Blogging A to Z: Your Glossary Guide for Success
Blogging has come a long way. From the earliest online diaries and journals, “web logs” became blogs, the noun turned into verb and, before we knew it, the vast array of topics and niches exploded into a blogosphere — with over 500 million to be found and 7 million posts every day. So whether you’re a seasoned blogger or completely new, you’ll need a smattering of the lingo for this journey. From the basics (Article, Feed) to the techy stuff (CMS, XML), take this as your handy A-Z for blogging success. ABC, D-F, G-J K-M, N-P, Q-S T-V, XYZ Article A is for… Article. An easily-digestible slice of written content. Once the preserve of print media, Articles can of course cover an infinite number of topics and themes. The idea is to keep readers informed, educated, and entertained — in a single sitting, or perhaps while they are on-the-go. Come up with a hook to engage the audience of your Blog Article right from the start. Choose a clear subject and take a unique point of view. Select a topic you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. Think about a current trend, an issue that piques interest, or a problem to be solved. Use your own words and ideas to develop to a unique voice and perspective in your articles. Finish with food for thought or a Call to Action (CTA). This will all help attract an audience and encourage social sharing. See also: Niche Author The creative brain behind the content. It’s their unique voice and perspective that breathes life into a text. Authors are named and credited with a byline (like “by Joe Blogs”) alongside a date of publishing. See also: Blogger Affiliate Marketing When readers click on links you’ve shared and buy something or take an action, and you then earn a little something each time, that’s Affiliate Marketing. Let’s say, for instance, you have a guitar blog, and you include sponsored link to a popular guitar manufacturer. When your readers click on that link and buy an instrument, you might earn a commission. It’s a way for bloggers to earn while helping others discover cool products or services. A potentially lucrative endeavour. But don’t mislead or overpromote: it’s essential to strike a balance between earning and bringing genuine value to readers. Plug that guitar because it rocks. See also: Monetisation Anchor Text The clickable text on a link, Anchor Text is there to act as a description for said hyperlink. For example, if I were to say that it’s so easy for anyone to buy a domain name and build a great website. Anchor Text also makes it easier for readers to find useful info on a page, but also helps search engines by detailing what your blog is all about. See also: Hyperlink Alt Text/Tag Alt Text (“Alternative Text”) is the brief description that you can add to an image on a webpage to give it more information or context. However, it exists within the HTML code. To describe an image to your readers you’ll want to use a Caption instead. These tags are optional, but useful for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It’s also a good thing for those who may not be able to see an image. The text can be read out loud by screen reader software or Alexa (or your favourite). Some choose to declare image rights/authorship in the Alt Text, but this isn’t really the place — better to state this clearly in the Photo Credit and other copyright notices. B Blog, Blogger First coined in the late 1990s, Blogs are now staggeringly popular. It’s a way to share our experiences and ideas. The ease and speed of Blogging is arguably the main factor. It’s ripe for the modern age. Forego the smoky publishing house: you are the author, editor, proofreader and publisher, all rolled into one. And if you are, then you may call yourself a Blogger. There are millions out there all vying for our attention. Of over 1.6 billion websites, 500 million are certified blogs, according to hostingtribunal.com, and 7 million new articles posted every day. Blogging Platforms A collective term for all the apps, software or services that let you create and manage a blog. Some of the most popular Blogging Platforms include WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr. For more, see: CMS Blogosphere The Blogosophere is the entire network of blogs and bloggers on the net. Blogtopia, the Blogolopolis, Blogton-on-Sea, Blogstonbury Festival — none of these choices ever proved quite so popular. Backlinks Also known as an Inbound Link, a Backlink is a connection from one website to another. In the context of blogging and SEO, the term generally refers to links that point towards your blog or website from external websites. Links that point from your blog to other websites are Outbound Links. These offer your readers chance to gain additional info or sources related to your content. Links are a fundamental part of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Search engines take quality Backlinks as a sort of vote of confidence for the relevance and quality of content. By contrast, linking to less credible (or dodgy) sites can damage your rank. See also: Link Building Bounce Rate A certain number of website visitors may take one look at your website and run. Navigating away without so much as a click is, in the world of web analytics, a metric known as Bounce Rate. A high percentage isn’t good. It would suggest visitors aren’t finding that content very relevant or interesting. Fortunately, you can do things about that. See also: Quality Content C Canonical Links Technical stuff now. A Canonical Link is an HTML tag that directs to a primary webpage, preventing duplicate search results. That is to say: every website is made up of multiple pages and Canonical Links point to the most relevant one(s). Visitors can then arrive at a logical top-level page (eg., your Blog Homepage). With platforms like WordPress, this is
