10 SEO Marketing Techniques: A Handy Guide To Learn SEO In 2020
You are a passionate blogger and you wanna make your Spot on Google's 1st page but it's not possible without SEO. No worries, in this SEO marketing guide I will be sharing with you some of the absolute effective and my personal favorite SEO techniques to Rank higher in the Google results.
Search engine optimization is crucial for everyone who runs or owns a website. Even if you are a wealthy guy and you have hired SEO experts but still there might come a point where you as the owner of the website have to know some basic SEO stuff. In fact, HubSpot stated that 80% of a website's traffic begins with a search query.
But becoming export in SEO will not be that much easy, it will take a long time, hard work, knowledge, experimentation, and being aware of the constantly changing Google algorithms.
That's What I Did...
People use Google to conduct around 5.8 billion searches every day. And average American gathers the information about a product online before buying it. So, clearly, there is a big opportunity to get yourself in front of these Google users but for that, you must have to have a good knowledge of Search Engine Optimization.
And here in this handy guide, you are going to learn some proven SEO marketing techniques to boost your SERP rankings.
1- Regularly Update Your Old Content Using The Flow Technique
Updating your old content and republishing it is the best way to make your posts up-to-date and to give your posts a small SEO boost. Every SEO guy will be 100% agree with it. But most of the bloggers often give advice, only update your least performing posts, and others disagree with it.
I would say you have to update your every blog post which is out of date, no matter it's well-performing or least performing. But here I'm sharing another tricky way to update your blog post with linking flow technique.
First of all, find out the blog that is performing very well. In other words, create a list of 4-6 posts that are ranking higher in Google than your other posts.
Now Identify your least performing post as well. Find out all of your posts that aren't doing well in SEO rankings.
Rewrite your least performing post-A-to-Z and optimization it for SEO.
Link your articles with your best performing article and republishing it.
In this way not just you are updating your old content, you are optimizing it for better SEO. And not just that, your best performing posts have more authority than the least performing once and by linking your least performing post with your higher authoritative pages will boost your posts.
When Google crawlers read your site they first check your high authority pages and if your high authority pages are not linking to your other pages then there is no way for Google to understand your other content.
2- Shoot For Featured Snippets
Featured Snippets can instantly take your website to the top of the 1st page of the result.
For Example: Let's say your post is ranking on number 10 on Google results for a particular keyword. But above your post, there are your competition and other authority sites. Getting ahead of them can take a lot of hard work and time but if your blog won the featured Snippet Spot, Google will be featuring your blog at the top of the page no matter How big your competition is.
And that's the beauty of featured Snippets.
But getting the featured Snippets you have to follow some steps.
STEP 1:
Make your spot on the first page of Google results. According to different online resources, Google will only take the content for featured Snippet if the blog is on the 1st page.
So, making your way for 1st page is necessary for getting featured Snippets.
STEP 2:
Find Out what type of featured Snippet you have to focus on. Basically, Google Shows 3 types of Snippets.
1. Definition Snippets
2. List Snippets
3. Table Snippets
Create a Snippet section in your post based on the main theme of your blog. If your post is a list post then focus to create a list Snippet, if your post is a wide guide about a specific term then focus on definition Snippet, if your content is about something which can be summed up in a table then focus on a table Snippet.
STEP 3:
Optimize your content for Snippet. Create a Snippet section of your post where you can add Snippet content. Some times Google will take your content and create a list for Snippet but for definition Snippets, you have to add a small and effective Snippet Definition.
Here is an example of a snippet section from HubSpot Blog
3- Make Sure To Write 1,890 + Words Article
There is no doubt that long-form content do really well than shorter once Brian Dean from Backlinko and his team studied over 1 million blog post and what they found the average blog post that ranks on the 1st page was 1,890 words longer.
In fact, long-form and helpful content does really well and not just that people are most likely to share and link longer-form content into their posts.
Always try to publish over 1,890 words, content but keep in mind your content have to be effective and helpful in order to get results. A shorter but high quality, high authority content will always outrank a longer crap and low-quality content.
But if you consistently publish high quality and longer content your content will naturally rank for dozens of more related keywords and can bring a lot of traffic for you.
4- Double Down On The List Posts
Every time when we hit the publish button we just have one thing in mind, "This post will bring good traffic to our blog."
In order to bring more traffic to your blog, you have to write awesome content. And because list posts are easy to skim and easy to understand there is a big demand for list posts it can bring sweet traffic to your blog. And because list posts are user friendly Google also loves these posts.
If you post a piece list of content every week, your chances of getting extra traffic will also increase, if you can generate 100 page views a day after publishing a few list posts you will be generating 1000 or 10,000 page views.
Even there are some blogs and Magazines which only publish pure list posts. Listverse etc.
Lists are user friendly, and lists are easy to understand than plain text. By proper SEO and consistency, you can get more traffic, revenue, subscribers, shares. likes, links, engagements, and followers from list posts. Why Not Start Writing One?
