Do you kow how to use SEO in your blog or what SEO can do for you as a blogger?

The following article should shed some light on the topic and introduce the most important 9 strategies using SEO.

1. What Is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
The goal of SEO is to customize your blog and its content so that it will appear among the first results of search engines for certain search queries, also called keywords.

The more your blog’s articles appear in Google’s search results for certain keywords, the more visitors click and land on your blog article. 

2. What Are The Benefits Of SEO?

Getting visitors through Google can be a long process. Usually top rankings are not achieved within a few days, especially if your blog is new and poorly referenced.

Via facebook, Instagram or Pinterest it is usually faster to get visitors.

However, SEO has four key advantages

• Visitors via Google can be more valuable than visitors from other sources, depending on the search term. The reason is users who search for a certain item on Google usually already have a buying interest. They already have the ticket in their hands.

• With SEO you can get to the point where it becomes self-sufficient. Good ranking generates a high number of visitors, which will link to other visitors. Links generate good rankings ergo high traffic. 

• Google can be a source of visitors with a very long lifetime. Thanks to good SEO it is possible to keep a good ranking in search results for years.

• SEO does not require much extra effort, as many of Google’s ranking factors are based on high quality content and user experience, factors that you as a blogger should consider anyway.

3. Classification Factors Of The Google Algorithm

According to Google’s algorithm, there are more than 200 different factors that determine the ranking of a website for a particular search term. 

Some are important, some are not. Some are also specific to certain keywords or industries. Google is a very sophisticated machine, but unlike us humans, Google’s algorithm cannot understand the content and can therefore only partially judge the relevance and quality of the content.

Through the semantic analysis of your contribution, Google determines the topic and the relevance of your contribution to the search query. A good keyword search is by far the most important part of SEO and crucial for a better ranking.

4. How To Position Your Keyword?

Ideally, the keyword should appear at the following positions in your article:

• In the title
• In at least one subheading (h1 or h2)
• In the first paragraph of the blog article
• Several times in continuous text
• In the alt tag and file name of an image
• In the URL/Permalink
• In the meta-title and meta-description
  the title and description that appear in the search results
• If you use WordPress, I recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin, which provides a good keyword analysis with useful optimization suggestions.

However, don’t overdo the integration of your keywords, because too many superfluous keywords can lead to a lower ranking. Try to integrate them as well as possible in your article. 

If a keyword seems unnatural to you, try to insert it elsewhere or use a synonym instead.

Yoast’s SEO does not include inflected keywords in the analysis, although they should be included

In fact, the inclusion of synonyms and other related keywords is as important. 

Google is getting better and better at determining the theme of its blog posts. The more words and phrases your post contains that are relevant to your keyword and often occur in combination with it, the better your blog post will rank for the keyword itself.

The relevant keywords, and of course the main keywords can be identified by using keyword management tools like Google Keyword Planner, Answer The Public or keywordfinder.

It is also useful to look at the websites that are currently at the top of search results and use this as a guide for word choice and content design.

5. Legibility Of Your Content

The readability of your blog entry, i.e. the accessibility and comprehensibility of your content for readers, is an important indicator of the quality of your blog entry.

Google can determine this by using the following criteria:

• Spelling and grammar
• Clarity and clear use of photos, videos, slides, lists, tables, etc.
• Length of sentences (do not write interlaced sentences that are too long)
• Paragraphs (divide blog entries into meaningful, short paragraphs)
• Titles (titles increase the readability of a text considerably)

6. Length Of Your Article

Longer blog entries are often rated better. This shows a recent study by Backlinko.

For an optimal ranking I recommend a 900 – 1000 words for your blog entries.

7. User Experience

User experience does not only refer to the level of the text, but to the whole environment such as design, security and loading time

To provide a good user experience in Google’s eyes, your website must meet the following criteria.

• Security – no spreading of malware, protection of privacy
  (SSL certificate, existence of a privacy policy, etc.)
• Optimised for different terminals, resolutions and browsers
• Fast loading time – not longer than 1.5 seconds
• Clear and simple URL structure
• Clear design, simple menu navigation and flat hierarchies
• The font, its size and colour as well as the line spacing allow perfect reading of the text.
• No annoying or aggressive advertising – pop-ups that cannot be closed

8. Using Backlinks

A backlink is a link that refers to your site from another site. 

Google treats correctly done backlinks as recommendations. The more referrals you get from other sincere sites, the more likely Google provides higher ranking to your site.

The ranking of a single blog entry is based on the number of backlinks that your entire domain has. Even more important is the number of backlinks that only refer to your article. 

Good indicators in this respect are your domain authority and page authority. 

The MOZ analysis website is a good tool to use for determining you authorities.

Even if you have a blog with an easy-to-use design and a fast loading time, and you write high quality and very well optimized articles with keywords, you may find yourself on the third, fourth or fifth page because you have no backlinks.

Not only is the number of backlinks important, but also and above all their quality. A very good link can be better than 100 weak links. The quality of a connection results from mostly the following factors: 

• dofollow or nofollow – normal links without rel=”nofollow”, are always better
• The position of your links – within the article is always better 
• Link text – the link text of the keyword is in principle better than the URL or the brand name
• The authority of the linking domain – the higher, the better
• Authority of the referring website’s page – the higher, the better
• Link format
• The surrounding content – the more relevant it is to your keyword, the better

The article in which your perfect link is placed would be well linked to other well-known websites and would be prominently displayed on the online portal.

However, an excessive use of link text of the keyword can lead to a sanction from Google. Be smart.

9. When Is SEO Useful

Search engine optimization is time-consuming and not always useful. 

For some articles or pages it is simply not advisable to optimize them for a certain keyword, because some basic requirements for a good positioning are not given. 

This is especially true for :

• Personal – diary entries, “About us” page.
• Entries with little text – pure picture or video entries, link collections
• Pages with little “unique content” – printing instructions, privacy policy, etc. 
• Summaries – weekly overviews, best practices, etc.

SEO is very useful for the following:

• Test and experience reports
• Guide and editorial articles
• Instructions, such as recipes, tutorials, etc.
• Knowledge articles and encyclopedia
• News
• Comments, columns or essays
• Interviews and blog presentations