Bringing these two aspects together isn’t always easy, but you can learn how in this article. You aim to please both your readers and Google. Find a good balance between the two, watch your content rank higher, and rake in more website visits.

There’s a sort of formula used to achieve this. A cheat sheet if you will. Let’s dive in and examine how to get the most out of your writing.

Important Pointer: Keyword Research

Keywords are the reason for your writing. Okay, your audience is, but you must adapt your content to what your audience looks for online. That’s the first way to ensure someone will read your blog posts. 

Keyword research will tell you what topics to focus on and the keywords to include in your writing. Choose wisely what you focus on! It will guide where the meat of your text goes and should be as extensive as possible.

So now you know what to write about and should get to the actual writing. Let’s see. What should it look like?

Here are 9 steps to an SEO-friendly blog post.

9 Tips on How to Write an SEO-Friendly Blog Post

Here you’ll learn how to churn out great content.

1. Think It Through

Stop! Don’t just dive in without direction!

What do you want to say? What angle would you like your post to take? Maybe there’s a question you would like to answer? Is there something specific you would like your readers to have achieved after reading your post? 

Some writers want their audience to complete a certain action at the end, so the writing must be compelling and convincing. 

Use your search terms or keywords to find the best possible direction for this. You can look at it as letting your readers guide you.

2. Structure Your Post

Order is essential in a blog post. A basic structure comprises:

• the introduction, where you introduce your topic and give a little teaser to your readers
• the body, where the main story goes
• The conclusion, where you draw a conclusion or give a short post recap.

Figure out what you want to say in every part and write it down briefly. It’ll help guide your train of thought along the way. You want your ideas to flow naturally into each other so your audience can easily follow.

3. Break It Down

Have you ever looked at prose that has no breaks? Or the opposite: content that is in single sentences like a kindergarten storybook. It can be annoying and tiring to read.

Paragraphs help to organize content neatly. Use a different paragraph for every idea, and always summarize your point. Lengthy paragraphs are quite the eyesore and could make your reader skim over your work instead of properly reading it.

Headings add to the structure of an article and will guide readers on what to expect next. Subheadings also add to your SEO ranking. Throw in a keyword in one or two, and it gets even better.

4. Utilize Related Keywords

Utilizing semantic keywords is the best tip on how to write an SEO-friendly blog post. Keywords are great, but using them too many times in a single post makes your work look unnatural. It’s known as keyword stuffing and could make your rankings tank. 

Instead, use synonyms and alternative related words. Google will analyze your content for these, thus understanding your subject matter better. It’s getting smarter and wants readers to enjoy their reading.   

5. Use Transitional Words and Phrases

These show a relationship between different sentences and paragraphs. Phrases like ‘read on’ tell them there’s more to expect. ‘In short’ or ‘in a nutshell’ tells the reader a conclusion is coming. 

Transitional words will help your audience scan through your content since they add structure.

6. Add Links To Existing Content

Have you written on the subject on your website before? Let people know by linking to those other posts. 

You want your audience to focus on you and your work. It makes you look like an authority on the subject and improves rankings. Link to other authority sites, but be sure not to link to your competition.

7. Mind the Length

Google prefers you do lengthy articles, but what do your readers think? Depending on your subject of choice, writing skills, and audience, try to make your posts at least 300 words.

Whether long or short, remember to ensure it’s an SEO-friendly blog post.

8. Utilize SEO Tools

SEO analysis can be tricky but is necessary for this domain. You want your content to have a high chance of ranking well for your chosen keywords.

This is where SEO tools and plugins come in. What difference will they make?

• SEO tools suggest related key phrases. 
• These tools tell you how many times you should add your keywords and where to add them.
• They check your text for readability.
• You can check for both internal and external links in your content.
• They tell you whether you’ve used the keyword on another page so that you don’t compete with yourself for ranking.

All these aspects improve the quality of content you’re putting out. Isn’t that what you’re ultimately aiming for?

9. Put Fresh Eyes on It

Sometimes we write and some mistakes make it past. If you have someone who can look at your work before publishing it, that’s a great asset. They may notice something you missed and improve the whole article. Getting an expert on the subject matter is a plus since they can help refine the content.

Communicating your message to your audience is a necessity in this business. Otherwise, why would you write? Look for opinions on readability and whether the message hits home.

Conclusion

Now you have what you need to create amazing articles for your website. Go ahead and publish as often as possible so that Google knows your website is alive and should rank you higher. Take it a notch higher and use it for business! 

