This post originally appeared on tBL member Joshua Lyon’s blog Joshua Lyons Marketing Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.
If you are a business, posting content regularly on your website but not getting traffic, you lack somewhere. One of the major reasons could be lack of SEO keyword research which can make life difficult for digital marketers.
Do you know? 90% of webpages get zero traffic from Google due to poor keyword research. SEO can help websites drive 1000% more traffic than organic social media.
Your SEO keyword and linking strategy must be strong because only then can you achieve higher website traffic. In fact, the wrong keywords and links can mess up your whole SEO.
A lot of businesses are now showing interest in using paid or free SEO tools that can help them with finding the right keywords and links so they’ll start showing up in the first page of Google results.
Plus, businesses are also showing interest in following some best practices that can help improve their search engine ranking.
Best Practices for Keywords and Links that every SEO expert should follow wholeheartedly
Following are some great SEO keyword research tactics and link building practices that will benefit your SEO 100%.
1. Conduct Thorough SEO Keyword Research
A common question is how to do keyword research?
You can use an SEO keyword research tool for this purpose. But it’s important to follow the basic guidelines first.
SEO keyword research is the backbone of SEO. If you’re writing about something that nobody is searching, you won’t get traffic. Keywords are basically the terms and phrases that people type into the search bar of search engines. You can also call them “search queries.”
Keyword research is a process of identifying the language and words target customers will use when searching for your products/services/content. It is very important because this stage will familiarize you with words that people type into Google.
The old form of SEO does not exist anymore. Follow the new SEO guidelines if you don’t know how to do keyword research:
- Focus on search internet and user needs
- Long-tail searches
2. Add the Primary Keyword in Starting Paragraph
It’s no secret when you perform SEO keyword research and know your target audience. You may want to use it a handful of times on your site’s web page.
Consider adding it in the first paragraph. It matters because Google favors pages that put key terms at the top of the page.
3. Assigning Keywords
You need to be careful when assigning keywords to your web pages. You can use an SEO keyword research tool for this too.
When you identify the keywords you wish to target, assign them one web page only. If you assign the same keyword to multiple web pages, then it may lead to keyword cannibalization and your ability to rank well will decrease.
Never assign the same target keyword to more than one page or post on your site. Click To Tweet
4. Align Your Content With User Intent
When you follow the keyword research best practices and find the right keywords, it becomes extremely important for you to create content that matches with the user intent or search intent.
Google’s top priority is to understand and satisfy user needs. Pages that rank high on Google are those that show high relevancy with user search intent.
For example, check the results of this query.
If you want to learn keyword research best practices, this example is for you.
Google understands that the user is here to find a recipe for the oatmeal cookie, rather than to buy oatmeal cookies, so it shows results that match with the query.
5. The URL Should Contain Keywords
Don’t overlook the structure of the URL. A good practice is to ensure that the URL contains keywords that provide users and Google an idea of what the destination web page is talking about.
Google elaborated that the URL’s structure should be simple. It should contain readable phrases instead of lengthy ID numbers.
According to the Alexa blog, short URLs with fewer than 128 characters perform better in search engine result pages. Adding keywords in your URL can boost your site’s visibility.
6. SEO Keyword Research for Compelling Titles & Descriptions
The titles, description, and content must be compelling and unique. Duplicate content can save your time, but it can mess up your reputation and damage your credibility as a brand.
Best practices to follow while writing your title tag:
- Start from your target keyword.
- The title must match with the search intent.
- Avoid creating duplicate title tags.
- Don’t do keyword stuffing.
- Your title tag must be concise.
Best practices to follow while writing your meta descriptions
- It should provide a short summary of the topic.
- Meta descriptions should be unique for each page.
- Must include keywords.
- The content must match the search intent.
7. SEO Keyword Research for Authoritative Backlinks
Are backlinks still a major SEO link building factor? Yes.
How many high authority websites link to your sites is a key factor that affects your SEO results. SEO keyword research practices also focus on attracting backlinks, pointing to your site, because it increases site traffic and opens opportunities for driving sales.
Read on to know some of the easiest ways to earn links for your site:
- Build broken links.
- Focus on content formats that are popular for getting backlinks.
According to an SEO keyword research study, “what and why” blog posts, including infographics, receive more links than other types of content such as podcasts and videos.
This isn’t a fool-proof strategy, but at least it increases the possibility that other websites may want to link to you.
8. Remove Links From Poor Websites
Backlinks from low-quality spammy sites can negatively affect your SEO. Use a good and reliable tool to review the list of web page linked to your site.
Google offers some free tools that you can use to remove these low-quality links.
9. Use Your Keywords in Internal & External Links
Curious to know the internal link best practices for SEO?
We all know that external links and internal links for SEO matter a lot. Use keywords in your anchor text because it gives readers a sense of what the source page is all about.
According to the internal link best practices for SEO, the anchor text reflects how users see your page. Google says that the text should contain relevant, descriptive, and useful content.
Plus, when other sites think that a particular webpage shows high relevancy for a given set of terms, that page will manage to rank high in Google.
Crowd Writer suggests that anchor text must be SEO friendly. An SEO friendly anchor text is the one which is succinct, not generic, not overly dense, and relevant to the linked source.
10. Create Numerous Internal Links
Create more content and more internal links for SEO.
When you link your pages to another internal page of your website, then it offers you and the readers the following benefits.
- Internal linking improves your visibility.
- It ensures easy navigation that leads to improved user experience.
- Google understands you better.
- It gives users more chances to visit your site (high traffic).
11. Add Your Keyword in the Image Alt Tag
Images that you include in your content also play a part in improving SEO.
Make sure the image is related to your topic. Also, include the keyword in the image alt tag.
Search crawlers will see this information even if the image doesn’t load.
Final Thoughts on Best Practices
Conducting deep SEO keyword research and identifying quality links can improve SEO results. These are some of the most basic practices that work for all.
Without following these practices, it is extremely challenging to achieve positive results. To see great SEO results, you need to be consistent in your efforts.
Author Bio
Claudia Jeffrey is presently performing her duties as a Sr. Research Analyst & Digital Evangelist at Dissertation Assistance, a great platform to ask for essay help UK. She’s been working as an SEO expert for more than five years and still going strong. When she’s free, she enjoys Starbucks. Claudia loves to share her experience with the readers. She blogs very often on WordCountJet and also writes guest posts. Claudia is known for providing authentic information with a personal touch.
