How Do I Improve SEO Ranking? Are You Following The Guidelines?

Everyone wants to do well in SERPs and are always asking how do I improve SEO ranking? There are many things that contribute to great rankings but the one thing that is the most important is something you cannot avoid doing and still get great rankings. I’m sure you know what that “C” word is. Yes “Content” is the first and foremost important thing you can develop to get great rankings.

So what does that mean? Does it mean filling our content with keywords so the search engines can pick them up and rank our page because of them? Absolutely NOT! When we write content we NEED to write it as if we are trying to please our readers with the information they are looking for. Basically what you need to do to get great rankings is to FORGET about Google and the search engines. Your focus should only be on your website and blog readers. PERIOD!

I HAVE LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKE

On my first website I focused on the wrong things and because of it I haven’t been ranking well in most of the earlier pages and posts that I have written. The newer content I am writing for the newest posts are ranking better and quicker than many of the existing pages. So when I have extra time, which is hardly never, I have been going back and re-writing some of the problematic pages and posts and then re-indexing them into Google.

The pages and posts from my second website, which was when I started focusing on the correct way to write and structure my content, is starting to rank well on some of the pages and posts. Video games after all are a very competitive niche, but because I am creating better content I am seeing better results than with my first website.

MY KEYWORDS APPROACH

Another thing that I have been doing, especially on my most recent and 3rd website, is using mostly “low hanging fruit” keywords and if not those, only keywords that are 200 Competition (QSR) or below. Yes I know that WA teaches us 300 and below and Google claims 400 and below but Robert is doing 200 and below if not under 100.

However in my search for finding the “low hanging fruit” keywords I am coming up with mostly long tailed keywords. But most of the keywords that people type into search engines are long tailed keywords and if we are to focus on what our readers want then we need to use the same keywords that they are searching for. Once we find them we need to use them correctly in our content which means in the title and in the first paragraph of our content. Then we forget about using that keyword again for the rest of the page or post. Just focus on providing in depth, descriptive and engaging content. Don’t write your content as if you are reading out of a textbook. Do you like reading a textbook? If not then no one wants to read your content if it reads like a textbook either.

HOW TO GET A LONG TAILED KEYWORD INTO YOUR TITLE

Sometimes when you find a long tailed keyword that you want to use it can be way too long to fit into your title. If you try to put it into the title of your pages the correct way it can make your page menu bar at the top of your website look ugly and overcrowded. Then there are those times when you want to use a great keyword for a generic page name like “Getting Started” or “Home” or About Me”. How would you get the keyword into your title without messing that up?

When this happens, this should be the ONLY time you would manually type it into your Title Meta Tag below your text editor. For 95% of the time when you create pages you will want to avoid typing anything into the blank text areas in the All In One SEO Pack area below the WordPress text editor window. But for those times when you need to place the keyword into the title so you can get better rankings, then you will have to type in the keyword into the title meta tag but ONLY AFTER you publish the page without it there.

Once you “Publish” the page you can then go back into the All In One SEO Pack area and add the keyword into the title meta tag area. NOTE: You will have to re-type the entire title + the keyword. I give a descriptive and visual example of this on my website here – http://legitimatejobfromhome.com/build-a-website/using-keywords

THE PERIODIC TABLE OF SEO SUCCESS FACTORS

I was again spending time in one of my Google+ communities reading some of the articles and watching more video of Mr. Matt Cutts of Google and I came across the below chart that points out both of the positive and the negative things we can do to our websites that will affect our rankings. The first 3 columns on the left are the “On-The-Page-SEO” which are things that we as the publisher of our websites have direct control over. The last 4 columns on the right are the “Off-The-Page-SEO” and these are things that are influenced by the readers, visitors, and the other publishers to our website.

The blue/gray and blue/green squares are the positive factors that influence our rank and the pink and maroon squares are the negative factors that influence our rank. Each square has a +/- 1, 2, or 3. The squares with the number 3s are the most important, then 2s and then 1s.

I’m just going to mention the 4 most important “On-The-Page-SEO” factors and their meanings which are displayed on either side of the table (Not Shown In This Picture) since those are the ones we have the most control over. I highly suggest that you go and look at this table of SEO success factors and read the article it is attached to at the link on the bottom of this blog post. You will get to see in better detail what I am about to explain to you.

Starting with the most important factor (or as the table calls them, “element”)…

Cq = Content Quality – Are pages well written & have substantial quality content?

Cr = Content Research – Have you researched the keywords people may use to find your content?

Ht = HTML Titles – Do HTML Title tags contain keywords relevant to page topics?

Ac = Architecture Crawl – Can search engines easily “crawl” pages on website?

As we can see just from these 4 factors/elements, the top 3 we hear over and over again within the training. Write quality content, use good keywords, and make sure the keyword is in the title.

If you have read some of my other blog posts since the beginning of December then you know about the other ways that I have found via my time on Google in these Google+ communities and watching the videos by Google’s Matt Cutts, to increase my traffic and rankings. If you haven’t, when you have time, check them out.

Below is the link to the webpage that contains the above table of SEO success factors. When on the webpage, you can click the table and it will expand to a full screen for better reading. Thanks for reading my blog post and if you have any comments, please leave them below.

http://searchengineland.com/seotable