Six mistakes in SEO copywriting
One of the biggest challenges that site owners and marketers face is having to write content that’s not only optimised for search engines, but that will also appeal to people. That’s what search engine optimised (SEO) copywriting is about: creating content that ranks well in search engine results pages, builds authority for your brand and also persuades people to take action (whether that’s buying a product or signing up for your mailing list). If you want to attract and engage your target audience, you’ll have to get smarter about your website content. While there are no secrets to optimising content online, there are some basic rules you might consider following, as well as some mistakes you should avoid making. 1. Content is King. NOT keywords The first mistake in SEO copywriting is putting too much effort into on-page optimisation and too little into copywriting, the persuasive content that is supposed to answer questions and influence visitors to take a decision. SEO copywriting is optimised, attractive content that generates links and promotion from visitors, which can increase the authority of a website as well as rankings for certain keywords. This means that you can benefit more from a natural link – a recommendation from a user who visited your site and enjoyed your content – than if you were to stuff your content with keywords. Most users have come to realise by now the difference between quality content and content written specifically for search engines. 2. SEO copywriting is about conversion, NOT Google rankings Here’s a fact: ranking well on search engines does not guarantee conversions. Optimised content might catch users’ attention thanks to the top position in Google’s search engine results page, but it might as well lose the SEO advantage if it doesn’t accomplish its goal, which is to convert! In other words, there’s no point in putting a lot of time and effort into optimising your content to attract more visitors to your site if the content itself is low quality or lacks valuable information. Users won’t think twice about heading back to the search results page and going to your competitors’ sites instead. 3. Optimising a web page does NOT equal keyword stuffing There’s no reason to stuff your web content with keywords just to get your site to rank well in search engine results pages. Why not just use the terms that are relevant to your business and optimise your copy by doing a few basic SEO tasks such as: Including your main keywords in the title of the page, as well as in the first and last paragraph Making the URL SEO-friendly by including variations of the main keywords Optimising the H1 heading, subheadings and the ALT tag (the description text for the images). These are the essential optimisation elements that can help you rank well in search engines and, at the same time, inform your visitors what your site is about. Now that the SEO part has been taken care of, you can focus on filling your pages with some awesome copy that’ll entice visitors to buy from you. 4. Measure quality content through links and bounce rate, NOT traffic What does “quality” content mean? It’s content that users find informative and interesting enough that they’ll want to link to it on their blogs, comment and share on social media, or take any kind of action that you want them to take. Quality content keeps readers on your site, it engages them and makes them want to visit more pages. As a result, your site’s bounce rate decreases, which can help you rank higher in search engine results pages. Bottom line: quality content isn’t measured by traffic (because SEO spam can also bring in traffic) but by the level of engagement with visitors. 5. Don’t stuff your content with links As with keywords, try to avoid linking to too many pages from your site or from external site. While internal linking is important, only link when necessary and to content that is relevant. Stuffing your content with irrelevant links will make your web page (and entire website) look spammy and it can also affect the organic performance of that page. The key here is moderation. Internal links are important, just make sure the anchor text shows natural in the page and the information is relevant. External links are also ok as long as you don’t: Overdo it and include hundreds of links on a single web page. Include irrelevant information, stuffed with keywords. Link to sites considered spammy or with no connection what so ever with the on-page content Include paid links without marking it with a nofollow tag 6. Focus on your customers, NOT your business No one really cares about you or your company. Visitors want to know how you can help them solve a problem, if they can trust you and reasons they should buy from you. So when you write your website content, make sure you talk to them and about them. That means more “you” and fewer “we”. There’s a very cool copywriting tool called We We Calculator that you can use it to ensure your copy is customer oriented. It basically cleans up your website copy from all the “we”, “me”, “us” and reminds you to replace those with “you”. Did we miss anything? Let us know in a comment below.
