How Social Media and Content are Cornerstones of a Blog SEO Strategy
If you don’t have a solid blog SEO strategy you can’t expect people to easily find your blog.
With all the noise from the thousands of other blogs that are also trying to stand out, getting the attention of your targeted searchers is getting even harder, particularly with Google’s constantly changing algorithms.
But the latest Panda and Penguin updates created one powerful combination strategy for bloggers to apply when trying to rank higher in the search results for the targeted queries: it integrates high-quality content, credible links, and of course, social signals.
All these elements support one another in an effort to bring greater value to the readers, to distribute the content across different channels, and increase your blogs authority. Here’s how they connect.
Content
An effective SEO strategy starts with the content and structure of your blog. For search engines to see your pages as relevant and list them in the results your site must be well organized and your content optimised. If the site looks spammy it will be treated as spammy. Instead update your web design to appear clear and professional, and consider the user experience when organising the site navigation so visitors can quickly and easily find what they need on your site.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is an essential part of your SEO strategy. You won’t be able to optimise your blog unless you first understand your target market and how these people search for the products and services you offer. You can use to analyse your keywords and figure out how people can get to your blog.
Once you have your target keywords defined you can optimise your content for those terms and phrases. This doesn’t mean you should repeat the words as much as you can throughout the blog. On the contrary, keyword overstuffing may push you lower in search result pages. The content must appear natural and read well, and for SEO reasons make sure to include your main keywords in article titles and meta tags.
Blogging in itself is good for SEO since Google and other popular search engines reward sites that have plenty of new, regularly updated content. And in addition, through the blog you are actually creating more content that you can target for different keywords to help you rank higher.
Links
Link building was always an important tactic in SEO, but unlike before when it was more about being listed in more directories, or getting links from blog comments, today the accent is on building high quality links from industry-relevant and reputable sites. More links tell Google that more people think your content is useful and relevant, so much that they wanted to link to your pages. And that’s what Google wants for their users. Not just a number of links, but links that help create value for the readers.
More quality links will also help you establish trust and build online authority for your business, boosting your pages to rank higher and bringing you more relevant traffic. Some successful link-building strategies include guest blogging, distributing press releases, or repackaging the existing content.
Social Media
Many analysts and experts argued whether social media would make SEO disappear, but the reality showed these two actually complement one another, transforming the way we think about blogging or any online business today. Ranking in the search results is directly related to the social signals. The more people share, like, comment and discuss your web content on popular social media, the higher your site position in the SERPs.
Social media brings you closer to your target audience. When you get involved in the social networks you should think of them as conversation channels that allow you to share valuable content and engage with your readers, share and retweet other blogs’ articles, thank your friends and followers for their comments, and join the discussions.
The number of social websites is constantly increasing, with new networks appearing every day in every corner of the world. And the possibilities they offer for improving your business online presence are absolutely amazing. Twitter has more than 500 million users, Facebook is over a billion with almost 700 million daily active accounts. Pinterest is only 3 years old and is already over 70 million, and Instagram has 130 million monthly active users on their mobile platform. If all these people like what you have to say and offer, there’s no limit to how much you can expand your business.
The world of SEO is getting ever more complex than before, with so many different elements you need to manage and organise, starting with your target keywords and content creation to link building and social media. Connecting all three is essential.
Author’s bio: Alice McLean is a writer at uk.bestessays.com with background in history, sociology and internet marketing. Now she is writing her first book on internet marketing.
