Wednesday, March 15, 2017

SEO Is Not Hard. Let’s Cut the BS And Talk About A Strategy that Works EVERY Single Time

By Guest Author

SEO is scary, isn’t it?

Are you wondering why you’re not getting enough traffic from Google even after writing 100’s of blog posts?

I know how frustrating it is when you don’t get rewards even after working hard. I work with several clients and most of them constantly ask me one thing: how do I get more search engine traffic?

Let me tell you a secret.

SEO is NOT actually SEO, it’s HEO (Human Eye Optimization).

Here’s what it means.

SEO usually involves in pleasing search engine crawlers (keyword research, on-page optimization, link building etc) whereas HEO involves in pleasing people and your content is optimized for human eyes.

The people who understand that little secret can bring a ton of search traffic to their sites.

I’ve been helping other bloggers and small businesses to boost their search traffic for over 5 years now and I know a thing or two about SEO.

And today I want to share a strategy that works every single time.

If done right, it will open the floodgates of traffic to your sites. Are you curious to find out? Let’s jump in.

Google ranking factors

Whether you know it or not, there are over 200 factors considered by Google crawlers to rank a website on search results. TWO HUNDRED! Yes, that’s a lot.

Even the SEO experts like Rand Fishkin can’t focus on all of them to get higher search rankings for a page.

So what can you do instead?

Apply 80/20 rule.

You might have already heard about the 80/20 Pareto rule which says, “80% of the results come from 20% of the actions”.

Instead of focusing on 200+ Google ranking factors, focus on just 2 to 3.

Here’s a good news.

You don’t have to learn and apply all the 200 ranking factors considered by Google. There are 2 such ranking factors if applied can fetch you more results than all the others combined.

Applying 80/20 rule to SEO

So what are the top 2 Google ranking factors?

1. Content
2. Backlinks

Let’s now break down those 2 ranking factors in detail so you can bring massive visitors from Google to your sites.

#1: Create MEGA blog posts

Did you know long form of content can bring you MASSIVE search results?

Neil Patel went from 0 to over over 1 million visitors within a year by using this one single tactic: he created MASSIVE blog posts (with over 4000 words, some of them are over 10,000+ words).

Well, I’m not saying that you need to include 2000+ words in every post you write.

BUT

If you are trying to rank for highly potential and profitable keywords (that send you long lasting traffic and sales), then you should definitely create epic content that educates your audience.

How to create long form of content?

I’ve been churning out 2000+ word articles for over 3 years now and here are some of the tips that work for me (and might work for you too!).

– Research. Research is the key. The more time you spend on doing research (be it keyword research, competitor research or content research) the more information you can gather. The more data you have the more content you can churn out. It’s as simple as that. There are people like Brian Dean who spends over 20 hours to craft 1 post.

– Write every single day. There’s no other way around. There are no shortcuts. Write until it becomes as natural as breathing. Start writing 250 words a day. Use a pomodoro timer. Write for 10 minutes without a break. Cultivate the habit of writing.

– Outline your content the right way. Use Google docs. While doing research, add all the reference links for future reference. Write sub headings first. Fill out them. Once the article is completely done, start writing your introduction (as it takes a lot of time for more people). End your copy with a captivating conclusion to make it easy for readers to digest your stuff.

– Don’t forget to use visuals. Long form of content is boring without images. Break your content into short paragraphs, sub headings and use lots of bullet points along with the images. You can use tools like Canva to create appealing images.

#2: Attract links from RELEVANT sources

Have you ever wondered why authority sites get better rankings all the time?

There are a ton of reasons but the primary one is this: they attract a lot of backlinks.

Google rewards the sites that have a lot of quality backlinks. Backlinks are simply considered as “votes” by Google crawlers. The more you get the better you rank.

Although getting a link from an authority site is better than getting 100 links from sites with no Domain Authority. So the quality always beats the quantity. But make a note that, the more quality links you attract the better search results you get.

If you are wondering how to attract quality backlinks to your content, here are few proven strategies for you.

– Implement author’s advice and reach out to them by sharing results. If someone wrote a blog post on reducing your belly fat within 3 months, implement the advice and share the results with the author. The chances of linking to your stuff will be really high (after all, everyone likes to know that their advice working, right?).

– Use Skyscraper technique. Find out the top performing content in your industry. Create in-depth and improved version of that piece of content and reach out to the people who linked to the original source. You can use tools like Buzzsumo to find out the top content in your niche along with the backlink sources. The key here is to create content that is timeless and 10 times better than your competition.

– Write for others. Guest posting is still one of the most effective ways to build links for your site. Spend quality time in researching and coming up with ideas for your guest posts. Write highly informative guest posts that add value to your targeted blog’s audience.

Final thoughts

There are no rules in SEO. What works today may not work after an year. And what worked an year ago may not work now.

SEO is constantly changing. If done right, proper content marketing can help you get 1000+ visitors a day.

But the basics NEVER change: put your audience first and Google will reward you. Always!

Content + backlinks = More search traffic

If you remember that, SEO becomes fun. So what are your thoughts?

Do you think SEO is hard? Did you like the “content + links” strategy shared here? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.


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Source: Daily Blog Tips