How to gain trust with links
SEO is not a set-it-and-forget it process. You can’t just work a few hours on your on-page SEO and then expect your site to climb to the top position on Google. If this were possible, a lot of us would be out of a job. Optimising your site for search engines takes time and if you do it white-hat you can build the level of trust that Google searches for when it determines what results to return. No one can deny the importance of on-page SEO as you need a clean and easy to crawl architecture, a solid on-site linking structure and content that is optimised for strong keywords. However, on-page SEO is not enough. You still need to build trust and authority on search engines. If there’s no trust, then it’s unlikely that your site will have any chance of competing with others in the industry. So, how can you gain trust with links? Have popular bloggers review your product Getting high-quality links from authority sites that are already trusted by search engines is the way to go. These sites have already earned trust for their niche and by getting some love from them via links your site will also earn some trust. For example, if you are selling shoes online, you want to get some love via links from quality shoes or clothing related sites. A fantastic way to do this is to have popular bloggers review your products. There are plenty of authority bloggers that are known to write reviews about various project so what you can do is to reach out to them and make them an offer they cannot refuse. For instance, you can send them your product for free so they can test it and write a review about it. So, they get a great product while you get the word out there about your product. It’s a win-win. Create content that people will want to share Use content marketing to create a clever or hilarious message/ infographic/ video, etc that raises awareness on your brand. If it’s amazing, people will not hesitate to share it again and again. Sure, not all the links you acquire will come from trusted sources, but some of them will make it all worth it. Send out press releases This is the easiest thing you can do to increase your link profile. Use a distribution service, free or paid, to share your press releases but make sure these are of interest for your customers and potential clients. If your press release is not newsworthy, then it’s not worth reading it. We’ll talk about how to optimise your press release in a future post. Your turn now. What are you doing to climb the ranks in search engines?
6 Top Tips for Short Sharp SEO
If the science of search engine optimisation is too much for you to get your head around and the budget won’t stretch to some expert advice, here’s six top tips to help you on the right tracks. Be passionate If you are not excited about the topic you are writing about, you will struggle to convince your audience to get excited too. If you are passionate about a topic it will come out clearly in your writing and if it’s a passion you will find it easier to write too. Being passionate also means you will more likely know and use the buzzwords that people interested in your topic will be searching for, that makes for great SEO. Be Expert Niche topics naturally won’t find mass general traffic but if you can offer information, thoughts, opinions that can’t be found elsewhere then you are far more likely to develop good traffic for your ‘expertise’. Unique content like that helps you rise higher up the competitive search engine rankings too, so the more likely you will get additional hits too. That’s sharp SEO. Use descriptive titles The way you head your pages, is a signpost to visitors but also to search engine bots crawling your site. Using words that clearly describe the content on those pages makes it easier for people to find your pages. Weight is given to these titles too, so if you can sum everything up in a short title you increase your chances of getting a better listing. Use conversational language If you want searches to find your pages, fill those pages with the language they will be searching for. Buzzwords and technical jargon will be great for a few but to reach a wider audience you need to be using those words the majority of people are using. Link beyond You know those bits at the end of TV programmes where they drive you back to their website…..”to find out more go to our website….” They do that because it works. It aids engagement with your original piece and topic and drives people to look for more. So if you have a blog, link beyond for more information on your main site. Externally linking can work to an extent too. Although driving traffic to other sites may not be ideal, may those links open in another window and you won’t necessarily have lost your customer. If the link works and informs them then they will be more likely to return to you as the site that first signposted those facts. Links to other sites can help your SEO too, so linking to sites you perhaps have a favourable relationship with can make great sense. Keep it short and sharp It’s not rocket science so don’t overdo the words. Use understandable vocabulary that explains things sweet and simply. Short, sharp SEO
Using books as an SEO tool
Search engine optimisation is all about online, the latest buzzwords, etc., right? Wrong. Natural search is very dependant upon natural use of language. Understanding how people use language will help you understand how they will search, which in turn should help you pinpoint the words and phrases most likely to get you some decent natural traffic. So, in fact looking at books can help you identify what words are most used in the English (or your chosen language) and unsurprisingly the boffins at Google have developed a tool that can do all the leg-work for you. Ngram Viewer is somewhat hidden within the Google Books back-end but is as relevant to SEO professionals as it is literary experts. Using the extensive database in the Google Books system it has identified how words have been used in books over time. You can see how words have become popular over periods of time and how their use and popularity has also declined. Just choose the words you want to examine and compare, choose the years or period you want to cover, the language and then the smoothing of your curves on the graph. Click search lots of books and await a perfectly formed line graph. The results are very interesting. For example here’s a look at the use of communication words in books published between 1984 and 2008. The domination of the word ‘letter’ could be a bit skewed with the other potential definition of the word but it is interesting to see it’s rise in usage of letter as the use of fax declines. So how can this help SEO? Well looking at what words are most popular is at the core of any SEO professionals work. If you can combine that with knowledge of historic use and also knowledge of how all words wax and wane in popularity over time, you can become better in your role. If you want to be really clever about it too, you can find what words are the most popular in general and keep those always in mind when looking for case studies, examples and newsworthy stories. Unlike other aspects of our daily lives the science of language is still a relatively un-tapped market, but as more and more clients search for metrics that work and you search for the smallest of tweaks for the biggest of marketing gains, expect more time and investment to be made into how we use words and how that can equate to increased revenue. What other language tools do you use to help your SEO?
