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SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It basically means the process of trying to get Google to rank your website as high as possible in its search results for the specific terms you want.
For example, if you are a car dealer in Los Angeles, you might want to rank highly for “used cars LA” and “cars for sale LA”, etc. People that are searching for those terms in Google are highly likely to be your target customer.
So, how do you get your website to rank highly in Google, especially when there are hundreds of millions of other websites on the internet and your particular niche may have thousands of competitors too, most of whom will have their own websites and be trying to rank for many of the same terms as you?
The answer is by SEO and while there are many different techniques, methods and strategies you can use to perform SEO for your website, in this post I am going to talk about what I think is one very easy thing that anyone can do. That is on-page SEO and title optimization.
Keyword Mentions
Google takes into account several hundred factors when deciding what website to rank where in its search results for any given search term. One of those factors is keyword mentions.
For example, a site for a car dealer, advertising second hand cars, isn’t going to contain much information on the latest movie releases is it? Instead, you (as a potential site visitor) would expect to see lots of “secondhand car sale” keywords and information on that site.
Things like actual car listings, advice on how to buy a car, what to look out for, car features, warranty and finance information, etc. Google is expecting to see those things on your site too, if you want to rank highly for secondhand car sale related search queries.
By analyzing the content of a page, Google can then process that information and work out what your site, or any particular page, is about and what it should be ranking for.
With keyword mentions, we are giving Google a clear indication of what we think we should be ranking for with any particular post.
Keywords in Title
One very easy thing that you can do is include your keywords in the title of your blog posts. For example, in this post I want to rank for keywords associated with WordPress plugins and identifying them, and placed all those words in the title, in a natural fashion – “How to Identify & Find Which WordPress Plugin a Website is Using”.
The key is to include the words in a completely natural way and of course, write an amazing article on the topic. You want people that click on your links and take the time to read your content to come away satisfied.
You also need credibility, and if it’s obvious that you’ve unnaturally tried to place several keywords in your title, you will stand out like a sore thumb, and potential visitors might think you are a spammer or worse. For more on this, see the “Keyword Stuffing” section further below.
Try and use your keywords in your blog post titles, naturally. It’s that easy.
Keywords in Sub-Headings
You’ll see that Hostt’s homepage article has several sub-headings within it. Not only do these headings make for an enhanced user experience, which is very important in itself, but Google also see the headings, and the words they contain, and uses that information to aid it in working out what the page is about (and should be ranking for, if anything).
You can see that the sub-headings included are all helpful, relevant and contain a sprinkling of my target keywords.
Again, and I can’t stress this enough, it must be natural! Just write as you normally would and then, at the end, go back and check to see you’ve actually used your keywords throughout your article.
If you haven’t, see if there is any way you can include them, in a natural manner, that would also make for a better user experience. It’s just something to bear in mind while you are writing your articles.
Keyword Stuffing
Some of you might be thinking, this is too easy! If I want to show in the #1 spot in Google for “used cars” I can just repeat that phrase and others dozens of times in a blog post, and Google will rank me highly for that term.
This tactic is called keyword stuffing, and while it used to work back in the early 2000s, Google has come a long way since then. Google will realise that you are trying to manipulate its search engine results and penalize you. You certainly won’t be ranking anywhere for the terms you want, so avoid this kind of thing and keep it absolutely natural.
