still a good thing though, but not a good approach in On-page optimization.
First, you need to know what's the user is looking for - their intent- whenever they do any search.
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| User searching for Information|Photo by Benjamin Dada|Unsplash. |
When you understand your audience is then when the keyword research will be a smooth process, because you now already know the relevant keywords/key phrases to target based on the user intent discussed above.
I am talking about the ones with low competition, but with high levels of traffic. Use SEO tools like SEMrush to get an in-depth insight on keywords research or Google Keyword Planner which is also a great keyword research tool, but you need to have an account with Google AdWords.
3). Keyword Research and Optimization.
There are several tools that you can use in your keyword research efforts, examples are like the ones I have listed in the links in step 2 above.
They will enable you to come up with relevant and valuable keywords and/or semantically related phrases, for you to choose from. You will be able to know those keyword densities, popularity, competitiveness etc., among other parameters. This is a very important part of the SEO process, even though sometimes we create content then optimize it later.
This strategy most of the time can lead to unnatural placement of keywords in content, and it may tempt you into doing keyword stuffing. But be warned that if you do it then be prepared to be penalized by Google for black-hat technique.
Scenario 1: Think of it this way; you are driving a vehicle without indicators or with faulty ones for that case. But at the same time you want to let the other road-users know which direction you are heading or turning to.
Now, allover sudden you turn left, while the other road users knew that you are heading right - based on the right-hand-indication signal that is showing on your car, unknowingly; maybe due to faulty indicators.
So (to them - "users") you are moving to the wrong side of the road at that point. That means you will have misled them.
Those - ''other road users'' - are like your website/blog audience or visitors.
Those - ''other road users'' - are like your website/blog audience or visitors.
Keywords/key phrases are that way, they let you guide others to know which way is the right way you are heading to - content-wise, depending on the user intent that you identified earlier.
Long-tail and Short-tail Keywords:
I would say there are two major areas in keyword research that needs much of your attention and focus. These are both the long-tail and short-tail keywords.a) Long-tail keywords.
Most users are known to be using long-tail keywords to do organic search from the search engines, because that approach gives more specific results of what their intent is - what they are looking for.
In other words the long-tail keywords are more detailed for an effective search results intent.
b) Short-tail keywords.
As opposed to the long-tail keywords or phrases, the short-tail keywords one or two words in length, and are too general that they do not give specific outcome. We will look into the above two areas i.e. (long-tail and short-tail keywords) in-depth in our next topic.
4). Great Content.
'Content is relevance', without which there is no value to your users. It means, for instance, if you do content marketing for a tours and travel industry, then your audience/users will expect to get an engaging content that entice them into visiting various tours and or travel destinations with great experience.
For instance, telling your audience a story about Eiffel Tower in Paris - France or the Egyptian Pyramids, or even the spectacular wildebeest migration in Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya. But in that aspect you provide your web visitor with; affordable camping and hotel rates, best food cuisines, and pricing for the game trips or world travel information to those places.
Let your users also know about the hospitality and or culture of the people in those destinations. That way you will be describing to them what they really want and or will experience whenever they visit those places; and at the same time you meet their needs.
That will be great content marketing, which is relevant to your audience, because that was their intent in the first place when they were doing Google search and came to land into your site.
Also based on their customer-persona analysis that you have done - as we have explained above, you got to know your audience to be people looking for holiday destinations. And the content is also developed around the holiday season, your target users will find it relevant.
But you do not talk about engineering in the context of hospitality and tours; even though some - if not most - of your target audience are engineers by profession.
But you do not talk about engineering in the context of hospitality and tours; even though some - if not most - of your target audience are engineers by profession.
That content will not be relevant to them if you bring in engineering topic and theme into a hotel and tours industry context, if they are looking for specifically travel and hospitality guides.
So, don't go that route, it won't be of value to them (users).
On-page optimisation:
After valuable content to your audience you expect it to feature in the top 10 of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) of major browsers e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. But that will not be possible if the content is not optimized to enable it rank among the ten best sites on results pages. So as I mentioned earlier, there are two ways that you can adopt, to optimize your content i.e.
a) the organic way; (which means you place the keywords or key phrases in a natural way as you develop/write the content, organically); and
b) by creating the content first; then optimizing it later by placing relevant keywords and or key phrases in strategic places (like in the title, Meta description, image and Alt tags etc.) within the content.
