Introduction
Out of all the factors that go into ranking at the top of Google, there’s one element that you can’t control: the algorithm. But if you want to ensure that your blog appears on page one, then we recommend taking inspiration from this handy guide to search engine optimization (SEO).
Use tools to help you research keywords.
You can use tools to help you research keywords. The Google Keyword Planner is a good place to start, but it’s not the only option.
Google Trends shows the popularity and search volume for a given keyword over time, which can be helpful if you’re looking for long-tail keywords that aren’t being searched as often by people in general but might be more relevant to your blog’s audience (and therefore easier to rank).
The Autocomplete function also gives you an idea of how popular certain words or phrases are with Google users–for example, typing “how do I…” into Chrome will prompt it to finish with “make money blogging” because there are so many people searching this question!
Write for people, not search engines.
You need to write for people, not search engines. Write for your audience, and be clear and concise. Use active voice instead of passive voice whenever possible (e.g., “The dog bit the man” versus “The man was bitten by the dog”). Also, avoid excessive use of adjectives and adverbs; they can bog down your writing and make it less readable!
Finally, don’t forget that short sentences are easier on the reader–and they’ll help keep your paragraphs short too!
Create content that will perform well on social media.
- Create content that will perform well on social media.
- Use images, videos, infographics and quotes to engage readers.
- Use lists to break up your text so it’s easier to read and digest (and more likely to be shared).
- Add humor or use hashtags in your posts if they fit the topic of your post!
Take your time writing and editing your post.
As you write, take your time to research and edit for clarity. Make sure your content is relevant to the topic you’re covering, and don’t force keywords into sentences just because they are related. Also be careful not to overdo it on links or images–it’s better for users if they can actually read what you’ve written!
Be sure to link to other posts on your own blog.
- Be sure to link to other posts on your own blog.
- Link to other blogs, websites, and social media profiles.
Where possible, use outbound links.
Outbound links allow you to link to other relevant content on your blog. They also help your readers find more information about your topic, so they’re a good way of improving the quality of your content.
Optimize the size of your images.
The first step to optimizing the size of your images is to use the right file format. JPEGs are great for photos, but they’re not ideal for screenshots or other graphics that contain a lot of detail. PNGs are a better option if you want to keep all that detail intact–and they’re also smaller than JPEGs.
If you want even more control over how much space each image takes up on your site, try using an online compression tool like TinyPNG or Compress Jpeg (the latter works only with JPEGs). These programs will analyze all the pixels in an image and compress them as much as possible without compromising quality too much; then they’ll spit out a new version with less kilobytes per pixel than before!
First page ranking is a combination of good writing, effective keyword research and technical search engine optimization.
First page ranking is a combination of good writing, effective keyword research and technical search engine optimization.
- Keyword research: You should select keywords that you can rank for based on the popularity of the term, the competitiveness of its SERP (search engine result page) and how relevant your content is to that topic.
- Technical SEO: This involves using HTML tags to code your blog posts so they’re optimized for search engines. For example, tagging images with alt text will help them appear in Google Image Search results when someone searches for related terms or phrases like “hot dogs” or “fries.” There are many other ways to optimize your website’s structure through meta data such as titles/description tags which tell Google what each piece of content is about so it can show them appropriately in their SERPs!
Conclusion
There you have it! Now that you know the secret to getting on the first page of Google, it’s time for you to go out and make some magic happen in your own blog posts or you could always hire us at Atomic Social.