Are you looking for effective SEO tips to quickly get your blog articles higher in Google search results?
Your blog can only make money if visitors also come to your blog, so it is very important to appear high in Google.
The well-known motto “Content is King” still applies.
The content of your blog is the main determinant of the success of your blog.
Is that it?! Is that the main premise of this blog article?
Absolute!
Most likely I am not the first to tell you this about search engine optimization .
And yet, if we already know all this and we apply it to our blogs, why do so many blogs fail?
Why are there so many blogs that hardly attract any visitors ?
Why are you here looking for answers and SEO tips that you can apply to your blog to appear higher in Google?
CONTENT IS KING
The content of your blog is the single most important deciding factor that determines whether you get a lot of readers on your blog, whether they share your articles and whether they become customers.
But that’s not all that matters.
Your readers are the ones who determine whether your blog’s content is interesting, but the search engines, especially Google, determine whether your blog’s content is good enough to show to readers by appearing high in search results.
As a blogger, you have two goals: to please Google and your readers.
I can already hear the objections coming in: “Are those two goals compatible?”
Interesting content that sparks discussion and connects with the reader on a deeply personal level on the one hand and articles optimized for specific keywords to rank high in Google on the other.
I agree that this used to be a contradiction, but not anymore.
Google has become much smarter in the meantime.
Google wants to provide its users with the best answer to their question, namely information that is unique, relevant and useful.
When Google sends visitors to your blog, it wants to make sure that their search engine users are happy with the information they find on your blog and don’t immediately come back to the search engine to look at another website.
So it’s your job to provide information that properly answers the questions of Google’s users.
If so, Google will be happy to send you visitors from the search engine.
Let’s take a look at the best SEO tips to apply this to your website:
SEO TIPS TO GET HIGHER IN GOOGLE
1) USE WORDPRESS
You want to start your own blog ? Ok, then you need a Content Management System (CMS) on which your blog runs to add content and maintain your blog.
I absolutely recommend that you choose WordPress .
It is easy to set up your own blog with WordPress. Countless websites and blogs run on WordPress.
WordPress also results in good, clean website code. This is very important because this is what Google reads.
The WordPress code is very well put together when it comes to SEO. Google can read this code very well and is therefore inclined to rank blogs based on WordPress high in the search results.
In addition, you can also install additional WordPress plugins that can provide even more SEO benefits , such as the Yoast SEO plugin , about which more later in this overview of SEO tips.
Google also finds it extremely important these days that your website is adapted to mobile devices.
Visitors who visit your blog on their smartphone or tablet should also be able to read the website well, without having to zoom in much or clumsy navigation.
When your blog is built with WordPress, you just need to find a theme that is “mobile responsive”.
This means that it automatically adapts to each size of device with which the website is visited.
2) SET THE CORRECT PERMALINKS
Permalinks determine what your website’s URLs look like.
The permalink structure is extremely important for Google to clearly understand what your pages are about.
Strangely enough, the permalinks that WordPress gives to posts and pages by default are not very search engine friendly.
It is therefore wise to set this up properly immediately after installing WordPress.
It is a common error that the permalink structure is not set correctly. These blogs then have meaningless URLs which is not good for your position in Google.
Instead of ‘https://www.yourwebsite.be/p=123’ it is much better to have ‘https://www.yourwebsite.be/naam-van-pagina’ .
The permalinks are easy to adjust in WordPress without the need for technical knowledge. You just have to do a few clicks. The steps are listed below:
- Log in to the admin area of your WordPress blog
- Go to Settings’
- Then click on ‘Permalinks’
- Here you can choose in general settings how the permalink structure of your blog is set
- Click on ‘Save changes’
- Finished!
The question is of course what the best permalink structure is for SEO.
I always choose ‘Message Name’ and I recommend that you do the same.
Google likes the shortest possible URLs. The message name also clearly indicates what your message is about, which makes it easier for Google.
3) INSTALL THE YOAST SEO PLUGIN
If you have a WordPress website, you can easily install plugins to add extra functionality.
There is a very handy plugin that helps you to appear higher in Google, namely Yoast SEO plugin .
With this plugin you can optimize your website for Google.
For example, you can specify the Title tag and the META description of your pages and posts.
The plugin also really shows how well your page ranks for the search term you entered.
You will then see an extensive analysis with points on which you score well and less well.
The plugin also gives SEO tips to get the points on which you do not yet score ‘green’, also ‘green’.
It is really a must to install this free plugin if you want to rank high in Google with your WordPress plugin.
4) ACTIVATE YOUR SITEMAP
A sitemap is a page on your website with an overview of all links to pages on your website.
This overview shows Google how your website is structured: which pages and messages there are and how the menu structure works.
The bottom line is that search engines find a sitemap very important.
This allows search engines to easily and quickly see which pages and messages are on your website and under which category they fall.
