Most bloggers have a question about how to get ranked on Google. In this post, I will share the essential practices for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). These practices will boost your posts to rank better.
The same actions apply to Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu, including the most crucial search engines. So these are universal SEO tasks that will work for your ranking efforts.
When you start a blog, you must follow them systematically and consistently to rank your articles.
Since most new blogs are created nowadays with WordPress, that will be the focus for some of the ways to apply these practices, but they apply to any content, regardless of the framework.
What cannot be applied here via WP plugins can still be used via HTML, FTP, CPanel, or other platforms’ backends.
Let’s dive into the facts.
But before, if you want to learn more about creating a blog to make money by ranking organically, here is a free masterclass you can watch.
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How to get Ranked On google?
First and foremost: Content is King!
You’ve heard that before. Content is the blood of your blog.
Like the blood in the body, it has to be free of any bad.
Your content has to be of the best quality that you can create and improve more and more. Why? Because search engines are built to provide people with answers to their searches and to thrive, they want to give the best solutions.
That said, for search engines to thrive as they have, they created complex algorithms segregating the bad blood.
What is quality content?
Consider the following aspects:
1. Originality And Uniqueness
Content created from an idea, written without copying any other content, is original. Some bloggers are lazy or do not have enough time (I consider it a lack of organization). Then they go around copying the work of others, editing it and changing it, and publishing it as if it is theirs.
Well, let me tell you something, sooner or later, Google and other SERPs will bust them!
And not only that piece of copied content be ranked down, but your whole website or blog will be punished for it. Write your content, do not copy, do not spin, do not rewrite.
If you cannot produce content yourself, outsource it, but make sure that Copyscape is passed as a minimum requirement. Either way, you will have to edit much when the content is not yours. Only YOU can deliver your message!
Your post’s more unique and helpful, the faster and higher it will rank.
2. Relevance
This is something significant. Your blog posts, articles, and reviews must be linked to your niche or interest displayed on your site.
If you have a blog about tech, it won’t be wise to write posts about “yoga leggings.” To cite an extreme example.
The more relevant your content is, the more it references your niche and a general idea of the content, and the higher it will rank.
3. Structure – Make It Easy To Read
Your articles need to be reader-friendly, easy to scan, and easy to understand. They are organized by sub-topics as much as possible and use other tools to ease navigation.
Also, it highlights the most relevant topics.
Here are some elements to be used, if not all, most of them:
- Headings and Subheadings. Never use H1 Tags! That is only for your post title. Ideally, do not have sections of your post with more than 300 words without a subheading separating them.
- Short Sentences, unless a sentence needs to say more. You can always make a stop and continue an idea. Consider it at all times.
- To make reading more accessible and more enjoyable, try to keep ideas together in a paragraph, but do not make paragraphs too long so that reading becomes a nightmare. 2 to 3 lines per paragraph is the ideal.
- Ordered and Unordered lists. That is bulleted or numbered lists of items or properties.
- Your tone can be whatever suits your style but remember that you are aiming to help people that may not understand you if you get too technical. Always mind what your intention is. It may always be to help. Use a conversational, opinionated, helpful tone that aims to solve the problems of the people who search for your topic.
4. Correct Grammar And Spelling – Make It Understandable
A big part of your content quality is that it is grammatically correct. Your sentences, tone, message, and structure have to make sense.
That is one of the risks of fulfilling your posts with content that is not original; it may include nonsense words or sentences.
Or they are even being structured in a way with “no head and no feet,” as they say. Common sense is the key to creating an easy-to-understand blog post.
Also, consider doing the appropriate spell-checking because grammar errors are common, and it may be just one or two. That would not affect your ranking, but it is not pleasant to be noticed.
Most editors have innovative spell-check features at no cost.
You can use WordPress Editor or any other external one.
I personally love Google Docs.
But if you want to up your game, Grammarly is the best AI software, not only for spell-check but also for tone, engagement, and even plagiarism-checking.
5. Quantity Is Also Quality
You can write top-quality content, but it will most likely be ranked lower if it is too short.
That is because there is a lot of competition for those high spots in the ranking, so more detailed and in-depth writing is produced.
All topics can be interesting enough to produce a minimum of 1500 words. There are no set rules, but trust me, search engines love long and detailed posts.
But the relevance and all the other aspects must be there, and it will not rank in the SERPs if you run out of ideas and start talking about something else in the same post.
6. Planning Is Essential – Use Ready-Made Templates
When you use a specific premade structure, it saves you time. You will be streamlining your work and being more efficient, but the quality of your posts will be improved and consistent.
That is another thing that search engines look into, how consistent are you with your style?
It is another reason to understand faking others’ content. Then your style goes up and down like on a roller coaster, easily noticed by search engines.
Guess what? Busted again! Down the ranks, and it all starts again from scratch. Even your best content will be relegated. Think twice. Plan wisely. Be the creator.
Personally, it takes me more time to edit someone else’s content than create a whole article myself. It will be the same for you or anyone. Guaranteed.
There are more shades of grey to the content, but for now, if you stick to these few suggestions above, you will be doing good. And it will help you to rank a lot better.
But are these enough to rank high? Not.
We will now talk about some essential parts of your content that need to be considered before, during, and after writing.
Keywords
Keywords are essential for your content to rank. They are also known as Focus Keywords.
They are not just one word but groups of words that make sense grammatically together.
Go on Google, type one word, see what suggestions are dropped down, then add another word, or a couple more, that will narrow down the search.
Your keyword selection will depend on how broad or how specific you want your topic to be seen.
But for a general rule, the wider the topic, the more difficult it is to rank, especially if your site is new and does not have enough authority. We will talk about authority later.
