14 SEO copywriting tips

1. Write well

"Content is king:" this is the mantra of every SEO-conscious web developer out there. Google and other search engines love useful, well-written content. If users find your content useful, they will link to it and they will tell their friends about it. When Google finds these inbound links, that page's ranking will rise even higher, which in turn will bring in more visitors.

One of the implications of writing well is that you should use as many different words that are as relevant to the title as possible. If your copy uses the same keywords again and again, search engines can tell that the article is shallow and not very useful. Conversely, is you use a wide vocabulary that is pertinent to the topic, search engines will infer that the article is authoritative, deep and useful. Google's ability to determine the true value of a piece of writing by examining words other than the keywords is known as latent semantic indexing. For this reason, it is important to use synonyms of your keywords in addition to the keywords you are targeting.

2. Use the h1 tag for your title

Using the h1 tag for your title will make Google take the title extremely seriously, providing the title's words are also present somewhere in the text. The h1 tag allows you to achieve a high degree of focus on your chosen keywords. The h1 tag is one of those golden SEO tips that will improve your search engine results very quickly.
You should also use the h2 tag on sub-headings, and the h3 tag on sub-sub-headings. If you make your article hierarchical, Google will give you a lot of respect.

3. Keyword density

The keywords that you are targeting should appear at the beginning, in most paragraphs and somewhere near the end. Once you have that down, just focus on producing exceptionally useful and comprehensive content. Do not stuff your articles with keywords, as this is spammy and search engines can tell. You are also a lot less likely to receive inbound links if your copywriting is poor.

4. Bold, italics, underlined

When you emphasize a word with italics, underlining or bolding, search engines assume that it is a keyword. Use this to your advantage to tell Google what your keywords are. The flip side of the coin is that you should only use these tags on keywords, or you will confuse the search engines and weaken the effect.

5. META tags

Use your title's keywords in the <title> and DESCRIPTION tags. Google will love it if the TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags are similar or identical. Do not repeat keywords in these (or any other) tags, as this is considered spam.

6. Numbered lists

For some reason people love to link to lists, so try and present some of your articles as numbered lists, along the lines of "10 ways to improve your website's Google ranking." Lists are easy to digest and are popular with bloggers.

7. File names

Use up to 5 keywords in the name of your files. Using keywords in the file name has some SEO benefit. You should also use keywords to name the directory in which the file is. In this way, all your URLs will consist of your domain name followed by keywords that are relevant to the page's content.

8. Interlink your articles

Cross-linking your pages will ensure that PageRank is shared among the articles on your website; you don't want a page that massively outperforms the others. Interlink your pages with contextual links whose anchor text is relevant to the target page. In addition to spreading PageRank over your websites, this technique will also help you tell Google what your pages are about.

9. Have useful external links

Linking to useful websites is vital. It has been shown experimentally that, other things being equal, pages with outbound links have a higher Google ranking than pages with no outbound links. You should only link to pages that are relevant to your page's content. You should also make sure that they have not been penalized By Google, or your page will be penalized too.

10. Have a high content-to-code ratio

Your pages should have a high content-to-code ratio, also known as a high signal-to-noise ratio This is the amount of text relative to the amount of code. If you view the source code of a page (in Internet Explorer, this is done by clicking on "View" in the toolbar and choosing "Source"), there should be much more text than HTML code. Search engines will love it. If you write a 700-word article with clean, simple HTML code, the signal-to-noise ratio will be high and search engines will love it.

11. Do not use Flash

Flash is a real pain. It is also the biggest enemy of SEO, along with frames. Flash takes ages to load and cannot be read by the search engines: any information embedded in a Flash file will not be indexed, and the whole point of SEO is to make your content visible and understandable to the search engines. Flash also irritates users and drives them away, myself included. Enough said.

12. Do not use frames

There is no question about it - frames suck Frames blithely do away with the fundamantal unit of web navigation: single, unequivocally identifiable web pages. They therefore completely destroy a website's chances with the search engines. If a website uses frames, the ONLY page that search engines will index is the home page - if that. You've been warned!

13. Synonyms and plurals

To make your articles relevant to as many search queries as possible, you should use synonyms in your copy. Google will love this and you will qualify for more search terms. A similar argument applies to plurals - it will make sure you get Google referrals for both the plural and singular versions of a given keyword.

14. Links must be embedded in text, not isolated in mini-linkfarms

As I mentioned in my Craigslist secrets lens, Links that are isolated tend to be discounted by Google. The more substantial the block of text to which they belong, the better.
Good luck!

