How to improve your SEO ranking
SEO is an essential element of any good marketing strategy, yet these famous three letters have often been associated with a somewhat obscure science.
But in recent years, SEO has evolved a lot: it has become a logical science, necessary to improve the experience of web users. By following certain advice and knowing some technical optimizations, referencing a blog article in the first results of search engines is within everyone's reach.
With the help of this list of SEO tips, you will be able to improve your visitors' experience on your blog posts and increase your organic traffic. But first, here's a quick refresher on the importance of SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO (or Search Engine Optimization in English) corresponds to a set of techniques which make it possible to position a site or a web page in the first natural results (that is to say non-paying) of search engines.
To achieve good SEO, you will need to follow some basic SEO techniques. Did you know that 70% of clicks for a query on Google go to the first search page? The referencing of your article on this first page must therefore be your main objective to increase your natural traffic.
To achieve this, follow this SEO optimization checklist to improve the SEO of your articles.
Checklist for a good SEO
By providing the necessary answers to your audience in a blog post and providing them with a quality experience, your SEO and your traffic will increase. There is no magic solution, so you will have to be meticulous.
1 - Do some keyword research
Impossible to start writing an article without first doing a search for keywords.
Keyword research allows you to understand the expectations and needs of your potential visitors. By analyzing the different keywords and their traffic volume, you will be able to choose a subject for your article that will correspond to the searches of Internet users.
To reference your article at the top of search results, choose a single theme per article to be sure to provide your visitors with a complete and targeted solution.
To carry out a search for keywords, use tools such as Google Adwords or SEMRush. It can also be very useful to type the keyword for which you want to reference your article in the Google search bar: you will be able to identify the different suggestions and variants sought by users and adapt the angle of your article.
2 - Analyze the competition
When you have identified a targeted and sufficiently researched keyword, analyze the competition in the search results for this keyword. By typing your keyword into Google, you will get a very good overview of the competition.
You must take into account the authority of the websites that reference themselves for the targeted keyword. Over time and your research, you will be able to develop your sense of intuition regarding your SEO possibilities based on the competition.
For example, if you are the owner of a small hotel in Lyon, it will be particularly difficult to reference your website for the very competitive keyword "hotel Lyon" because very high authority sites like trivago or Booking are already competing the first places. Then choose a long-tail keyword such as “bed and breakfast in Lyon Fourvière” for which there will certainly be fewer searches, but also much less competition. This will make it easier for you to get quality traffic.
3 - Produce quality content
Now that you've identified and targeted your blog post topic, it's time to get down to writing. Do research on forums, analyze online discussions and use feedback from your customers to answer as many questions as possible that your readers may have on the subject of your article.
You must appear as an expert who answers in depth the questions that your readers have.
Don't forget that Google tracks the activity of an Internet user on the web: if your visitor leaves your site, then consults the next site without modifying his search, Google will deduce that you have not provided the answer sought by the user. internet user. Your page will then be demoted by search engines, since your article does not seem to provide a solution to visitors.
So do everything you can to offer the maximum response to your readership in a quality article.
4 - Pay attention to the length of your content
To provide all the answers to visitors, it is often recommended to write a lengthy article. Depending on the targeted keyword, a blog post should have 800 to 900 words on average to get a good SEO.
But beware, it is not a question here of writing simply to fill this quota, quality always takes precedence over quantity.
5 - Make the article readable
If your article is long enough, you have to make it readable to make it easier to read and avoid a high bounce rate, which could again penalize your SEO.
To do this, ventilate the text, add colors and avoid using a font that is too small or a color that makes it difficult to read. Your reader shouldn't have to make any special effort to read your blog post. There are probably plenty of resources online on the same topic, so don't give them an excuse to leave your site and check out an article written by your competitors.
6 - Add images
To facilitate reading, nothing better than adding images that illustrate your explanations or each of your paragraphs. Well-chosen images will make it easier for the reader to remember your content and they can add real value. Even better, you can create infographics to illustrate your articles.
Indeed, if a travel agency writes a blog article on "the 20 most paradisiacal places in the world" but does not include any photos, it is very unlikely that its article will obtain a good referencing because it does not will not meet the needs of an Internet user in search of escape.