The post How To Write An SEO-Friendly Blog Post  appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Based on the Agora Model, clients move from social sites to blogs. Then they may download a valuable resource to become a qualified lead.

This means you have to focus on marketing your blog to social sites! Yes, that’s how to grow to the first 1K visits a month.

Blog Traffic Killers

You know that the cheapest way to increase traffic to a website is to use free social channels. Here are some blog traffic killers.

Fewer Views on YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. And in fact, Video marketing outperforms text, audio, and slides by far. So, you need a small community on YouTube. If you publish the content customers want consistently, you will soon refer YouTube traffic to your blog.

Low Engagement on Facebook

Facebook is still a good marketing channel for B2C and D2C businesses. Consumer businesses like eCommerce, Amazon FBA, Dropshipping, and some coaching programs ought to produce valuable videos for their community. You can create a Facebook group, which serves the interests of your target clients. To keep users engaged and make emotional rather than logical posts.

Low Twitter Engagement

Omni-channel marketers should also have a Twitter account. First, for omnipresence, and secondly, for listening to consumer feedback. A good Twitter marketing plan can make your product trend for specific hashtags and locations. To get engagement, get followers manually and create valuable Twitter threads. If you ever want to boost responses, you’ll also need influencer marketing as your Twitter marketing plan.

Hidden Gems on Homepage

Most businesses have case studies, irrevocable proof, and success stories of their product. Others have utility tools, eBooks, calculators, and white papers, posted on their blog page. It’s common sense to bring focus to this valuable content on your homepage so it sends traffic to your blog. But very few people do it. If you have a video tutorial, for example, place it on the hero section, rather than near the CTA.

Weak Value Proposition

If you’re an AWS partner, you know the main problems customers want to be solved are reducing cloud costs and improving security. These keywords will bring you the most traffic compared to getting compliant. Use tools like AnswerThePublic to get main keywords and related keywords for your blog. These will be more meritorious than a press release of a recent hire who is ‘supposed to grow your blog.

Blog Traffic Boosters

The cheapest way to drive quality traffic to a website is to use one of these traffic boosters.

Boost Your Domain Authority to 40 and Outrank Competition

Begin by identifying SEO Competitors you’d want to outrank. Check their domain authority using the Moz SEO tool. If you’re in a specialized niche, chances are most or all of your competitor page authorities will be below 40. This could mean they have a low number of backlinks from highly authoritative sites. You can use freelance content writers to help with blog outreach and link building. In 6-12 months, you’ll start to see your articles’ rankings. And as they rank, your blog traffic will increase.

Increase Page Speed on Mobile

Take the Google Page speed insights test. You may notice that your website loads faster on desktop than mobile. However, more traffic is now on mobile. Optimize for mobile using the AMP plugin for WordPress. Also, minimize code and image sizes.

While doing your content optimization efforts, ensure you do not affect User Experience. Indeed, SEO is all about writing for humans. As you write for humans, you optimize for search engines.

If your article goes live, ensure that all share buttons, links, and images are working on both mobile and desktop. Don’t hit publish.

How to Get Quality Traffic to Your Website

Increasing conversion rates is the hardest part. Getting traffic is the easiest part. There are a lot of job seekers and active Internet surfers. At a cheap price, you can use tools and bots to spam your article on almost every social media platform. This will get you temporary spikes as well. However, it’s what’s called weak traffic.

To get quality traffic, you have to do thorough research about your customers. You have to write about what your customers want. Also, you have to solve real problems, and even get permission to share the article. Your article has to be unique, based on real-life experience, not something found on typical Internet advice.

Everyone is looking for the cheapest way to drive traffic. And that’s the process we use. It almost always yields traffic with high intent. Certainly, some people ask: “Is Facebook good for B2B Marketing?” Even on Facebook, you can get traffic that’s likely to reap your recurring revenue for years.

The post How To Get Quality Traffic To Your Website in 90 Days or Less appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

But not all small businesses can afford to hire these specialists.

The good news is, that you can easily increase the conversion rates of your campaigns without spending any extra money on specialists.

The facts are, that there are many factors that make a potential customer take an action. If you tweak any of these factors, chances are, you’ll increase conversion rates.

What does ‘increase conversion rate’ mean?

In internet marketing, increasing conversion rates involves optimizing a page for higher response. If you run Facebook Ads, you want more clicks. Entrepreneurs using landing pages want more sales. You may want more subscribers to your email list, more clicks for your emails, or maybe even more sales for your Shopify store.

If you have low conversion rates, you have erratic sales and if you have erratic sales, you have no business. For startups, increasing conversion rates should be the main business.