Basic SEO Tips For Every Blogger In 2013

Maintain Quality Not Quantity :

No doubt where ever your go,you will surely read the phrase "Quality Content"....

Yes its true...!!

As you know Search Engines are always busy digging the high quality content.So,if you maintain good quality in your blog posts,your blog will be noticed by the Search Engines and will give much importance to your blog in the SERP soon.

Link Building :

Hmm...this is a bit complex issue to discuss,but you have to pay more attention while you are creating back links.Since back links must be niche-based.

For suppose if a technology blog is linked to another technology blog..its fine and no prob..
but the main problem comes when a technology blog is linked to a music or may be a photography blog.since they are not of the same niche and the question rings is like..why should a tech blog link to photography blog..?

Right..!!

Actually backlinks should come naturally,but it is difficult....

So,what to do...?

I suggest you to prefer Guest Blogging on a popular reputed in order to gain maximum exposure to you and your blog.Blog commenting is another good way followed by most of the newbies.

Remember No Paid Links...

Keyword Research :

I know Keyword Research is not an easy task,you need to spend a lot of time on it to spot on the correct keyword.There are a lot of keyword research tools available,but go for Google Adwords Keyword Tool,you will get most of the data there.If you don't know how to use it,just search for the related videos on YouTube.

Optimization (But Not Over) :

Suppose you wrote a blog post and ready to publish it.....

Wait for a moment...

Read it once,place the Keyword which you are targeting in some places like Post title,Permalink,Post description,if possible in the first and last sentence of the blog post.And also don't fill up the entire post with the same keyword again and again which appears like spam.So,once you are ready to publish an article optimize it but not over.Make sure that your readers will understand it after everything done.

Keep an Eye on Search Engines :

As I said Search Engines like Google frequently updates its algorithms in order to uncover the quality content.You need to be updated time to time to escape from those Penguin kicks and Panda slaps.And learn new things in SEO always.

SEO tips for Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a great technique for…

• Building links
• Driving targeted traffic
• Spreading your brand
• Increasing your social following
• Building relationships

There’s no reason for concentrating strictly on SEO when guest blogging.  The benefits are diverse and transcend the affects of just the backlinks on your rankings.  However, the fact that you ARE link building shouldn’t be ignored.

Here are 5 seo tips that will help you get better rankings from your guest blogging.

1) Vary Your Anchor Text

It seems like many still hold exact match as the holy grail of anchor text.  The truth is that exact match is and has been losing its effectiveness for a long time.  You can build a much stronger link profile and gain better links from your guest blogging by varying your anchor text.
There isn’t one single formula for varying your anchor text, just get creative!  Use synonyms, extract some terms, include other terms etc.  Your ticket to effective and varied linking text is partial match and synonyms.
Ex. Keyword: WordPress plugins for SEO

• Partial Match: WordPress plugins
• Partial Match: plugins for SEO
• Partial Match: plugins for link building
• Synonyms: WP plugins for SEO
• Synonyms: WP plugins for search engine optimization
• Both: Easy WP SEO
• Both: SEO Plug-ins for your site
• Both: Build SEO rankings with plugins

Like I said, there’s no single strategy for your variation.  The 3 fast and dirty methods I go by: Add terms, remove terms, and use synonyms.

2) Optimize Your Title

We’re stepping into dangerous territory with this tip.  Let me remind you that guest blogging has many uses besides SEO and these tips are for improving your SEO without concentrating only on SEO.
Including your keyword in the title tag will be very helpful for the relevance of your post.  The sooner your keyword appears in the title the better.  By using keyword variation, you give yourself a lot more options for creating a title that is both appealing for users and also optimized for your SEO.

3) Find Relevant Domains

The URL is a very important factor on the relevance and power of a webpage.  One reason for including your keyword in the title is that it will then show up in the URL on most blogs.  You can take this practice one step further by purposely writing for blogs that have part of the keyword phrase you’re targeting in their domain name.

I like to use My Blog Guest to search for blogs in my niche.  You can visit MBG to find a list of websites in your niche that are actively accepting guest posts.

Once you do this you should have a list of sites in your industry.  You can mouse over each site title to preview the link URL.  This way you can see very quickly if part of your keyword is in the domain.
Of course, there are many other important factors so don’t get too concerned with this tactic alone.  Check out the recent posts for comments and social activity to get a better feel for the popularity and liveliness of the site.  A great result would have at least one word from your keyword phrase in the domain and an active audience.

