Use Guest Posting To Drive Traffic to Your Website
Jack on October 28th, 2009When the Internet was first created, it had one simple goal: to allow users to share information. During the 1990s, websites began to emerge by the thousands, however their owners were often very strict about what information was shared, and created a somewhat hostile environment. Fast forward to today where sharing is an essential action for website growth and SEO.
When developing an SEO strategy, there are many ways to gain a higher search engine rank through off page optimization, one of the greatest ways to gain new visitors is to write a guest post. Although many website owners still have a problem with sharing their written content, sharing a well written article on another website in your niche will drive massive amounts of traffic back to your own. A well written article intrigues the reader to know who wrote it, and by agreeing to use your website link in a profile or footer, these readers will continue through the link and land on your page.
Instead of having to work on the very fine details of SEO on your page, writing a guest posts have the potential to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website, which search engines love. A website that has a high amount of visitors tells the search engine it is more relevant to the specific topic/keyword because so many people go to it. Often, with a bit of work on your part of writing a great article, guest posting on a larger website will give you an increased amount of audience than you expect from releasing the same article on your own site.
When planning to write a guest post, consider the audience that you will be talking to, they may not be exactly like your own. Your goal is to create an article so great that it benefits both the website you are guest posting on and to give you a back link and reputation. The great thing about writing guest posts is that there are thousands of other blogs in your particular niche to choose from.
There are many different topics to choose from when creating a guest post:
- A review of a product or service
- An interview with a major player in your field
- A round up article
- A how to article
You will need to contact the owners of the website to see if they’d be interested in a guest post. More often than not, another website owner would be happy to let you guest post for them because they have the immediate benefit of gaining free content and search engine placement. After you’ve established a connection to the other website owner, create an article that would be extremely compelling to their audience and don’t forget to link back to your own, it’s a trade of content for great search engine optimized back links.
Blogging has taken the internet by storm, which is why guest posting is a great strategy to help your SEO. It may be hard to write a great post only to give it up to another owner, but the long term benefits of gaining additional visitors and potential subscribers is worth the effort. Now, go out and research other websites in your niche, contact the owner about guest posting and enjoy the free traffic.
5 Killer Tips to Create Quality Content for SEO
Jack on October 26th, 2009Content, as the cliché goes, is king. Although ‘Content is King’ has been used over and over again across almost every blog about SEO, it still holds the crown. Without creating quality content for your website or blog, all of your SEO efforts will be worthless as your visitors find nothing of value. The following is 5 killer tips to create great content for your on-page search engine optimization.
1. Create an engaging title
The first thing a visitor sees when they land on your page from the search engine should be a title which pops out at them and tells them exactly what they should expect. Web users scan a page before reading the content, starting with the title. If your page title doesn’t grab the attention of the user within the first few moments, they are unlikely going to finish reading the article due to the lack of interest.
When creating a title, include action words to excite the visitor to continue reading. Titles should convey a promise to the reader, that the following information is as good as the title and they need to continue below and to find out why. Think of titles as sales copy, you want to entice the reader with what you have to offer them and give them an underlying call to action to look at your content.
The reason why a title is great for search engine optimization is that search engine spiders use the tags surrounding the title to help weigh the importance of the content of the page. The title should be both descriptive and have a great hook to capture the reader, gaining you more visitors and relevance on the subject.
2. Create content that sells
Killer content is what makes a great website. You could do all of the link building and Search Engine Optimization tricks you have up your sleeve but if you don’t have quality content, the visitor will feel that the page has no importance to them and leave for a site that does. When creating your content, try to get into the mind of what your reader wants to hear, not what you want to tell them.
Content should fill the need of the reader; wither it being helpful information or just entertainment. The content on your page should be thoroughly covered as well as engaging to the reader, keeping them hooked every word of the page. Your main goal of creating great content is to make them feel so satisfied that they either make an action on the page or share it with others.
Great content that is shared on the internet becomes more relevant to search engines than pages which do not offer worthwhile information. A single well written article has the potential to bring you thousands of visitors just from being shared on social networks. As your page gains more views, the higher it will rank in search engines helping your search engine optimization efforts.
3. Interlinking
Content on your pages should also offer the reader the chance to look at more information on your website. Interlinking keywords and talking points helps guide your reader to other portions of your website, increasing your page views and giving you a higher search engine rank. Search engines reward websites with accurate and relevant interlinking to their readers, something that should be utilized for on-page search engine optimization.
4. Bulleted Lists
When creating your content, using large blocks of text becomes redundant and harsh on the reader. With the attention span of mere seconds, users predominantly scan content to pick up on keywords that fancy their minds. Creating a bulleted list has many benefits:
- Bulleted list attract attention
- You can display important information
- It allows the reader to take a short break
See how the content breaks from the normal paragraphs of text and catches the eye? Bulleted lists are great to attract attention to specific talking points you want to make sure they read. Even if a user scans through a page, they are likely to look at a bulleted list because it stands out.
5. Images
Although the web is almost completely made of text, images are very important for your posts. Because people have been exposed to an abundance of media such as television, magazines, photos and more, they come to expect to see some sort of image on a web page. Breaking the flow of your content with images helps loosen the weight that a single page of text creates.
It’s equally important to use title and alt attributes when placing images in your content. Search engines cannot see what the image is and relies on the title and alt image to accurately index the object. Always use very descriptive title and alt tags on each of your images to help with SEO and usability.
As you have read, creating quality content should be the number one effort of any person looking to increase their search engine optimization. Content is the reason why people visit your page, all the SEO in the world will not help your website if the content is dreadful and uninspiring. Filling your website with great content will increase your readership and relevance on the subjects you discuss. Effectively planning, research and implementing content is the best advice for creating a high ranking website.
