Many people think that having a website, creating high quality content and getting social shares will increase the amount of organic traffic flowing to your website. Having this mentality impacts the future of your content marketing because you’re forgetting the fundamentals of SEO and how it applies to the way search engines provide results for their users. If you’re not getting the results that you expect, than you could be making some of these common mistakes.
It’s important that you incorporate all of these elements into your content so that you can benefit from the power of search engines and the momentum of organic traffic. Here are 5 reasons why you`re not getting any organic traffic to your page.
You Skipped SEO
After blogging for several years, I’ve realized that there is no alternative to having the right SEO and keyword combination for your content. To be completely transparent, I’ve made the mistake of not doing SEO and it hurt my blog traffic for years. Sometimes writing high quality content will only get 50% traffic to your blog, so make sure you have the right SEO in place. Remember, you can have the best content, products and services but if skipped the SEO, search engines won’t be able to single you out and will throw you in a pile with other content.
Don’t write content for search engines but for people, that`s why it’s important to do search engine optimization after you’ve written your content. Getting in the habit of doing it at the end will ensure you’ve written for your audience and not for Google, Yahoo or Bing.
People forget SEO because they think it`s tedious and takes a long time but just focus on the most important and you’ll be fine.
So, what are the most important SEO elements to pay attentions to…
a) Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
These are the elements that tell search engines what your content is about and are the information displayed within SERP’s. The information typed within these elements will be the contributing factors in getting a click-through to your website.
b) Proper Formatting of Content
It’s important to include H1-H3, sub-headers, bold, italic and underline text within your content. It helps keywords which represents your content standout while increasing the readability. There are many tools that will help you format your content correctly. If you’re using WordPress, you can install plugins likeSEOPressor that will display a box on the right hand side while you create content to remind you of the formatting elements you’re missing.
c) Keyword Targeted URL’s
Many people forget that Google scans your URL to determine what your content is about. This factor helps Google scan through search data to display your website in the SERP’s. When someone types in a search command within Google, the information within the URL will help Google locate relevant content for the searcher. Include targeted keywords within the URL which represents your content and are enticing at the same time.
d) Internal Links
Google indexes pages by jumping through internal links within your content. Having relevant internal links is a great way to keep the readers on your website allowing them to view other relevant valuable content. When setting up internal links keep these things in mind…
- Make sure to add your keyword within the internal link (anchor text)
- Make sure you link to relevant content
- Don’t overdo the internal links keeping them to a maximum 2-3 per page
- For WordPress users, streamline the process by adding plugins that will automate the process.
e) Optimize Your Content
Scatter your keywords throughout your content to increase search engine exposure. Many content marketers will use 5-6 keywords within their content so each can drive its own organic traffic to the page. When adding keywords, make sure your content flows naturally and makes sense. If you add too many keywords, this may raise a “flag” to Google that your keyword stuffing content. Adding too many keywords will also ruin the natural flow of the content. It’s a good idea to complete you’re writing naturally than go back adding keywords throughout your content where they make sense.
Your Headlines Suck
Your main objective should be to entice the reader into clicking through to your content. If you can’t do this, then you’ll be missing out on a lot of FREE organic traffic. You have to remember there is a lot of content available online and people are looking for a solution right away. They don’t want these two things to happen when they are searching for content.
First, they don’t want to be enticed into clicking on a link which provides low poor quality content. This will destroy the credibility of the website and hurt the overall user experience. Google is working hard to incorporate algorithms within their search engines to eliminate poor quality-thin content websites.
Next, the fact there is so much boring content online, people are becoming pickier when they click on a search listing. It’s important to give searchers exactly what they want. People do not want to be misled so make your headline attractive by performing keyword research looking for popular search phrases. Next, before publishing your content, do some organic searchers yourself looking for attractive headlines that you can use. It’s a great way to use your competitor’s strength against them improving your overall organic click-through-rate (CTR).