Research Keywords
There are many techniques to research keywords used on a piece of content or blog post. We could discuss the “Alphabet Soup” technique or other ways to research, or free sites, dedicated to giving you tools for Keyword Researching.
But nowadays, some tools facilitate your keyword research efforts and give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
So my recommendation for this post is to find that tool that not only finds suggested keywords for you. They must also give you metrics to determine whether a keyword is worth it.
I use SERanking.
It provides searches for keywords, competition analysis, and essential metrics, such as how many searches, how much traffic, and how many other blogs are using one exact keyword.
Keyword Placement
Once you have done your research, you must place your keywords strategically.
Consider the following good SEO practices:
- Use only one keyword per piece of content
- Exact keyword placed in your title
- The keyword is also included in your first paragraph. If in your first sentence, even better. That way, you establish the topic right away.
- The keyword is included one more time if it is suitable but not necessary, somewhere toward the end of your post. In conclusion, for instance.
- Do not use the same keyword anywhere else.
- Stuffing keywords is something that search engines like Google do not appreciate and rank you low.
- Some SEO plugins offer keyword density suggestions. I do not see the necessity to follow them. If you focus more than on your content quality, you will get “caught” again.
Links
Linking your content is a must. Again going back to the blood, if there are no channels where the blood circulates, then your blog is not “alive.”
That is a bit complicated to understand, perhaps, at first. But once you grasp that concept, it is easier.
Simply put, the better your content is linked, the better the Google bots and spiders will crawl it, and if the roads are clear, the higher you will rank.
Consider the following:
- At least one external link (a link to an external site, affiliate links do not count as such). You can use references such as Wikipedia. Set your external links to open in a new tab, so your visitors can stay on your site reading your content till the end.
- At least one internal link, from your content to some related content or a specific part of your post. Relevance retakes place, as you can see.
- It is also convenient and very much appreciated for search engines with an inbound link to the content you are creating from other posts or pages on your website.
- Backlinks are links from external sites to yours. Many SEO companies offer to place backlinks to your site. However, this may be seen as a bad practice. Although there are professionals that know precisely how to backlinks, there is always a risk. If backlinking is done with Black Hat SEO practices, your site is doomed to low rankings. It is much better, and my suggestion is that your backlinks grow organically with your site authority.
- Affiliate links: As a rule of thumb, place your affiliate links wherever it is relevant.
- Consider no more than one affiliate link for every 300 words minimum.
- Keep the affiliate links relevant, and include them subtly and in context.
- As these are external links, set them to open in a new tab, and consider no-follow for them, although it is not strictly relevant to a ranking, as per experts.
Images – Embellishing Your Content
As the saying goes, “one image is worth more than a thousand words.”
Images give life and color to your content. Search engines are very much like them. Consider the following:
- Always use images that are Royalty Free. Do not copy any photo from Google unless explicit permission is used.
- Choose relevant images to match your content in different parts
- Again they must be images that illustrate your topic.
- Use Alt Text on all your pictures. Use your keyword in one or two of your Alt Texts, but no more, and only if the keyword is relevant to the image.
- Your Alt Text must be either way, always relevant to the image overall.
- Try to keep a standard maximum size for your images, and use an appropriate plugin to compress them.
- Banners with affiliate links, be subtle, and do not overdo.
All those mentioned above are what are called On Page SEO practices.
You may think this is too hard, but it is a necessary process. With every step of your content creation, you set the space for each element.
It is easy to master and becomes second nature in a short time.
Follow these practices when creating your content.
Off-Page SEO – Main Considerations
Off-page Search Engines Optimization is done in the back end of your site. It is necessary to be done for each piece of content you create.
This post was dedicated mainly to how to get ranked in Google by using some on-page SEO effective techniques and rules.
However, on-page SEO and off-page SEO go hand in hand together, and here are some of the essential practices.
In a future post, I will be going into detail about each of them.
- Meta Title: Use your keyword in your meta title. Do not exceed the words limit.
- Meta Description: Include your keyword in your meta description
- Featured Image: If you use a featured image for your posts, include your keyword in the Alt Text
- Slug: Consider it shorten it, and use your keyword.
- Categories: Assign a category to your posts. Otherwise, they will be unassigned by default.
- Indexing Your URLs in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster, etc
There are some other more advanced off-page customizations, but the above are the primary and most important.
Special plugins are sometimes required for more customizations off-page, such as a review plugin if your theme does not include it.
Social features and rich snippet features can also be optimized, these are a bit more advanced, but for the very basic and necessary, we are done for this post.
Final Thoughts And A Word On Authority
In simple terms, authority is earned in time and with quality content, and knowledge graph.
A site or blog gains authority when consistently following good SEO practices while earning visitors increasingly over time and keeping them engaged.
When a site has high authority, it is highly productive in monetization.
Following the rules above will not automatically give your site a high authority, but it will keep increasing over time.
I hope this post helps you improve your rankings on Google and search pages.
By following these steps consistently, you will manage to grow your blog posts’ ranking, and as you may know, the more visible you are, the more visitors you get, and if you are monetizing your site, the more money you will get.
If you want to learn more from experts about Blogging and SEO and how to create a profitable blog, I recommend you check out this post.
This is the best online education for blogging, affiliate marketing, content, and backlinks. You can become very successful by specializing in easy-to-follow lessons.
At the same time, you will be creating websites and learning all SEO processes in actual practice. So if you do not have a blog yet and want one, you know where to start!
Free Blogging Masterclass
Adam Enfroy shows you how to start and grow a blog to make life-changing money.