7 - Compress images
Images are essential to a blog post, they help give readers more context.
However, images have a negative impact on the loading speed of the blog post or website. To avoid this, make sure to compress the images. To compress your images, use TinyPNG.
8 - Add the alt attribute to your images
In a blog post, it is necessary to add the alt attribute to your images. This is because search engine crawlers cannot see or understand the content of an image. It is therefore necessary to add an alt so that crawlers receive an indication of their content.
A simple sentence of two to three words is sufficient to fill in this attribute. Also, the alt attribute will be especially important if your site cannot load images. Visitors will then have at least one piece of information about the content that should have appeared on your page.
9 - Add videos to your pages
Videos are very interesting and can have a positive impact on the SEO of your blog posts.
Indeed, they make it possible to increase the time spent on the page, which is a referencing criterion.
10 - Optimize your article with a keyword (title, headings, URL)
Once you have defined the framework of your article, it will have to be optimized so that it is referenced for the chosen keyword in the search pages. If you want to rank your article for a long-tail keyword containing the term “lead generation,” that term needs to appear in multiple elements of your article. Readers (and search engines) need to understand that you address the topic throughout your article.
Insert the keyword for which you want to reference your article in the URL and in the title of the page (title tag). Don't forget to mention it in the section titles either.
On the other hand, be careful not to over-optimize your blog post, it is not a question of keyword stuffing, an SEO practice strongly penalized by Google guidelines. Mention your keyword enough in your page so that it is visible, but not too much so that the reading of the text becomes too heavy and repetitive. It's all about balance.
To avoid keyword stuffing, find expressions comparable to your keyword that will allow you to broaden the reach of your SEO while avoiding off-topic.
11 - Fill in the meta description tag
The meta description tag allows you to customize the text that describes a result in the search pages.
A catchy and optimized meta description tag, i.e. containing a certain number of searched keywords and related to your article, will have a direct impact on your CTR on Google... so don't forget to complete and optimize it.
12 - Use short and understandable URLs
Search engines don't penalize long URLs directly, but short, understandable URLs make the user experience easier, which impacts your SEO.
Ideally, try to choose URLs under 80 characters. It may seem like a lot, but it's not so much if your domain name is long...
Don't forget to add to your URL the keywords that define the main theme of your article. However, avoid keyword stuffing in your URL, this practice is strongly penalized by Google guidelines.
13 - Avoid forbidden characters in your URLs
Before you even proceed to read your article, the URL gives an indication to your readers about the content of your blog article. An understandable and optimized URL therefore promotes the user experience and SEO.
In some browsers, URLs do not support all characters and to prevent it from turning into a sequence of characters like "%20", you should not use accents, spaces, or most special characters. For a full list, check out this article.
14 - Watch out for duplicate content
Make sure that all content published on your site is unique content. Search engines penalize content duplication!
If you post content to your blog from external contributors, make sure they always provide you with unique content. You can easily check that content is not duplicated by copying and pasting certain phrases from the blog post into the Google search bar. If a similar post appears in search results, you'll know you're dealing with duplicate content, which shouldn't be posted on your blog.
If for some reason you still want to post duplicate content on your blog (e.g. to update a similar post from last year), add the canonical tag to your original post to let people know. search engines and avoid being penalized.
15 - Put unrecognized external links in nofollow
With the Penguin update (now fully integrated into its algorithm), Google is hunting down poor quality links, integrated for the sole purpose of influencing SEO. If a link does not provide value to your readers, reconsider including it on your site.
In addition, sponsored dofollow links should be banned from your blog. Only reliable, quality external links that bring added value to users should be added in dofollow.
If you are not sure of the quality of a site but still want to add a link, indicate it to search engines using the nofollow attribute, which will prevent the transfer of authority (link juice) from your blog to the mentioned site.
To identify and differentiate nofollows from dofollows links at a glance, use the Linkparser add-on.
16 - Add internal links
It is not always so easy to get visitors to your blog: it takes a lot of creativity on social networks and a lot of SEO work to position your blog posts in the first search results. Once your articles attract enough visitors, try to keep them on your blog for as long as possible.