5- Use social Media for More Engagement
What if you a broke beginner, you don't have high authority and you don't have a lot of readers? well, you can use social media to leverage the internet.
You can cross-promote your content on social media platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. But sharing the exact same message in each of them cannot do any good. But if you change your social post and customize it for each platform then it could bring an engaged audience to your blog.
Share your content on Facebook. Create a small 10 lines summary of your content and add value in it, and at the end add your link without link preview.
Another type of Facebook post that you can post to get a response is, just add your title and a CTA, then add your link with preview.
You can also create an effective 10-15 lines case study. And people on Facebook are more likely to respond to these types of posts.
Linkedin is another best option to cross-promote your content. And the good news is, people on LinkedIn are highly engaged with the written content, in fact, LinkedIn also wants you to post text articles on their platform.
You can use your small summary with your CTA and link it on Linkedin as well.
But another thing that can bring a huge response to your post is, copying your blog post and creating a Linkedin article (and by copying I mean, copy every single word and image as well and add it in your Linkedin articles.)
And of course, these methods have helped me a lot.
Twitter is another best option to cross-promote your content. And people on Twitter are highly engaged with written content just like Linkedin.
But you can't add an entire article on Twitter. Twitter has a character limit for each post.
But it can be a good sign for you. You have to give a preview of your whole 2000+ words into these 280 characters. Add super important things from your article to the Twitter post. Finally, With a CTA end your Twitter post (with a link).
| Credit: Brian Dean |
And don't forget to add relevant hashtags. I recommend you use a maximum of 3 hashtags in each post.
Pinterest is a Goldmine for bloggers to generate traffic. in fact, I used Pinterest to get traffic when my blog wasn't getting any organic traffic. In fact, it helped me to get amazing traffic from Pinterest. With over 150k impressions and 1.2k link clicks even with 116 followers.
Not just traffic but Pinterest can help you to build communities, get content ideas, and learn from other bloggers.
Create highly engaged Pinterest graphics for your blog content and pin these on your Pinterest wall.
And your post is ready to get sweet traffic.
But if you wanna grow big using Pinterest and get over a million page views and clicks from Pinterest then you have to take it seriously. I would say pin a lot of posts on your relevant boards. And by "a lot"
I mean 50 to 70 pins per day.
Of course, it's not possible to do manually you have to invest in auto-scheduling tools like Tailwind to do this work for you.
And keep in mind that Pinterest is a search engine and they have their own algorithms just like Google has. Pinterest optimization is another part of the big term SEO, in which you have to learn title optimization, graphic optimization, description optimization, board optimization, and last but not least profile optimization.
To learn more about Pinterest Marketing you can read this resource.
6- Build High Authority Links
In off-page SEO the most important part is link building. Link building is super easy to learn but it's way more difficult then it sounds like.
Let's understand this term. When your link is found on someone else's website, it's mean you got a link from that site.
Getting more high authority links can help improve your Domain authority and can improve your Google rankings. Google uses backlinks to understand whether your content is worthy enough to up rank or not.
For creating backlinks to your site you can do a lot of black-hat techniques but Google is smart your site will be just crap in Googles's sight. I recommend you to focus on organic and white-hat link building strategies. And some of these are the following.
Guest Posting
Yes, write articles for other people in your industry and they will link back to your site in this way not only you will get a backlink but you can also get sweet traffic from their blogs.
Well, in my early days of blogging I just focus on other link building techniques, not on guest posting. But after a long time, I understand the guest posting is only best practice to improve your authority, trustworthiness, and overall traffic.
But now, I focus a lot on guest posting. I focus on a 50-50 Ratio. I focus and create 50% content for my blog and, I also create 50% of the content for guest blogging.
I cannot tell all the guest posting techniques in this handy post. But I'm linking a resource from the Backlinko Blog to understand guest posting deeply.
Broken Link Approach
Broken link building is another best approach to link building. Basically what you do here is, you first create the best possible content and resources. Then you try to find people who have linked similar content on their website but the sources that they are linking to are broken.
After finding these broken link opportunities, now you have to reach out to that website owner and tell them that their content has some broken link issues.
After all, at the end of your outreach email give your content as a replacement.
Pretty start forward, isn't it!
You can use Ahrefs to find broken link opportunities on your competitor's blog.
But there are many other options as well. You can also use a free tool like Check My Links extension.
Go to any web address and click on the extension to run the link checking process.
Boom!
It will show you all the broken links on that page and now you can reach the site owner to fix these issues which are stopping them to rank high and you are also getting a sweet link from them.
It's a win, win strategy. You'll win a backlink and traffic and they'll also win as they fix their website issues.
Infographic For Backlinks
Creating astonishing infographics not only improves your content quality but also people will link to amazing visual content.
Here's an example.
This infographic is originally created by a graphic design provider!
But you can see many high authority websites have used this and also are linking to its origin site.
Creating amazing infographics can help you to build your linking profile but also you can increase your domain authority soo quickly. But the point which needs your attention is, create only high-quality infographics, not old school boring graphics.
