Are you a blogger whose content is falling in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages?
Too many bloggers publish what they consider to be great content only to be disillusioned and confused when their posts don’t rank.
Not to worry!
As a result of reading this guide to great content, you’ll boost your rankings in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Are you ready?
Table of Contents
Content Strategy
You are ready to choose a topic.
You might be excited about writing and think you’re ready to write, but you’re not. You need to give careful consideration to the topic you write about.
Ask yourself these questions:
Do you have a content niche? You need one.
Is your topic in your content niche?
Are you knowledgeable about your topic or are you planning to research?
Are you interested in the topic? Only then will your writing be interesting to others.
Once you know the answers to these questions, proceed to the next step.
Keyword Research
The answers to the above questions might be in the affirmative: You might be interested, knowledgeable, and writing about a niche-related topic.
However, are other people interested in your topic?
This is where keyword research comes in.
You need a keyword research tool. Keyword research tools tell you how many people are interested in your topic each month and if you can beat the online competition for readership.
You can use the MozBar. MozBar is a free Google Chrome extension that tells you the monthly searches for your keyword term, the online competition for readership, and the Domain Authority ranking of the blogs also writing about the topic.
You want the metric showing monthly interest to be high, the metric showing competition to be low, and the metric showing the authority of the competing blogs to be low.
This guide explaining how to get into MozBar gives you more detailed information about MozBar and a tutorial.
Do not be concerned if finding a keyword you can rank for potentially takes awhile. Typically, keyword research takes me 30 minutes.
SEO Optimization
Okay, so you are making progress. You found your topic and a keyword to help you narrow your focus.
Now is the time to optimize your content with the keyword.
Using a free SEO tool like Yoast or RankMath helps enormously. I have used both and can recommend both. The tool will tell you how to optimize.
Put your keyword in the following places:
- At the beginning of the headline
- In at least one subhead
- In the Focus Keyword Field
- In the Tag field
- Optimize your image with the keyword in the Alt Text Field
- Put the keyword in the introduction of the post.
- Put your keyword in the body of the post.
- Put your keyword in the conclusion of the post.
How often should the keyword be in the post? Follow the SEO tool’s guidelines. It will tell you if the keyword is in too often or not often enough. You can also use these SCO marketing tips to guide your optimization.
Add Media
Google likes a variety of media in your post.
The above strategy indicated you need a blog graphic labeled with the Alt Text (Alternative Text), and you do.
I recommend having a minimum of two images in your post: A dominant image and at least one screenshot.
Some people have an image for each tip.
So, what other images can you include other than blog graphics?
You can include infographics, tables, and videos.
There are many free video tools that are quick and easy to use to help you make your videos.
Free video tools:
- Instasize video
- Lumen5
- Canva
These are my 3 go-to video tools.
Here is a resource: My instructions for using Video Instasize.
You can use all 3 on the website or as an app on your smartphone.
Update Posts After Publication
So you’ve published. Exciting!
Did your post rank? You need to keep checking.
Once you see the post ranked, update the post with the keyword that your post ranked for.
SERPRobot is a free tool that lets you check the ranking of 5 keywords at a time. Here is a SERPRobot tutorial.
Wrapping Up: How to Rank Your Great Content
By the way, did you see how I kept changing my text format for variety? I kept switching from text to list and back again. This is part of the great content that keeps users from getting bored and gives them greater understanding of your information.
In closing, rinse and repeat. Bookmark this guide so you have these 5 steps handy. Don’t get cavalier. Follow these five steps each step you post, and you’ll be well on your way to ranking great content.
Author Bio:
Janice Wald is the founder of MostlyBlogging.com. She is an ebook author, blogger, blogging coach, blogging judge, freelance writer, and speaker. She was nominated as the 2021 and 2019 Best Internet Marketer by the Infinity Blog Awards and in 2017 as the Most Informative Blogger by the London Bloggers Bash. She’s been featured on Small Business Trends, the Huffington Post, and Lifehack. Join us over at Mostly Blogging for more SEO tips.