4)  Don’t Use Your Resource/Profile for SEO

Leaving the SEO benefits of your post to the resource/profile links alone is a mistake.  You can use those links to drive traffic to your site by promoting an offer or some other related and appealing page on your website.
One of the strongest types of links you can get is an editorial link.  An editorial backlink is a link from within the actual body content of a page where only the webmaster can edit the content.  It’s a powerful link because only the webmaster has control over this part of the page, and usually webmasters don’t just link to anyone.  It’s a sign of trust.

5) Link Early

The sooner your link the better.
Google values links that appear earlier in the content more than those that come later on.  It makes sense doesn’t it?  If you have an important resource to recommend or if you are writing a response to a similar article, you would link to it right away.  The first links in an article often lead to the pages most relevant to it.
You can use this knowledge to your advantage by linking to the page on your site you’re trying to rank higher within the first 1-3 paragraphs of your post.

Tips for Promoting Your Forum

1) Be Unique :

The internet is crowded with forums and communities on all sorts of topics. You’ve got to do something to distance yourself from the pack. Whether that’s accomplished through your design, your rules, or offering a certain feature that other forums don’t, you need to be memorable. Think about it, how many forums have you signed up for over the years? If you can’t remember, you’ve just perfectly illustrated my point.

2) Discuss Hot Topics : 

No matter what your forum is about, there will always be hot topics to talk about - hot button issues that automatically generate conversation and debate. Industry news, technological developments, and current events are all great topics. Starting new threads or discussions about these “hot topics” can create instant conversation and can often be a shot in the arm for your somewhat stale forum.

3) Create a Blog :

 That’s right, I said blog. Sure blogs and forums are two separate things, but how many of you have clicked over to check out our forums? A great blog post will often attract attention to content that your forum might have otherwise concealed. Blogs are more accessible, less threatening, and require a much lower level of commitment from the average reader. Done right, a blog can be a more gentle way to ease new people into a community. Also, blogs are more “linkable” which allows you to gain even more exposure within your target industry or niche, as well as helping your site rank better in the search engines. This of course will in turn lead to more visitors and hopefully more members. You can also use a blog to reward particularly great posts in your forum. If, for example, you have a member that regularly contributes great threads or topics to your forum, invite them to write an article for your blog. That provides you with more blog content and is just one more way to show your members that you value them.

4) Show your appreciation : 

This one is really quite simple. Your members need to know you care. About them, about their needs and desires, and most of all, about the forum. As pops mentioned, if your members know that you are invested in making the forum a success, they’re a lot more likely to contribute their time and content. So how do you show your appreciation? Tell them. Send your members emails or private messages thanking them for their contributions, offer some type of reward for your most active members, listen to their requests or concerns about the site, anything that can help you form a bond with your members.

5) Be active : 

No one likes absentee landlords, fathers, or forum administrators. A forum is going to take up a lot of your time. If you don’t have time to run it, make sure you find someone that does. The forum administrator needs to be active and visible in the community. People need to feel they have a way to address any problems they might have or any disagreements that spring up between members. When activity slows down, and there will be slow periods, it’s the administrator’s job to stir up discussion and activity (this would be a good time for some of those hot topics from point #2).

6) Invite Experts :

In any field there are well known experts. If you’ve started a forum on the subject, chances are you know who the top dog(s) is/are. Chances are there is already a discussion about one of their products or theories going on in your forum. If not, start one. Then contact the expert and invite them to join in the discussion. Chances are they’ll jump at the chance. They’ll get some free advertising and perhaps a chance to promote their product, and you’ll have the benefit of bringing more experts into your community. The more experts you have stopping in from time to time, the more well known your forum will become. And really, isn’t that why you’re reading this post?

7) Send out Reminders : As we discussed earlier, people often join a forum, participate for a few hours or days, get busy and then forget about their new-found forum. Even if your site is unique and memorable, some people will manage to forget it. Luckily for you, most forums require an email address to sign up. Using this list to send out weekly newsletters with site news, interesting threads, or your newest promotions will serve as a subtle reminder to anyone who hasn’t visited your site for a while.

8) Welcome new members :

 Have you ever asked why Walmart employs a person whose sole job is to greet customers? Ever wondered why churches have those overly friendly people posted at the front door? It’s because people like to be welcomed. And, if it’s good enough for Walmart, it’s good enough for your forum. Be sure to welcome your new members and, if possible, give them a place to introduce themselves to your regular members. A welcome also serves as a great time to make sure your new members read your forum rules; further easing their transition into your community.

