SEO has definitely become one of the most ubiquitously known acronyms in the world these days, and especially so if you’ve got a vested interest in the performance of your website as it relates to the success of your business. Some will be surprised to learn that SEO is largely about performing specific tasks repeatedly rather than doing something once and then expecting it to ‘work’ from there on out.
We know SEO explicitly well here at 4GoodHosting, and it’s part of the sphere of knowledge and expertise that makes us a top Canadian web hosting provider. Yes, a large part of that knowledge comes from a base of technical familiarity with how search engine algorithms work, but a significant part of what we - and many others like us - have learned has come from trial and error and more simply picking up what others have learned and shared.
So today we’re going to share a simple SEO ‘tune up’ routine that anyone can do, and pretty much anytime. Follow these seven small tasks on a regular basis and it can add up to major page rankings gains long term.
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Upgrade and Update Older Blog Content
No matter how old a blog post may be, you don’t have to be done with it forever. Make that piece of content more useful with anything - new information you’ve learned, successive developments in the industry, new and interesting statistics - whatever. This is especially advisable for content that isn’t ranking as high as you think it should. Spend some time going through your older content and see where it can be expanded to make it even more useful or valuable for readers.
For most people who enjoy blogging, this step is one they’ll like
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Pump Your Content On Social Media
Understand first that social media doesn’t have a large influence on your rankings, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore its significance. Social media does work to send traffic to your site, and having a high social share counter will afford your posts and site more authority. A post with hundreds of shares across social media is going to be seen more favourably and as trustworthy by visitors. They’ll then be more likely to organically share it on their own social media channels and with family and friends, amplifying your reach. Spending a little time each day sharing your content and engaging across social media can help with SEO.
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Upgrade Your URLs, Titles, and Metas
Confusing URL structures aren’t good for SEO. Simplifying your existing URLs so they’re cleaner, more relevant to your topic, and include keywords (without stuffing) is recommended. Also consider improving your titles and meta descriptions. Making titles more clickable and your meta descriptions more appealing will promote better click-through-rates from the search results, and having a higher organic CTR will additionally help to improve your search engine rankings too.
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Be on The Lookout For Broken Links
Simply put, broken links on your site will kill the user experience for visitors. Most websites that have been as they were for a long time will be linking out to resources that are no longer online, and then there’s situations where you’ve changed the URL structure of certain posts and pages on your own site.
Internal links on your site and external links redirecting to other information sources are important for SEO and the overall user experience. Many sites run on WordPress, and you can then install a plugin like Broken Link Checker that will look over your website and identify broken links. You can also install a Chrome extension with the same name - Broken Link Checker - which will scan the open page for broken links.
Keep in mind as well that it’s important to incorporate relevant internal links into the various blog entries posted on your site. Content pieces that have received a lot of links can and should be linked to other posts across your site, but make sure you do so naturally and not awkwardly within the writing.
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Perform Blog Email Outreach
Writing the content itself is only part of it. You need to spend time promoting that content for shares and backlinks as well. Send emails to other influencers in your space but make sure you don’t ask for a direct backlink. Your goal with blog outreach should instead be to make people aware of the quality of your content and inviting them to share and link to it if they’d like. Create good content and get it in front of the right people, and the links will follow.
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Analyze the Competition
While analyzing effectively is beyond the means of most people, there are tools like Buzzsumo and SEMRush where simply type in the URL of your competitors and then receive information on which content has been the most popular and the keywords used that are sending them the most traffic.
Buzzsumo also lets you see the people who shared a specific piece of content. This makes it easier for you to spend time promoting your content to the very same people who’ll more likely share it.
SEMRush will also give you backlink data on the competition’s posts, letting you reach out to those same people when aiming to promote a similar piece of content. All of this will give you endless content ideas while determining where new opportunities to promote your content exist.
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Big Blogs and Sites in Your Niche - Engage with Them
Let’s start by understanding that blog commenting is NOT an effective way to build backlinks to your site. It does serve a purpose, however. Commenting with your name and link to your website is effective for getting on the radar of top bloggers and website owners in your space. Comment with something thoughtful that also adds value, and adhere to best practices. Commenting intelligently may lead to a guest post opportunity down the road that comes with a legitimate and forefront linking opportunity. SEO is all about relationships and regular commenting can be more of an ‘investment’ than you might think.
The tips shared here will help you steadily improve your search engine rankings over the long-term, and the beauty of them is that they really don’t take much time or are overly intensive. Do them when you’ve got some time at your disposal and get better SEO.
