Article writing and Optimization of Article for Search

1. Post Title and Meta Title 

First, you need to understand the difference between post title and meta title. 

• Post title: How your reader sees the title of the post on your website. 
• Post meta title: How search engines show your post in search results. 

If you have not specified a meta title in your SEO settings, your post title will be treated as the meta title. 

• It is important to have your keywords in the meta title. 

Pro Tip: Keep your post titles less than 66 characters. 

2. Post Meta Description 

All of the most popular SEO plugging allow you to add meta descriptions to a post. These descriptions play a major role in search engine ranking. 

Think of a meta description as a sales copy for your blog post: 

• In 156 characters, you need to add your keywords and create a description that is seductive enough for users to click on it. 

If you have not added meta descriptions in the past, you should start doing it immediately.
 

Meta descriptions are very important. 

You should go back to any of your previously published posts which do not have a meta description and add one. 

By optimizing your post meta descriptions, you are ensuring that every post you write has the potential to drive a maximum amount of traffic to your site. 

Google sees every blog post as a different web page so you can rank every post for certain keywords.
Meta descriptions are great places to put keywords. 

3. Image Alt Attribute
 

Google can’t read images. 

 

• Text is how Google recognizes an image.

To ensure that search engines can understand what an image is about, you must be sure to use proper image names. 

Many people make the mistake of uploading images with names like image001.jpg. 

• This is a huge mistake! 

When naming an image, keep the name relevant to image itself. 

For example, if you take a screenshot of an AdSense dashboard, and you name the image “AdSense”, it will not be targeted. Instead, you need to use a name like “AdSense- dashboard”. 

4. Interlink and Anchor Text 

When writing a new post, it’s always a good idea to link back to old blog posts so that readers will stick around your site for longer and also so that search engines can re-crawl these old posts.
This helps in better navigability of your site which reduces the bounce rate- another important SEO factor. 

When you interlink, you should use the anchor text technique.
Simply put, when you link to a blog post, you see an option to add a link and a title.
Make sure to fill out the post title with the main keywords for the post that you are linking to.  

5. Permalinks: Remove stop words  

When we write a post, our post titles usually come with lots of stop words.
So for example, when we write a post with the title:

• 3 Ways to Make a Blog Business Plan

Our post permalink, by default, would be: 

• domain.com/3-ways-to-make-a-blog-business-plan.html

“To” and “a“ are stop words in the example above. 

You can click on edit permalink and change the permalink to “blog-business-plan”, thus eliminating the stop words. 

• Important Note: Never change your post permalink once the post is published. 

6. H1, H2, H3 Headings
 

We use the Thesis post styling feature to create the style of our blog posts.
This is fine, but we must not ignore one of the most important aspects of SEO:

• Using proper H1, H2, and H3 heading tags.

By default, in any SEO-optimized theme, the post title uses an H1 heading tag. So for the next sub-heading, you can use an H2 heading, and then an H3 heading, and so on. 

It is always a good idea to use proper heading tags for effective SEO writing, especially when you are writing a long post. 

According to the SEO community, it’s a good idea to use your keywords in H1, H2, and H3 tags.

Article Structure Development

Article Structure Development

 

Rather than go in-depth on each aspect of structure and flow, this post shows you how to format an article that flows well and is properly structured. 

# Article Title: Anatomy of an Article 

To write a great article demands that you observe the correct structure and construct it in a way that flows well. To accomplish this, it is essential that you conduct research, choose your paragraph subheadings wisely, write at least two body paragraphs and tie things in a nice, neat bow with a conclusion that summarizes and sometimes provides supplemental information. Keep reading to learn this process. 

# Research 

Conduct research before you write a single word. Once you know about what you intend to write specifically, develop a loose outline – whether it is in your head or written down makes no difference. When you embark on writing without any thought to the order in which you intend to present material, it shows with material that comes across as random and unfocused. 

# Write the introduction 

With your outline nailed down and your focus intact, you are ready to introduce your readers to the topic. In general terms, tell them about what you are going to write. Think of it in terms of how you act when you first meet someone new; you say who you are, shake hands and say something general about yourself. Never introduce something in the intro that you do not intend to address in the body paragraphs. 

# Develop paragraph subheadings 

Before actually writing your body paragraphs, develop paragraph subheadings that give your readers a clue about what they are going to read. Paragraph subheadings should stay relatively short, and when possible, make them witty and engaging. Make sure to use the proper punctuation for paragraph subheadings by writing them with sentence case, meaning only the first word is capitalized. In addition, sentence case dictates that no punctuation is included at the end of the subheadings. 

