These basic SEO tips for beginners are not meant as a definitive guide and more research is recommended, however, with an online business knowledge is king and 1000 articles written correctly with SEO in mind will bring massively different results than 1000 random articles written about whatever comes to mind.
Start with the keywords
Base your content around keywords which are already being searched for. This applies for YouTube videos too when you are creating content. Although you can reach a potential audience by writing random long term keyword titles to your blogs and videos, by doing some research beforehand you can multiply the effectiveness of each individual article/video. Work smart, (and) hard! It’s smart work not just hard work which brings results online. You can find keywords in your niche with the Google Keyword planner. Choose keywords which are less competitive. (See video below).
Use an SEO pluginÂ
I use WordPress SEO by Yoast which is a great plugin if you are using WordPress for your articles. This helps you to target your specific keyword with your tags, title, description, focused keyword and meta description. Most importantly get your keyword in your title and choose a long tail keyword from the Google keyword planner.
Deep link to your other articles
Deep linking helps let the Google search ‘bots’ know what your articles are about. The best links are keyword optimized links which you can control through your own site. Use the keyword phrase from your article to link back to it in another article. Here’s an example of a deep link:
Article marketing does take time and persistence. After all, there are thousands of marketers out there doing the same as you. If you pick a niche with less competition then you can easily rank your articles for the keywords which are being searched for. Pick a tricky niche such as weight loss and you’ll be in for a hard time.
Build links back to your articles
Building links back to your site is a long and laborious task. However this is another step which will help Google rank your articles better. If Google can see that you are part of a wider audience and that people are freely linking to your content, it is a sign of authority and value. If your links are obviously contrived and from low quality websites, Google will know and rank you lower accordingly. You can get links by guest writing blogs on relating websites to your niche, joining website directories, commenting on other people’s blogs and answering questions and giving value on forums (- try Yahoo answers for a start and see how people are linking to their sites).
Write quality articles and give value
This may sound obvious but there are plenty of would-be bloggers out there who have fallen by the wayside because they simply spammed Google and attempted to ‘trick’ Google with keywords and ‘spammy’ content. Google’s algorithm recognizes how long visitors stay on your page/video and uses this information to determine how good your content is. If it offers no value, the chances are that it won’t be ranking on Google for long, it at all.