Slow Loading Website
You have to realize that people who are looking for information need it urgently so are not going to wait for a slow loading site to display content. If they cannot find the content immediately, they will jump to the next available resource. People are well aware there is NO shortage of content online so they`ll be able to find an alternative resource quickly if they needed to. If you are the number “1” search result that appears for a given search phrase, than make sure that you’re content is available right away within seconds (2-3 sec). If you’re site’s average loading time is above 3 seconds than this can be a deterrent when users click through.
Having your website appear high in the search results is completely different than people being able to access your content immediately. That’s why it’s important to ensure that you make the necessary tweaks to your website so that load times are improved.
For those of you not aware, Google does use “site speed” as a ranking factor within the SERP’s because any website that delays the user experience will hurt Google’s reputation.
For those of you using WordPress, here is a quick case study on how to improve your load time by 3.74s by making a few changes to your website within the backend.
Poor or Boring Content
You’ve manage to get visitors to your website by enticing them with awesome headlines, now it’s time to excite them with your content. Over the years I’ve seen a growing trend within blogs which is providing unoriginal boring content to people. This is the worst way to build loyalty and increase readership because it’s hurting your brand. Remember, when users arrive on your page they will begin by skimming through your content and if they find the same thing they’ve found somewhere else they will leave. This will decrease your user engagement and social shares which is a red “flag” to Google that there is nothing special about your content.
So, what can you do to improve the quality of your content and boost momentum…
1) Start by searching your competition finding out what they are missing within their content. Imagine if you were someone searching information and you arrived on a page that promised to provide you a complete solution. Ask yourself what are they missing and what would you include to the content to make it even better.
2) When you create content make sure its original and cannot be found anywhere else. What does this mean? Add images, videos and go into depth so that everything is covered from start to finish. You want to ensure that your piece of content is the only one the visitor needs to find a solution. They shouldn’t have to go anywhere else.
3) Make sure it’s formatted correctly and that you keep the reader’s attention. They should be able to skim through your content finding the answers they need. Next, it’s been said that content shouldn’t be more than 1,500-1,800 words which should give you enough space to make it original, in-depth, high quality and cover everything you needed to. Remember, there are a few exceptions, like a case study, which can be 3,000-4,000 words because it includes data, research and a complete step-by-step guide.
High Quality Link Building
I’ve decided to leave this until the end because link building does matter and should be practiced by everyone. The difference is that you should NOT take part in any type of blackhat, spam, software link building and practicing these will get you banned completely. In recent months, Google has been making tweaks to their search engines to find advanced ways to eliminate websites that provide NO substance and use blackhat techniques to trick the search engines. However, this does not mean that link building won’t work when trying to get noticed for targeted keywords.
If you`re going to start a link building campaign than focus on doing it manually and use the following…
First, start by writing down your game plan so you know what needs to be done throughout the month. It’s important to stick to it so you don’t lose focus on your objective. Next, get your targeted keywords ready which you’ll be using as anchor text within your one-way backlinks.
next,
Make sure everything is done manually and that you spread out your link building so it looks natural. Having built too many links within a week can raise a red flag because it’ll look unnatural. Build no more than 10-15 links from various different platforms like article directories, blog comments, forums and social bookmarking websites. A quick note, when building links from any of these platforms, only use the most authoritative websites that have built a solid reputation in recent years. Getting links from these websites will produce the most results and will protect you from being flagged as a website having spammy links pointing to it.
Wrapping it Up…
The factors above are important in getting you back on the right track. Organic traffic is very important because it’s FREE relevant search traffic that can help boost popularity and visibility of your brand. Write down these factors and keep them on your desk so next time your creating content, you’ll remember to incorporate them into your writing.
It`s important to stay focused and have patience since ranking your website using manual white hat techniques does take time but the overall long term reward is gratifying. Use a step-by-step approach to building links so that you stay clear from Google manual penalties.
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