# Build the body paragraphs 

Once you have developed paragraph subheadings, you are ready to write the body paragraphs; these are the meat of your article. Here, you provide detailed information that flushes out the purpose of the article. Essentially, this is where you tell readers what you said you were going to tell them in the introduction, only with far more detail. Avoid writing exceptionally long paragraphs, as this discourages readers from actually reading what you write. For a good article, you should have at least two body paragraphs with a minimum of two sentences each. 

# Create flow with smooth transitions 

Even with paragraph subheadings, your article should flow with a smooth transition from one paragraph to the next. If you did not already notice the flow within this article, look at the first sentence of each new paragraph. To lead into the next subject, the subject previously discussed is mentioned. How you do this is entirely a personal decision, but providing a transition from one paragraph to the next greatly increases the readability of your article as well as its overall flow. 

# Write the conclusion 

You have smoothly transitioned your way to the conclusion, which is the easiest part of an article to write. Close with a brief summary of what you just told readers. Provide information or suggestions for further investigation or include a few additional suggestions your readers can use to learn on their own. Avoid going too far off topic, though, and stay concise. Doing so ensures your well-written article stays that way through the very last word. 

To ensure your articles are well written, you must remember the basic tenant of structure: tell readers what you are going to write, write it in the body paragraph and write it again in the conclusion in a summarized fashion. Do the proper research, utilize paragraph subheadings, write relevant and informative body paragraphs and wrap things up nicely with a conclusive paragraph. Through it all, transition well and create a flow that enhances readability. If you follow these guidelines, you are sure to write one great article after another.

SEO Tools and Resources

SEO Tools and Resources

 

SEO is a multi-million dollar industry. The good news is that you don’t need to invest thousands in SEO services. In fact, learning the basics of SEO and executing a well-thought strategy in many cases is enough to get results you’re looking for. 

 
Below are a few tools and resources to help you with the SEO on your site or your client’s - 

 
# Keyword Planner 

 
Keyword Planner is a tool that provides keyword ideas and traffic estimates to help you build a Search Network campaign. Below are the features of Keyword Planner tool -

• Search for keyword and ad groups ideas based on terms that describe your product or service, your website, or a product category related to what you're advertising. You can also enter or upload a list of keywords. And you can multiply two or more lists of keywords to create a new list that combines your keywords.
  
• Get historical statistics, like the number of times people have searched for a keyword or how competitive that keyword is.
  
• You can also get traffic estimates, like how many clicks and impressions your keywords might get for given bid and budget amounts. 

 
# Google Analytics  

 
Google Analytics is one of the best analytic trackers available. GA will show you exactly who visited your website, their location, what device they were using, on which web browser, and so forth. 

 
Even better, GA is absolutely free – all you have to do is install the tracking code on your website. And, of course, sign up for a Google account (if you don’t already have one). 

 
# Google Webmaster Tools 

 
This is another fantastic and free service from the Google team. 

 
Webmaster Tools has various features, including monitoring your site’s ranking in the SERPs. Oftentimes it can be used along with Google Analytics. (They have information sharing features.) 

 
# Open Site Explorer (Ose) 

 
OSE is a popular premium backlink checker that allows you to analyze the backlinks of any given website. 

 
OSE is comparable to majesticSEO, but what I really like about OSE is that you can see all the domains that are linking to a website without having to upgrade to the premium version. 

 
# Yoast Seo Plugin For Wordpress Users 

 
WordPress is a content management system that powers nearly 20% of the entire web.  

 
While there are hundreds of SEO plugins available, in my humble opinion the best plugin for SEO is the WordPress SEO by Yoast. This helpful plugin allows you to write SEO optimized posts and pages across your WP site.

FB Audience Insight

The more customer insights you have, the better you’re equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people. That’s the thinking behind Facebook Audience Insights, a new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.  

 

FB Audience Insight

Say you want to raise awareness for your women’s luxury fashion brand, and you sell your products in-store. You’d want to know how many people on Facebook live near your stores, as well as their interests, their past purchase behavior and how they tend to shop (online vs. in- store). Using Audience Insights, you can get aggregate and anonymous information such as: 

 

• Demographics — Age and gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size
•  Page likes — The top Pages people like in different categories, like women’s apparel or sports 
• Location and language — Where do people live, and what languages do they speak
• Facebook usage — How frequently are people in your target audience logging onto Facebook and what device(s) they are using when they log on
• Purchases activity — Past purchase behavior (i.e. heavy buyers of women’s apparel) and purchase methods (i.e., in-store, online) 

 
And you can view this information for three different groups of people: 

 

• People on Facebook (the general Facebook audience)
• People connected to your Page or event 
• People in Custom Audiences you’ve already created (an audience made up of your current customers) 

 
Audience Insights is different from Page Insights because it looks at trends about your current or potential customers across Facebook, whereas Page Insights looks at the interactions with your Page (i.e., likes, comments and shares).  