The Yoast SEO plugin automatically creates a sitemap for your website and also maintains it when pages or posts are added.
Have you downloaded and installed this plugin?
Then you can see the sitemap by going to ‘https://www.yourwebsite.be/sitemap_index.xml’ .
5) SUBMIT YOUR WEBSITE TO GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
Did you find your sitemap? Then you need to submit your sitemap and send it to Google. You can do this via Google Search Console .
Google Search Console is a free web service from Google that allows you to check the status of your pages’ indexing and optimize your website’s visibility.
It is a very handy tool that allows you to see your website through the eyes of Google.
The tool gives you insight into how Google views your website and the keywords that Google thinks your pages are about.
To submit your sitemap you need to perform the following steps:
- Go to Google Search Consoleand login with a Google account
- Click on ‘Sitemaps’ in the menu on the left
- Enter the URL of your sitemap at ‘Add a new sitemap’ and then press submit.
- Finished! You can then read the status at ‘Sent sitemaps’.
6) OPTIMIZE YOUR PAGES FOR A KEYWORD
First you need to determine for which keywords you want to be found.
It is important to thoroughly research which search terms are important for your website.
Via the Google Keyword Planner you can discover which keywords are relevant to your website, how many times per month they are searched on average and how much competition there is.
Then make one page on your blog for each keyword and not multiple pages for the same keyword, because that is more confusing for Google.
If you want a page to appear higher in Google, you will have to optimize that page for one specific keyword.
For example, I want this page to appear high in Google for the search term ‘SEO tips’.
That is the search term on which I have optimized this page.
You can do this using the following SEO tips:
KEYWORD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TITLE
Put the search term for which you want to be found as far from the front as possible in the title of your page.
This increases the relevance for Google and for your visitor and because of this your page will appear higher in Google.
Don’t force this. Your title should still be correct, easy to read and inviting to read on.
In the title of this page ‘The Best SEO Tips To Get Higher In Google Quickly’, the keyword ‘SEO tips’ is not completely ahead of it, but almost.
ONLY THE KEYWORD IN THE URL
Put only the keyword in your URL to make it very clear to Google that your page is about and as you increase the relevancy.
PROCESS KEYWORD IN THE META DESCRIPTION
Just like in the Title tag, it is essential that you include the keyword in the META description of your page.
The META description is the two lines you see in Google below the URLs in the search results.
The intention is that these lines describe what the page is about and encourage you to click on the title.
With the Yoast SEO plugin you can easily determine the Title tag and META description of each page:
RETURN KEYWORD IN THE TEXT
Of course you should also use your keyword in the text of your page.
However, it is important not to use the keyword too often, but also not too little.
This is also called ‘keyword density’ and is the number of times your keyword appears in your blog article.
A good keyword density is between 1 and 3 to 4 percent.
PROCESS KEYWORD IN THE HEADER
Headers are not only important for bringing structure to your articles, but they also have extra value in helping Google understand what your page is about.
So include your keyword in the header to give the search term that little bit of extra value.
However, don’t overdo it. Only do it if it’s relevant.
7) USE INTERNAL LINKS
It is important to keep visitors on your website as long as possible.
Use internal links for this.
Here you make a word or a few words in a certain blog article clickable to another article or page on your blog.
By adding clear internal links, you indicate to Google what the page is about so that that page becomes even stronger in Google.
Make sure that you only create internal links that are relevant.
The words you make clickable should really indicate what the page you are linking to is about. Otherwise, your readers will find this confusing and Google will not appreciate it.
For example, read here the best strategies to get more visitors to your website .
The words that are clickable are called the anchor text.
8) OPTIMIZE YOUR IMAGES
Google has gotten smarter and smarter over the years with the various updates, but it still can’t “see” what’s on an image.
The solution for this is that you ‘describe’ to Google what can be seen in the image.
You do this by giving the image a title, description and alternative text.
This way Google can understand what can be seen in the image and your page will rank higher in Google’s organic and visual search results.
9) ADD NEW CONTENT REGULARLY
Content is still KING as I mentioned at the beginning of this article.
That is why one of the very best SEO tips is to regularly add new content to your website.
Your website will rank higher if Google sees that new relevant content is added regularly.
The best way to do this is to start blogging.
When you write more and more blog articles about relevant topics and keywords, your website will not only become bigger and more valuable (giving Google more pages to index), but your visitors will also stay on your website longer.
Gradually, your website will become an authority in your niche, which is very good for getting higher in Google.
Be sure to ask your visitors to post comments under your blog articles.
In this way, content is constantly added to your blog. Your readers will also feel more engaged if you engage with them by responding to their comments.
All this shows for Google that your blog is alive and that the readers find a lot of interesting content.
TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION
These were a lot of SEO tips. You will only see results if you actually apply these SEO tips to your website.
So take immediate action! Good luck!
