Title of the post / article Description of the article / extract Headers (H2, H3 and H4 tags within a post)
Tags for image alt and title
Bulleted lists and bold terms
Density of keywords
Links that are both inbound and outgoing
1. Creating a title for a post or article that is search engine friendly
When it comes to optimizing your content to rank at the top of search results, the title of your article or blog post is the most crucial thing to consider.
Your post’s title is the first thing search engines notice when indexing your material, and it’s the first thing users see when determining whether or not to visit your website.
Prior to deciding on a title for your content, it’s critical to conduct thorough keyword and key phrase research.
Obviously, you want a title that is relevant to the content of your post, but simple adjustments in the order of the words in your title, or the use of synonyms, might be the difference between being seen in search engines and being buried by the competition.
It’s vital to note that words towards the beginning (to the left) of your post title will rank higher than terms near the end (to the right) of your title.
If you look at the title of this article, for example, the first phrase is “Search Engine Optimization,” which I believe is the most relevant phrase in terms of what this article is about.
The phrase “Example Article” is equally significant, although not as much as the phrase “Example Article.” If I had rearranged the words in the headline to read “Example Article – Search Engine Optimization,” I would have ranked higher in some searches for example articles about subjects other than SEO. People looking for resumes, cover letters, newspaper articles, and other similar items may find me in the search results. All of these searches would have been done by people who weren’t in my target demographic.
2. Search engine optimization of an article’s excerpt or meta description
Over the years, the subject of whether or not a meta description is vital to search engine ranking has been debated.
It’s safe to say that meta descriptions don’t have nearly the same impact on search engine rankings as they did in the past, but they do.
In search results, Google, for example, typically displays an article’s meta description directly beneath the title. This incident reveals two facts: Meta descriptions are looked at by Google’s search engine robots, which index meta descriptions and, as a result, must employ meta descriptions as part of their overall ranking methodology.
Users viewing Google search results see your article’s meta description, and meta descriptions thus play a significant psychological role in whether or not your content is clicked on.
However, it is critical to include meta descriptions in your articles. Make sure your meta description accurately represents the article’s general message. It’s also vital to include certain keywords in the meta description, but make sure you’re not cramming your meta description with them!
My meta descriptions are short, sweet, and detailed. The meta description for this article, for example, is as follows:
“An example post on search engine optimization (SEO) that shows how to integrate the most significant parts of SEO.”
You’ll note that the first section of the meta description just repeats the title of the article. Although this isn’t always the greatest technique to write your descriptions, it is often the case and has served me well tin the past.
3. Using article headers as a tool for implementing SEO strategies
Aside from the title of an article, article headers are one of the most essential search engine ranking variables. Headers are indicated in HTML by the h1, h2, h3, etc. elements and appear in your article in a higher font size than the body of your material, depending on your css.
Headers are used to divide the main points of an article. I used an H2 tag for the title at the top of the page, “Important Factors of Search Engine Optimization,” and then H3 tags at the top of each further part using this article as an example. “Taking use of article headers while executing SEO methods” is the H3 header for this section.
If I wanted to add another subtopic to this part, I would use an H4 tag to separate it.
The people who are reading your article will value headers as well. They give “scroll points” for readers of your material and split the article down into digestible sections, making it less intimidating.
In the same way that headers make it easier for readers to perceive how your material is organized, they also make it easier for search engine robots to understand your content’s structure and hierarchy. Headers are very vital for SEO success, therefore use them wherever possible.
4. For SEO purposes, image alt and title tags should be properly configured.
You have the option of adding a “alt tag” and a “title tag” to an image when embedding it in an article or post.
If your image cannot be reproduced for some reason, the alt tag will be displayed. Because search engines can’t yet accurately view a picture and visually determine what it is, the title tag provides a rudimentary explanation of what it is to search engines. Although I believe this will be achievable in the future, the only information search engines have about your photographs right now comes from the alt and title tags.
It’s also crucial that you call the file something that accurately describes what the image is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen photographs with file names like “0092747392.jpg” embedded on webpages.