9) Participate in the Industry :

I can hear you already. Didn’t you already tell us to be active? Well, yes I did. This time though, I’m talking about the industry as a whole. People often say “It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know.” In most industries there are conferences or trade shows where hundreds or thousands of people gather and the best part is, they’re almost all your target audience. Of course these events will vary depending on your niche or industry but I’m willing to bet there’s a gathering of some sort. If your forum is about model trains, go to the train exhibits. If your community is art based, attend art shows and exhibit openings. Basically, attend as many of these events as possible, rub elbows with as many people as possible and, of course, during the conversation let them know about your forum.

10) Allow Off Topic Discussion :

Even workaholics don’t talk shop 24/7. Your forum members are no different. Creating a space for your members to blow off steam, tell jokes, and talk about their other interests will allow them to create friendships and unwind. Think of this as a team building exercise. The more your members interact with each other, the more likely they’ll be to visit on a regular basis. They’ll also be more willing to help spread the word about your forum or help improve the community. If nothing else, you’ll gain a few friends in the process. Now who doesn’t want more friends?

As I said before, our forum is far from perfect, and in fact, you may find that one or two of these tips don’t apply to your forum or aren’t easily implemented. But, I’m also willing to bet there’s at least one or two that you’re not currently using. Give it a shot and see which work best for you.

The Guest-Blogging Strategy for SEO, Traffic, and Audience-Building

How to avoid digital sharecropping

Guest posting takes a lot of work, mental energy, and time. So it’s smart to think about how you can get the most bang for your buck. The more strategically you think when you’re planning out your guest blogging program, the more you’re going to get out of it.

You need to hold two things in your head at the same time - how this post will benefit the host blog, and how it’s going to benefit your own business.

There will be times when you write a guest post to get a single one of the benefits outlined below — maybe to strengthen a relationship with an important content publisher.
But as often as you can, try to include every benefit in this post.

Pro Tip: Before you write a post, make sure you’ll be able to include at least one relevant link to your own content in the body of the post, as well as an audience-friendly call to action in your bio.

1. Guest blogging enhances your authority

When you’re getting started with content marketing, you may be incredibly knowledgeable about your topic — but you have little authority, because no one knows you yet.

Placing posts on other blogs helps your potential audience start to associate your name with high-quality information. And a bit of the authority of your host blog will transfer itself to you.

The more readers see your work, the more authority you will generate. It’s a cumulative process, but one that can happen quickly if you have the ability to put a lot of work in over a short period.

Pro Tip: If your topic is so competitive that you’re having trouble placing guest posts, look for lateral opportunities with content publishers who have the audience you want.

2. Guest blogging brings in an audience, not just traffic

Anyone can buy traffic using pay-per-click or other forms of advertising. And that can be a good strategy. But what you’re buying is just that … traffic.

Traffic from a guest post, on the other hand, is already an audience. In other words, it’s already a group of people interested in your topic who are also intrigued by what you have to say.

You’ll still need to convert those visitors into a longer-term relationship, by using smart content marketing strategies. But with a guest post, you’ve already taken the first few steps in that process.

Pro Tip: In the bio for your post, send traffic to a landing page you set up just for readers of that blog. Use a strong, clear call to action and remember that the content there needs to benefit the reader.

You’ll be able to add, refresh, or update content to your page as your business evolves, without having to ask the host blog to update a link.

3. Guest blogging builds your publisher network

How do little content publishers grow up to become big content publishers?
They make connections. They develop a healthy network of publishers (large and small) who will help them get the word out.

A tweet or link from a big enough publisher (one with a passionate, responsive audience) can get you well on your way to the minimum viable audience that can support your business.

You probably won’t start out by writing for the biggest names in your topic. And you don’t need to. Most successful content producers build their networks by writing for sites with slightly bigger audiences than their own, then gradually working up to sites that have more and more readers.

Pro Tip: Writing one post for a blog is nice, but writing multiple times for the same blog will bring in much greater rewards. Create a relationship with the blogs you write for, and contribute as regularly as you can. Once a month is often a good rhythm.

4. Guest blogging is superb for natural SEO

Building high-quality links is one of the trickiest elements of effective SEO. Guest posting allows you to get a relevant, natural link, using the anchor text of your choice, on a site that has excellent search engine authority.
Just remember: as always with SEO copywriting, keep things natural and audience-friendly. Write for the readers first, and search engines a distant second.

Pro Tip: Don’t stuff your guest posts with links back to your own material. One or two highly relevant links will do you more good. Include a few links to your host blog’s cornerstone content in your post as well.