Web traffic is a vanity metric, while conversion rates are a true metric directly tied to sales. Unless you’re a mainstream publication relying on sponsored ads for revenue, your focus should be on getting conversions.

How do you boost conversions on low-traffic websites?

The best way to increase conversion rates on new sites is to write a sales page around specific long-tail transactional keywords.

I consult with small tech businesses a lot because my goal is to apply the skills I’ve learned, from leading marketing agencies to small startups.

Most small businesses have good products. Some run ads and get significant traffic, but no sales. They often think they need more traffic so they can get more paid customers.

Not so. The truth is if you can’t get one out of 100 people to take an action, you can’t get 10 out of 1,000 people to take action.

For this reason, most startups misfire their marketing efforts. They get little to no results, end up discouraged and finally give up.

But with good conversion rates, even a low-traffic website is a goldmine.

As a freelancer, I can honestly say that 8 people out of 100 people who visited my site downloaded my free eBook.

Eight is a low number for a free eBook download. But in comparison with other B2B sites that get 0.01% conversion rates, I’m 800 times ahead. It may not bring a direct income since the eBook is free, but the conversion rate acts as a vote of confidence to scale my marketing efforts with a larger budget.

Because small businesses often rely on social media, you have to increase conversion rates at all stages of your funnel.

• If you increase conversion rates on your Ads by 1.4X (40% more), and on your landing page by 1.10X (10% more) — that’s a 1.51X increase in conversion rate and sales.

Checklist: Increase your conversion rate by 1.4X on Google Ads.

Whether you run ads on Google, Instagram, or YouTube, chances are, your ad will be ignored. Why? Well, customers are actually looking for information and people, not ads.

So the best use of search engines such as Google is to make your ad mimic an informational piece, a.k.a. an advertorial. For YouTube, use infomercials and influencer partnerships. This is known as social search. For Facebook, use infomercials and viral-type ads. And if you’re advertising in an official-like trade publication, use a corporate style.

The secret is to blend with the platform so you get their attention. You are there to seek attention, you should not be ignored.

The small business product for this demo is CRM software.

• Did I use an advertorial style…instead of typical ads?
• Does my headline appeal to self-interest rather than general appeals?
  • Can you be a better email marketer rather than the best CRM software for email marketers?
• Do I add some curiosity to my headline?
  • Lessons from Hilary Clinton: Use emails to make you a better email marketer.
  • Look to Quora headlines to get a sense of curiosity.
• For social ads, do my ads invite a conversation?
  • The goal is to engage. Filter top posts on Reddit or any platform…that’s how your advertorial should look.
• Do you push your ads organically?
  • If you have the best product, you will want to do everything to ensure it reaches everyone.
• Is your product unique?
  • This “wow factor” causes products to trend (and even go viral).
• Did you add some urgency?
  • Why should people click now? Limited availability, limited editions?

Checklist: Designing websites that convert.

So which methods can you use to increase conversion rates on low-traffic and new sites?

• Messaging: Does my landing page stick to the principle of copy focus…or are ideas all over the place?
• Do my hero area and headline solve an urgent problem, call out a target customer, and continue the conversation from the advertorial?
• Does my product/service have credibility and proof elements, education, statistics, examples, case studies, track record, and demonstrations to back up my claims?
• Do I make a big, believable, unique promise?
  • This is the only way to move a saturated market.
• Do I have a clear call to action, and an irresistible offer someone would be dumb to ignore? A.K.A. “value.”

You’d be surprised at how many websites fail at each of these.

eCommerce: How to Increase Your Conversion Rates

Unlike B2B businesses, eCommerce drop shippers could be D2C and B2C businesses. As a result, their product pages require less copy and should be more graphic-rich. The aim of every graphic is to increase sales.

• Do I use direct response design tips?
• Do my images show the fulfillment of the promise rather than a problem, i.e. show glowing radiant skin rather than acne skin?
• UX: Is my website loading fast, with 99% uptime, with 1-3 clicks to checkout?
• Do I practice up-selling — recommending higher-priced packages, down-selling for abandoned carts, and cross-selling — recommending similar packages?
• Does my ordering system use notifications?
• Do I use countdown timers and scarcity plugins?
• Do I use customization? Am I calling visitors by name, location, using gamification techniques?

Unlike SEO, conversion rate optimization doesn’t change. These timeless principles remain evergreen.

People buy because they have a problem. All you have to do is to present a solution, like a caring friend, with utmost trust and clarity.

The post Looking to Increase Conversion Rate 1.51X? Use a Credibility Checklist. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.