URLs are your first line attack
URLs are important on-page SEO elements as we use them to travel from a page to another so they underpin your entire website. When you create a new site, create it with SEO in mind and try to come up with the best way to form URL structures for it. What Google says Google recommends using short URLs, thus trimming unnecessary parameters. In Google’s article on URL Structure it is mentioned that complex URLs can become an obstacle for crawlers and Googlebot may consume too many resources thus making it impossible to index all the content on your site. “Overly complex URLs, especially those containing multiple parameters, can cause a problems for crawlers by creating unnecessarily high numbers of URLs that point to identical or similar content on your site. As a result, Googlebot may consume much more bandwidth than necessary, or may be unable to completely index all the content on your site.” The ironic thing is that Google preaches but seems to be ignoring its own recommendations. Just take a look at all the Google Maps links, such as: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=98115&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1&iwloc=A What short URLs can do for your SEO Short URLs are easier to: Copy and paste Share over the Internet Email Write on a business card Write directly into your browser Spell when shared over the phone These are just a few of the benefits of having short URLs. However, even though the URL is short, it should be descriptive of the content the visitor will find on that page. For instance, here are some examples of good URLs from our website: https://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/ https://www.123-reg.co.uk/vps-hosting/ How including keywords in your URLs can help Specialists recommend including in the URL the keyword we are targeting for that specific page. This will not only help with optimising the page for search engines, but also make it easier for any person to accurately deduce what information he will find on that page. Make use of Google’s Keyword Tool and SEOMoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool as these are two great resources for your keyword research.
Titles give your content a name
So many web pages on the Internet have poor page titles like “Home”, About us”, “Services” or no titles at all. Web page titles are very important because these describe the content on a page and, from an SEO point of view, they are priceless. There are some CMS (content management systems) that can create the title for your page from the main heading ( H1 tag). However, this is a general title and doesn’t say much about the content that can be found on that page. That’s why it’s important that you write your own relevant title for each page. What is a web page title? If you are using browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, you may notice that these don’t show the page title text unless you move your mouse over the tab. Maybe that’s why so many people pay little to zero attention to web page titles. Take a look: You can also find the titles in the source code of your web pages within the title tags- <title></title> – included in the <head></head> area. Why are titles important? The title of your page web is what makes it unique. If people find your content to be useful and attractive, they will most likely share it and when this happens, the title of your page becomes the representative text of what’s on that page. Web page titles are important for: Web browsers Browsers use the title of a web page for various purposes, such as: labelling browser windows, links added to favourites or bookmarks, tabs, as well as mark entries in the history of your browser. Search engines Search engines are using your web page title to determine what content or information is included on that page. That’s why it’s recommended that you include your primary keywords in the page title, so that your page can rank higher. When searching for “register domain name”, search engines will return several results and based on the title and the keywords included web users decide if it’s relevant for them or not. Therefore, the title can encourage people to click in order to find out more. Social media When people are sharing your content on social media, the web page title will be published automatically along with the meta-description you wrote for that page. If you have web page titles and these are well written, be sure people won’t hesitate to share your content with their friends. As you can see, there are so many benefits to using a title for each of your web pages, so take the time to create it so you don’t miss out on all the advantages.
Quality, quality, quality – The better you are the better you rank
Usability, links and content all have an impact on search engine rankings. Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are constantly trying to improve their algorithms so that web users find exactly what they are looking for in as little time as possible. In general, to rank higher in search engines, you site should be: User-friendly, easy to navigate and understand Useful by providing relevant information and high quality content Accessible to the majority of browsers and browser versions Links It is a known fact that high quality sites are more popular and earn more links than low quality ones. Today or 10 years ahead, some search engine algorithms will change but these principles will be constant. If the content on your site is high quality, it will attract attention and get people to write about it and share it. This translates into valuable links and better rankings. Usability Usability and user experience also have an impact on search engine rankings. A quality site is also a site that has a good structure that people find to be logical and easy to use. If the site is easy to use, it can increase its popularity and, as a result, influence its search engine ranking. That’s why it’s important to determine which site structure would make it easier for your visitors to navigate and ensure their experience on your site is positive. If they are happy with your site, they will share it, bookmark it and return to it every chance they get. All of this is beneficial for your site from an SEO point of view as you are getting backlinks and can promote your site efficiently. Content worth sharing Publishing unique, appealing and useful content on your site is essential to SEO. The content on your site should provide solutions, solve problems, teach or guide your visitors. When they enter your site as a result of a search on Google, for instance, your content should satisfy their quest and informational needs. When visitors find what they need fast and easy, you get bonus points not only from your visitors who can recommend you to their friends, but also from the search engines. Use every tool you have to give your visitors what they want – useful content backed with examples – images, podcasts, videos and other multimedia files that can help you reach your goal.