Whichever method you decide to follow there are various parts of the content that are basic in on-page SEO, like the ones I have hinted in part (b) above.
The following are essential and basic areas that you need to optimize in your content.
a). Title.
This is one of the first areas you need to focus on when optimizing your content. It is the face of every web page that Google or other browsers displays on the results pages to rank that specific content. When optimizing it, it’s important to place the keywords or key phrases at the start or towards the beginning of the title.
Reason being, it will get cut off with Google bots and replaced with ellipses (...) i.e. the 3 dots part if the title is longer with more than 60-65 characters.
This is one of the first areas you need to focus on when optimizing your content. It is the face of every web page that Google or other browsers displays on the results pages to rank that specific content. When optimizing it, it’s important to place the keywords or key phrases at the start or towards the beginning of the title.
Reason being, it will get cut off with Google bots and replaced with ellipses (...) i.e. the 3 dots part if the title is longer with more than 60-65 characters.
Note: The title needs to have at least 60-65 characters in length, including the spaces in between the words in the title itself.
Google algorithms measure this (meta title) by pixel lengths, and so if you use more of the wider letters - e.g. (w, m, M etc.) as opposed to using less wider ones like (i, t, j, I etc.), then your title length might become longer before you construct something reasonable as title and utilize the 60 characters, including spaces, that is recommended by Google.
b). Meta description.
b). Meta description.
Even though Google does not consider it much as a ranking factor, but it’s a very important sales leaflet for every website page.
When you reach this stage, you need to describe to your audience what your content is all about. So place at least a keyword within the first 160 - 300 characters, which is the recommended length by Google.
If it’s well written then it will entice your audience to click and eventually it increases your sites click-through rate. If it overlaps then Google will cut it off with ellipsis too towards the end it.
If it’s well written then it will entice your audience to click and eventually it increases your sites click-through rate. If it overlaps then Google will cut it off with ellipsis too towards the end it.
While meta description is the sites marketing tool, which tells your audience what the entire content is all about, the website URL is like your instant site map. It gives you a clear path and direction; or rather a directory of where the current file/open content page is located.
A good URL needs to be specific, in that, it guides the users to know where separate files or pages are stored within the website.
For instance, if you have content about tours and travel giving rate or package information, with the page title the "The Great Maasai Mara" - which is a famous world national game reserve named "the 7th wonder of the world", located in the south western savanna grasslands in Kenya, East Africa.
Then, if that content page is located within the marketing section of your website, then it can have the following sample URL: www.briskcontent.blogspot.com/marketing/the-great-maasai-mara.
Then, if that content page is located within the marketing section of your website, then it can have the following sample URL: www.briskcontent.blogspot.com/marketing/the-great-maasai-mara.
Note: The above is just an example of a URL, to demonstrate to you what a good URL structure looks like. You can see how I have separated every word of that page's title i.e. (the-great-maasai-mara) - with hyphens, to create permalinks.
This is a good SEO practice, as the permalinks will enable web crawlers to easily identify where the content is located within your site. It is also not a wise idea to use the underscores to separate words of the page title in the URL. This is because some web crawlers/browser algorithms cannot identify or read the underscores to categorize your content easily.
d). Image/Alt tags.
Another part of your article that calls for some SEO consideration is the image Alt (alternate) tag. It helps direct/guide the 'crawler bots' appropriately.
Although as humans we are able to see and interpret pictures/images. But a machine does not have such natural intelligence to read and understand what an image means on its own. It requires some guidance; and that can only be done through image file and its subsequent title description/optimization.
Although as humans we are able to see and interpret pictures/images. But a machine does not have such natural intelligence to read and understand what an image means on its own. It requires some guidance; and that can only be done through image file and its subsequent title description/optimization.
So for the browser to read and translate that image, it will use its inbuilt algorithms i.e. (its artificial intelligence or capacity) to read, understand and display that image.
Alternatively it will show the meaning of that image through words that have been written on the Alt (alternate) tags; to identify, explain, express and/or indicate what that image is all about to your audience.