 

FB Audience Insight

We built Audience Insights with privacy in mind. It surfaces aggregated information people already express on Facebook, along with information from trusted third-party partners — like Acxiom — through our partner categories targeting. Like Page Insights, Audience Insights shows information about groups of people without the need to share which individual people are in those groups. This allows marketers to view aggregate and anonymous insights while keeping people’s personal information private.

Why Advertising on Facebook is better than Advertise on Twitter?

Why Advertising on Facebook is better than Advertise on Twitter

 

#1: Your Audience Is On Facebook 

Facebook has a user base larger than the population of China! With 1.49 billion members worldwide, and 22 billion ad clicks per year, Facebook is providing businesses with the largest advertising opportunity since search. So yes, your audience is on there somewhere – it’s just a matter of finding them (which I’ll get into in reason #3), but if you have doubts just re-read those stats because they are quite telling, my friend. 

#2: Facebook Ads Are Cheap
Seriously, they’re practically free! Well, not quite. In fact, the reason you need to advertise is because getting traction from organic activity on your business page won’t yield results.  

On the bright side, Facebook ads tend to cost a fraction of what other online marketing channels cost. 

If you’re strapped for cash, just ensure that you set reasonable daily Facebook budgets so you don’t exceed what you’re able to spend. 

#3: The Targeting Capabilities of Facebook Are Exceptional 

Along with tons of different ad types, like video ads, the level of granularity you can get with Facebook targeting capabilities. You can literally target President Obama or the Prime Minister of France. Whether it be by behaviors, interests, demographics, connections, age ranges, languages, or locations, you can dig pretty deep with these targeting capabilities and layer them upon each other to ensure you’re getting rid of any questionable, out-of-market clickers. 

#4: Facebook Is Effective to Push On-the-Fence Leads Down the Funnel 

Still nervous? Try out remarketing on Facebook through custom audiences. This strategy works wonders for marketers because remarketing works by targeting an audience that has already visited your site, and therefore is more likely to be interested in your products or offerings at some level. 

#5: Facebook Allows You to Find New Qualified Leads Easily 

Once you’ve found an audience that converts like crazy, you can clone them. The feature is called ―lookalike audiences‖ where you can take a custom audience and Facebook will reach NEW people who are similar to that audience and therefore likely to be interested in your business. 

Lookalike audiences can also be built with conversion pixels (for instance, the conversion pixels from your paid search ads!), install data from mobile apps, or simply from fans of your Facebook page. You can also further define the size and targeting options to ensure your lookalike audience is an accurate reflection of your target buyers.

Paid Social Media Marketing

Paid Social Media Marketing

 

Paid social advertising is a highly cost-effective way to expand your reach. If you play your cards right, you can get your content and offers in front of a huge audience at a very low cost. Most social media platforms offer incredibly granular targeting capabilities, allowing you to focus your budget on exactly the types of people that are most likely to be interested in your business. Below are some tips and resources for getting started with paid social media marketing? 

 
# Facebook Ads 

 
If you’re like a vast number of marketers out there, you could be under the impression that advertising on Facebook (or any other type of social media) is limited to branding and customer engagement. 

 
You have access to hundreds of millions of users, their locations, interests, behaviors, countless other targeting capabilities, not to mention the ability to reach them at any given hour of the day, for a whole lot less than any other available advertising medium of equal scale. 

 
If you know how to use it properly, Facebook can be one of the most powerful advertising platforms for driving your business forward. 

 
# Twitter Ads 

 
Many businesses aren’t quite sure how to tackle marketing on Twitter from a paid perspective. It’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and if you don’t quite know what you’re doing, you could wind up waste.  

 
It may seem like common sense, but when you’re outlining the strategy for your Twitter ads, you should always have your goals in mind. It’s tempting to think that your Twitter presence
has to be comparable to that of a needy teenager, desperately asking strangers to "Retweet this!" or "Follow us!" or "Please for the love of god give me attention so that this seems like a worthwhile investment!" You’re probably just wondering, "Where’s the ROI?"