To do this, include many internal links in your articles to increase internal navigation and time spent on your site (two Google SEO factors).
Your visitors will be able to discover other articles (perhaps less well referenced but just as interesting) and you will increase the number of your page views.
17 - Remove broken links
When you add links to your site, whether they are internal or external links, it is possible that the URL of the page to which you are directing your users may be modified or deleted.
To avoid a bad user experience, regularly check your blog for broken links and, if necessary, modify or delete them.
18 - Add redirects
If you want to edit one of your pages and move it to another section of your blog or just change the URL, don't forget to add 301 redirects to avoid 404 error pages.
In SEO, 301 redirects will transfer authority and traffic from your old page to the new one. However, do not create too many successive redirects as they may increase the loading time of your pages.
19 - Create an article conducive to sharing on social networks
Officially, shares on social networks are not a direct SEO factor. However, if an article receives a lot of traffic and many signals from social networks, search engines will be more likely to improve their position in search engine results pages.
You will therefore need to produce articles that appeal to your audience: this is the best way to ensure good SEO for the keywords you are targeting.
20 - Keep an eye on getting links
Of course, the acquisition of links has a strong impact on SEO. If you get natural links from high authority sites, chances are they will have a positive impact on your article's SEO.
On the other hand, monitor the links that could penalize your blog by regularly auditing your link portfolio.
21 - Optimize the loading speed of your pages
Page load speed is one of the most important SEO factors. Indeed, what happens if a page takes an abnormally long time to load? You will lose patience and leave the domain without even having accessed the desired page.
A study by Kissmetrics found that with a load time of 3 seconds or more, 40% of users leave the site before its content has been displayed. Every second counts and to improve the experience of your users and your SEO, you must optimize the loading speed of your blog as much as possible.
What are the most likely things to slow down your page load speed? These are the images, so don't forget to reduce their size so as not to penalize the loading speed of your article (on average, 900px is more than enough size).
To test how fast your blog loads, rate your site with our Website Grader tool.
22 - Adapt your site for mobiles
For a long time now, mobile has been very important to Google. If your website is not compatible by default with the display on mobile, it will be particularly difficult to reference your article in the first results of search engines.
Adopt a blogging platform that can adapt your design to the mobile format dynamically and automatically thanks to a responsive site or in AMP format.
23 - Optimize your article after publication
If you followed all the tips mentioned above, you should get good SEO results. However, your work does not stop there...
Monitor the performance of your blog post and perform regular optimization. Determine the keywords for which your article is referenced and adapt its content according to the keywords searched and the competition. A well-conducted SEO optimization can have significant results on your natural traffic.
24 - Become an expert on a particular subject
To determine the referencing, Google also observes the authority of a domain according to a certain theme.
For example, if your company blog has a hundred articles related to marketing, it will be much easier for you to reference an article on inbound marketing than a blogger who generally writes on the field of travel. . Google will identify you as a subject matter expert and trust your content.
It is therefore necessary to be consistent in the themes chosen for the publication of articles on your blog. You can't write on every subject, focus mainly on the ones you know.
25 - Create pillar pages
To increase the SEO of your blog posts, create a pillar page and topic groups strategy.
Thanks to the internal link between several blog articles on the same theme, you can transfer authority to an article that serves as a pillar page.
26 - Use an HTTPS domain
Domains secured under https:// have better SEO performance.
Indeed, since 2014 Google has considered HTTPS to be an SEO criterion. It is therefore recommended to switch from HTTP to HTTPS.
27 - Create a sitemap file
To help search engines rank your website or blog, create a sitemap file.
A sitemap is a file generally named sitemap.xml which lists all the URLs of a website. Thanks to this sitemap protocol, search engine robots can simply explore the different pages of a website.
28 - Strictly follow Google's guidelines
SEO is changing very quickly: what was true last month is not necessarily true today. It is therefore very important to inform yourself on a regular basis to avoid applying obsolete SEO techniques. Follow Google's guidelines to the letter and do not try to trick the system, at the risk of being penalized.
To keep up to date with Google updates and the latest marketing trends, check out this selection of Digital Marketing blogs or subscribe to our blog newsletter.
You now have all the elements in hand to write effective articles.