This normally happens most of the time whenever the browser used is not able to display that same picture/image, due to clumsy, heavy images or image encryption formats or errors.
So for quality image output, you can use a range of these free online image compression tools like the JPEG Optimizer, WP Smush for WordPress, ImageRecycle among others to edit, compress and upload your images professionally onto your blog posts absolutely free. And they are also very simple, and easy to use.
Images are extremely important to use in explaining a concept/context, in a content. But including too much of it might slow down your websites speed or loading time.
This normally happens most of the time whenever the browser used is not able to display that same picture/image, due to clumsy, heavy images or image encryption formats or errors.
Image File Formats and Compression:
There are a number of different file formats; but for the best image display, results and speed, I recommend you always use especially the .jpg, .gif, .png file formats to compress, save and retrieve your image/picture files from the server or any of your storage sources, and for your blog posts.So for quality image output, you can use a range of these free online image compression tools like the JPEG Optimizer, WP Smush for WordPress, ImageRecycle among others to edit, compress and upload your images professionally onto your blog posts absolutely free. And they are also very simple, and easy to use.
Images are extremely important to use in explaining a concept/context, in a content. But including too much of it might slow down your websites speed or loading time.
Just ensure you use minimal number of images - those that are of high quality and legal to use for that matter. Although that's for you to decide how many are adequate; and you can get high quality images to add to your blog post, from sites like Flickr, Pixabay, Unsplash which are some of the best royalty-free or Creative Commons Licenced picture/image sources, for public use.
Tip: If you do incorporate just a few images then that will increase/improve your page loading time and in turn boost your site's speed.
That means you create;
- Invaluable user-experience (UX).
- Increased dwell-time from your site visitors and
- Better site rankings.
e) Header tags.
Headers are the topic introductory labels of your content. They help you to separate, introduce and discuss different issues in sections of your content in an orderly manner.
We have H1 - H6 header tags in an article or content. But the H1 tag is normally the default title tag in most of the CMS (Content Management Systems) e.g. WordPress. The other tags i.e. H2 through to H6 are used in other subheadings/subtopics of the content.
Tip: This is another important part of the blog content that you have to utilize such an opportunity in optimizing your blog post. But never put too much of the keywords that will end up making your content spammy.
Over-optimization of thetags is not recommended by Google because you might be penalized for "keyword stuffing" - i.e. placing more keywords in the content unreasonably to help your blog content/page/website to rank high, especially in the top 10 sites of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Over-optimization of the
5). Website Speed.
There is nothing more discouraging like a slow loading website, including this site, if it happens to experience such delay problems.
If your website fits into such a category, then that means you lose more of your visitors the moment they make their first click, because they wouldn't even hesitate to hit the return button, if the site delays a lot in loading.
If possible a website needs to take less than 3 seconds to load.
So if it drags for more than that then it definitely affect your site's ranking marks. That creates a lot of website bounce-rate, which is a negative thing for a site.
If possible a website needs to take less than 3 seconds to load.
So if it drags for more than that then it definitely affect your site's ranking marks. That creates a lot of website bounce-rate, which is a negative thing for a site.
I would not be impressed to find that you straggle with a slow site; even with the speed of this site that you are currently reading. Some of the culprits slowing down the page load time or speed are:
a) large content images.
They first need file compression to fit into different screen sizes e.g. desktop, tablet and phone screens. For best results you can use the .jpg, .png etc. file formats or types.
b) Ad pop-ups, or even
b) Ad pop-ups, or even
c) Poor network among others.
6). Responsive Web Design.
Most people nowadays access information through their mobile phones. In that case your web design and content needs to be mobile-responsive, and at the same time deliver user experience to the site visitors.The Responsive Mobile and SEO.
Based on research most people use their mobile phones to access and even learn a lot online. So to give your audience the best therefore, you need to develop a site that is well optimized and mobile-responsive.
So, in any content creation, website design/development, digital or online marketing - that targets SEO in general; all will be nothing if you don't think mobile-first.  |
| A web visitor using her phone.|Courtesy: Unsplash. |
It means you have to use and follow an approach that prioritizes the mobile phone users with devices like the iPhones, Androids, iOS etc.