This is perplexing not only for you as a webmaster, but also for search engines. If you look at the image at the top of this page, you’ll notice that it contains the following features:
Filename: example-article-on-search-engine-optimization.jpg
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) EXAMPLE ARTICLE
Example Article on Search Engine Optimization (Title Tag)
You’ll see that the image’s file name, alt tag, and title tag are all nearly identical. In general, I try to maintain these elements the same, but this isn’t always the case.
You should definitely check out a wonderful article on Search Engine Journal that covers all you need to know about optimizing your photographs for SEO.
5. For SEO purposes, use boldfaced phrases and bulleted lists.
It’s debatable if search engines take bold phrases and items from a bulleted list into account when ranking articles. Some sources claim they have a minor impact on ranking algorithms, while others claim they have no impact.
However, one thing is clear. From a human perspective, including lists and bolded language makes an article easier to read, which may improve your overall retention rate.
Simultaneously, it is clear that search engines are aiming to present the most relevant search results for its human users, and while lists and boldface terms are not now taken into account in ranking algorithms, they may be in the future.
Use bold text and bulleted lists whenever it makes sense in the context of your piece to be safe and to make things easy for your viewers.
6. When writing for search engines, employ the suggested keyword density.
When it comes to ranking articles and posts, keyword density is a critical element for search engine algorithms.
Previously, the more of a specific term you had on a website, the higher it ranked – regardless of whether the article or post truly expressed an idea.
As a result, people would just repeat the same keyword or key phrase over and over again, oblivious to the context in which the keyword was really employed. This SEO technique is known as “keyword stuffing,” and search engines immediately adjusted their algorithms to punish rather than reward keyword stuffers.
SEOmoz provides a tool for analyzing keyword density and overall keyword optimization for a certain post. Although this product is available for a free 30-day trial, there is a cost to use it indefinitely.
According to some experts, the keyword you’re aiming to rank for should make up a particular percentage of the words in your content. I’ve heard varied amounts suggested by experts ranging from 6% to 15%.
The most prevalent tip when it comes to keyword density is to write for human readers instead of for search engine ranking algorithms. This is a notion with which I entirely agree.
As previously said, search engines strive to rank content depending on how well they address an issue for a human reader. With that in mind, the more articles you produce for people, the better off you’ll be in terms of search engine optimization in the long run.
I attempt to employ synonyms as much as possible as a method that works for both human and robot readers. This increases the readability of your post and allows you to rank for more keywords and key phrases in search engines.
7. The impact of inbound and outbound links on SEO
Didn’t you know we’d finally get around to talking about this? This is undoubtedly the most hotly debated and contentious aspect of search engine optimization.
Until recently – within the last 12 months or so – it was considered that the more links you had pointing to a specific piece, the better off you were.
I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Yes, a whole economy was developed around the purchase, sale, and exchange of links.
The original reason for ranking articles based on the number of inbound links was that it might be presumed that an article with a large number of inbound links would be particularly helpful to end users.
This was true until the link building business exploded, at which point you could buy 10,000 links to a single article in a single day. This undercut the entire purpose of ranking articles based on inbound links, and search engines such as Google have began to come down hard on connections that are not gained organically.
So, “Do you want others to connect to your article?” becomes a question.
You do, of course!
Because you are offering value and solving an issue for the end user, you want others to connect to your content.
If you have to pay for links, your material isn’t good enough, and it shouldn’t be appearing in search results in the first place. The moral of the story is that you should let people connect to you when they want to, not because you pay them to.
So, what kind of links can you control? Links that lead somewhere else.
Outbound linking receives little attention because it is widely considered that outbound links do nothing but harm your article’s search engine ranking. This assumption is completely incorrect!
You must provide the sources of your knowledge in order to validate your article. Your content will rank higher if you link to more high-quality sites.
Your rating will most likely suffer if you connect to affiliate sites and spam-infested sites.
Your ranking will almost certainly not be penalized if you link to scholarly, well-written, interesting websites and articles, and as search engines continue to tweak their algorithms, your ranking will almost certainly rise.
