S.E.O

Under S.E.O you need to look at various things:

Keyword Research

Before writing your article, it is important to do keyword research. This helps you identify the keywords used by many clients/customers to search for content online and those that have low competition.

There are various keyword research tools you can use. Some will be free while others you have to pay a monthly or annual fee.

What happens? Once a potential client/customer searches for the keyword you used, google will find your article and display it on one of its pages for the client/customer to find it. Once you use keywords with low competition and that have high monthly searches, your article may land on the first page of your search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)

Title of Your Article

Find a good title that interests the reader and though not a must, you can use your keyword in the title to help in ranking and ensure possible clients/customers click on your article.

Examples of good titles are: Read this before buying……………………, Answering commonly asked questions about…………………, 5 best tools for…………, 4 types of ……………, 3 recommended………………, Avoid these mistakes when…………., How to…….., etc.

Subtitles

Don’t write up a “composition/essay” kind of article. Readers may get bored or might dismiss it.

Think of it this way, what happens when you search for something online and you get clustered information? You dismiss it or read the first few lines, get tired and skip to the next article. You don’t want this to happen.

Have subtitles and short paragraphs that hit the nail on the head.

Word Count

This has always been debated about. Ensure that your article has at least 400 words. There might be no maximum, but don’t let it be very long because readers will not finish reading the whole article.

This should help you out in figuring out the length:

 What do you want to tell the reader? Ensure you give helpful information and make it as straightforward as possible. Avoid sentences that are not helpful. They are referred to as fluff. When a client reads an article, he or she wants to get to the part that is helping him or her. Ensure that all parts of your article do that for the reader.

Grammar

Ensuring your article is grammatically correct is important for two main reasons:

a.       Ranking – remember that search engines use bots to skim through your article and find the keywords you inserted to help you rank. If your sentences are not grammatically correct, they might not make sense to the bots and will be skipped.

b.       Readability – if a client finds too many mistakes in your article, he or she will not take you seriously and will skip to the next article. The client may also find it hard to understand what you are trying to communicate.

Images and Videos

Images and videos help in showing the client what you are talking about and offer a better chance of understanding. A client might choose to read an article with visual presentations over one without. However, ensure you don’t over insert images and videos.

Posting and Publishing Your Article On Your WordPress Site

Organize your article well with correct fonts, colors, headings, subtitles, spacing, etc.

Use an S.E.O. plugin to help you insert a good slug and meta description.

A slug is the part that comes after your website name, for example, www.yourwebsitename.com/(slug). Try to have your keyword here.

The Meta description is the short description found below the title of the search results when you google something. It helps the reader know what the article is talking about. Ensure the keyword is mentioned.

Plagiarism/Duplicate Content

This will severely hurt your ranking. Always have unique content and paraphrase information from reputable sources. Use plagiarism checking tools like copyscape.

The Reader/Target Audience/Target Customer/Target Client

Ensure your article grabs the attention of the reader, target audience, target customer or target client because this is your main goal. To achieve this, you need to:

• Be direct and precise (read the part on word count above)
• Ensure you have impeccable grammar (read the part on grammar above)
• Ensure you organize your article

Here is an example of a good organization:

Your Title

Small introductory part (3-5 sentences). Inform the reader what he or she may expect to find in the article.

First subtitle

Short paragraphs that are straight to the point. Maybe 3-4 sentences each.

If necessary, add a video or image.

Second subtitle

Short paragraphs that are straight to the point. Maybe 3-4 sentences each.

If necessary, add a video or image.

Third subtitle

Short paragraphs that are straight to the point. Maybe 3-4 sentences each.

If necessary, add a video or image.

Fourth subtitle

Short paragraphs that are straight to the point. Maybe 3-4 sentences each.

If necessary, add a video or image.

Etc…

Social Media and Backlinks

• Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. will do their work in ranking your article through keywords (S.E.O optimized article), but this is not enough.
•  You have to apply other strategies like sharing the link to your article on social media, YouTube, forums, etc. This will help you get more clicks and clients.

A Backlink is when another website links to your website. If you have many of these from websites/posts that are already ranking, your website/post will most likely rank higher and be found first when a client searches for your keywords. Backlinks are very important.