7- Deep Linking
Another SEO marketing technique that can help you rank high is deep linking.
With deep linking, you are not just creating backlinks for your home page you will be going deeper and creating links for your every post and for every page.
The problem with creating links for just your home page is Google's crawlers will not going to see your other pages because you have no deep links. Crawlers will only read your pages that you and other websites out there are linking to.
For example, you have 6 other pages aside from your home page. Page A, B, C, D, E, and F. But Google will only read end crawl your pages which have links. And you only have links to your Home pages, and to your A, B pages.
Google will never be going to check your C, D, E, and F pages because there are no links to those pages.
No matter which link building strategy you are using, deep linking will help your all pages to index and rank higher.
Even if your one page is ranking high in Google search than other pages link to your other pages as well. it will boost your internal linking too.
8- Optimize Your Content For Voice Search
As Siri, Amazon Echo, Alexa, and Google home's smart voice assistants are making it easier to search queries using voice, the voice search is getting more and more popular.
And it's estimated that people who use a smart assistant uses about 72% of voice searches. This means the demand for voice search will begin to rise up.
And there is no better time for optimizing your content for voice search than today. I'm giving you some SEO factors to focus on for better voice search optimization.
- Focus on Long-tail Keywords
- Create FAQ Section Around Your Blog
- Optimize for Local SEO
- Improve Your Website's Loading Speed
9- Improve Your CTR with Title Tags
Your titles play a vital role in your SEO and it must have to optimized. And aside from SEO, your title is the head of your post because a reader can only understand what your content is about by reading the title. Your title must represent your content. How a reader choose your post over others when they need some information?
Yes, it's all about your title.
According to online resources, 80% of the people only read your title and skip to the next result, and only 20% will click your title if your title is something they are looking for.
Be real specific and cut out other extra things from your title. If your title is that important for your success then only add specific and valuable words and phrases and cut out other random thoughts.
Here's an example of a bad title.
Instead, you can make it more specific by removing the extra things which makes this title more lengthy.
You can do even better.
Another SEO factor that people misuse a lot is, adding your main keyword in your title.
But what people misuse is they add multiple keywords, thinking that they will rank for other keywords too. That's wrong. Don't ever do that.
Pro Tip: Try to add your focused keyword in the beginning if it seems natural otherwise don't do that if it doesn't make any sense.
10- Earn More Real Estate (SERP) in Google
What does it mean? Earning more Google real estate simply means, if you are ranking for a specific keyword then also try to rank for that same keyword in other content formats.
Let's take an example if your article is ranking for "Football World Cup 2020", Then create a video format of your article and optimize it to rank on the 1st page as well.
Now. if you succeed in this your two pieces of content are at the top. And don't stop, try to make more Spot on 1st page in the shape of featured Snippets, Top Stories, etc.
Bonus, 11- Use LSI Keywords
Back in days, people use keyword stuffing to rank higher in the search ranking. But now algorithms are smarter. Now search engines especially Google use LSI keywords to rank specific pages.
But first, let's break it down, what LSI keywords are?
The best example to understand these keywords is by using a simple keyword "Apple". There are two types of apples in this world. There is the "Apple Fruit" and then there is a big tech company "Apple Company".
If you are writing a post targeting the "Apple" keyword, how a search engine knows which apple you are targeting to rank for? Is it the "Apple Fruit"? Or is it The Apple Company"?
Google has an algorithm called RankBrain. RankBrain reads all your content and tries to find Sub keywords or related keywords of the main keyword which you are trying to rank for.
For example, if you are targetting Apple and RankBrain finds other related keywords like tree, garden, watering, weather, taste, flavor, seed, etc then RankBrain understands your article is all about the Apple fruit.
And for Apple company.
Bonus, 12- Use Table of Content and Visuals
Google wants the best possible result for their users. A piece of content that is user friendly will always outrank a piece of content that has all the information but is not user friendly.
Make sure that your content is easy to understand, easy to skim, and easy to get the exact information that a user wants.
There are two ways to make your content user friendly and also it will help you in your Google rankings as well.
- Adding Table of Content
- Adding Helpful Visuals
1- Add The Table of Contents section in your every post (if possible). it will help your users to go directly to that specific information that they need, without scrolling. And it's a user-friendly action Google will always appreciate this.
2- Use The Right Kind of Visuals in your posts. To make your words more effect you need to add high-quality visuals in your content. If your content has something difficult, then try to make that step clear with graphics.
And using more visual graphics will help your users to engage more with your content and that's the key.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed and learn something new from this handy SEO Guide.
SEO is constantly changing, As Google is adding new algorithms and also new features like featured Snippets, Top Stories, Google Discover, People also ask section, etc. The methods of ranking also changing over time. But the best way to overcome this is, actually staying updated with new changes in the industry.
I recommend you to follow some good SEO resources or blogs to stay updated.
If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section.
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Ghani Mengal
LinkedIn