Which are the main gadgets that are currently trending in use for accessing information, or to buy/sell a product/service through e-commerce or e-marketing platforms on the web.
a) Responsive web images.Which are the main gadgets that are currently trending in use for accessing information, or to buy/sell a product/service through e-commerce or e-marketing platforms on the web.
Also important in this step is to make the content images web responsive; as I have discussed in step #5 above.
- This means you set up the images to display to fit into different screen sizes e.g. desktop, tablet and phone screens seamlessly, without any problem.
- By using CSS, a web page structure and styling code. You can set the "width" property in CSS code with different units e.g. 100%, 160% etc., depending on respective screen sizes; which lets the browser display the images in a responsive style.
The above piece of HTML/CSS code will let the image fit in well by re-sizing, depending on the screen type and size.
To achieve the responsive mobile displays you need to do that by coding your HTML code to 'viewport' from your source code.
Look at, and try the following piece of HTML code enclosed in square brackets below. Just open the source code, if you are the admin of that website; then copy and paste the following code [<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">] under the head tags.
If you try the above codes it will give you the expected results of your site to display in mobile devices.
The above piece of HTML/CSS code will let the image fit in well by re-sizing, depending on the screen type and size.
Tip: If that doesn't help add this code in brackets (?m=1) at the end of your website's URL on the web browser and press search to check if your site is responsive.
If you try the above codes it will give you the expected results of your site to display in mobile devices.
The above piece of HTML/CSS code will let the image fit in well by re-sizing, depending on the screen type and size.
Tip: If that doesn't help add this code in brackets (?m=1) at the end of your website's URL on the web browser and press search to check if your site is responsive.
You can also try the responsive text size, by using the 'vw'; this is short/initials for 'viewport width'. It means the text will also fit in with the respective screen displays of a number of devices like the desktop, tablets or smart-phones.
I know you are not a coder or may not be good at it, and neither am I an expert in coding. Although I think it makes sense and a big difference if you take the initiative to learn coding. And by the way, practice - as the saying goes - makes perfect.
So if you want to learn or know more about coding you can visit or sign up with W3School and Codecademy. They are among some of great places that you can join for a lot of tutorials to teach yourself how to code; be it HTML, CSS, jQuery etc.
So if you want to learn or know more about coding you can visit or sign up with W3School and Codecademy. They are among some of great places that you can join for a lot of tutorials to teach yourself how to code; be it HTML, CSS, jQuery etc.
7). Link-Building.
“Content is King” that's the SEO/Content Marketing industry adage, and I do totally agree with it. Without relevance to what users require at the time they want it, depending on their search intent, then it means any content including this one you are reading at the moment users won't be impressed.
The reason for any link-building is to create more user experience; from within the current website that a user visits, and extend to external sources/sites for more information via links. In that case we have to do some back-links, interlinks etc. from other websites - that are relevant - into our sites through a number of ways.
You can use the following methods or strategies for linking are:-
- Inter-linking. This is the process of connecting or attaching different pages in various categories within the entire site, provided that the pages are relevant to the particular topic of discussion and especially to the users.
- Anchor text. This is an actual text that is used to link to a particular page or URL within the same site or different external blogs/websites URLs, using ahref link like this one in square brackets [<a href="https://www.briskcontent.blogspot.com">BriskContent</a>
Finally, let me close by saying this; SEO is all about the simple steps that you will ever take in your content development, to ensure you deliver relevance, quality and unforgettable user experience (UX) to your site visitors through well optimized and great (blog or website) contents. Because - "content is king", - that's what makes the difference. It’s the way to go.
So I will encourage you to consider optimizing the following key areas in your content, and as your key SEO takeaways for your search engine strategies.
You need to place keywords or key phrases in;
- Title page.
- Page/content title.
- Headers
, (but not necessarily in all of them). - Content body. (Spread keywords across, but DON'T over-do it).
- Image files name/description.
- Image alt tag.
- URL.
- Meta description.
- Anchor text.
I do appreciate and value your time; that you have taken to read this post.
You can also leave a comment below that can help improve this post where you deem appropriate or necessary.
Many thanks.
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