Seo Basics For Your Website, Blog Or Online Store



  • I like the blog idea in Shopify to use the platform to generate content marketing through your blog and also add other pages. Shopify is not only an online store. Candel edited 2019-10-15T00:11:24-07:00.
  • Google Search Console ▢ Submit your sitemap to Google through the Search Console account you just created. All Shopify stores automatically generate a sitemap file, which lists your website’s individual pages. A sitemap tells Google and other search engines about the organization of your site.

You don’t have to be a professional to know what good content writing looks like. If you’ve ever searched for something on Google and found a page that’s actually been helpful — congratulations, you’ve experienced good content writing!

But here’s the thing: if you’re here, you’re not just looking to write good copy — you want to write great copy.

Store

While great content writing certainly gets clicks (and keeps people on your page), it has the power to do so much more. Good copy answers someone’s question. Great copy answers their question — and a few they didn’t even know they had.

Homepage SEO is important for all websites. Whether you have a blog, corporate website or ecommerce store, you need to SEO your homepage even if this is not one of the pages you expect to get high rankings. Why you should SEO optimize your homepage? There are many reasons as to why you should pay attention to your website’s home page.

Ultimately, the best content doesn’t just get people to click — it gets people to trust you. That trust inevitably leads to more shares, more backlinks, and more sales.

Why should entrepreneurs learn content writing?

Good content writing is your best employee — in fact, a Salesforce/Pardot survey found that consumers consider trust in a company's content to be 3x more important than trust in the brand's actual employees. 97% of the same survey respondents also said that bad content negatively affected their trust in a brand.

97% of consumers surveyed by @Pardot said bad #content negatively has impacted their trust in brands. #marketing Click To Tweet

You don’t want hours of researching and writing content to go to waste. You want ROI. So bookmark this list of content writing tips and keep it handy any time you create content for the web.

23 Content Writing Tips

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1. Good content writing begins with keyword research.

Before you even start to write content, you need to know what you’re writing about — and you can kill two birds with one stone if you combine search engine optimization with your editorial calendar planning.

Keyword research tells you what topics Google (and your target audience) finds relevant.

It illuminates your competitors content strategy, and highlights the strengths and weaknesses in your own. And it allows you to optimize individual articles and your content strategy as a whole to bring in more traffic.

The ROI is unbeatable. TCF’s site generates over $400,000 worth of organic traffic each year (as in, we’d have to spend more than $400,000 dollars in AdWords to get the same number of site visits). And all it takes is a little extra research time, and occasional tweaks to update the content and keyword targeting.

2. Keyword stuffing is never okay

Keywords are a means to make your content valuable, readable and search-friendly. But when you start cramming in keywords, it does the exact opposite.

A web page stuffed with keywords looks dubious and untrustworthy — to both Google and human readers. Your conversion rate and SERPs rankings go down, along with your pageviews. Readers start to see it as a low quality page and bounce quickly, and over time search engines slap down your domain.

Search engines are smart these days. You don’t have to work in grammatically incorrect keyword phrase just because searchers use it. You don’t need to work in every conceivable variation of a search term for Google to understand what your page is about.

3. Drive toward powerful calls to action (CTAs)

What do you want readers to do with the content you create? If your only answer is, “Well, read it, I guess,” you need to go back to the drawing board. Before you even start writing a blog post, you need to know what your call to action will be, and you need to make it compelling enough that readers can’t help but click. That’s how you connect content writing to marketing goals and prove ROI.

Which calls to action should businesses use in their content?

Here are some examples of calls to action you can incorporate in just about any blog post or landing page:

  • Desired user action: download resource. Download our free guide for more expert tips about [topic].
  • Desired user action: subscribe to newsletter. Sign up for exclusive resources in your inbox each week.
  • Desired user action: get a demo. Schedule a free demo of [software/ app name] to see how many hours you can save each day.
  • Desired user action: share content on social media. Know somebody who could use these tips? Share this article and tag your colleague!
  • Desired user action: make a purchase. Click here and use offer code 'CONTENT' to save 30% on the purchase of [product or service].

When writing calls to action, put yourself in the reader’s shoes: what would it take for a company you’ve never heard of to convince you to do something, even something as simple as sharing the article with a friend? Now, connect it to your goals: how can you craft a CTA and content specific to your company’s marketing and sales KPIs that actually persuades readers to take action?

4. Email vs. e-mail, Internet vs. internet and other style debates

Language always changes, and web writers need to be hip to the trends to appeal to modern audiences. For example, many organizations would never use the singular, gender-neutral “they” as recently as the early 2000s. Now, the only language authorities that make you write out “he or she” are middle school English teachers.

Similarly, “e-mail” was considered the correct term for a long time by major authorities like the AP and The New York Times, but one by one they gave in. The same goes with the lowercase “internet.” There are people that still treat it as a proper noun, but none of them work as editors in The Guardian, The Economist or the BBC.

The bottom line is, whatever your language pet peeves are, your online writing is for your audience, not for you.

Play it safe by following the conventions of the AP or another respected style guide, or creating your own house style guide that adheres to modern usage rules. Be consistent, and be modern.

Grammar snobs, take note: whatever your language pet peeves are, your online #writing is for your audience, not for you. #marketing Click To Tweet

Seo Basics For Your Website Blog Or Online Store Online

5. Always hyperlink to your sources

When you reference another website’s content, make sure you hyperlink back to that site. It’s good internet etiquette, and you’d want the same courtesy. Always cite your sources, even if you’re afraid it’ll send your web traffic to another site — and you can always choose the “open link in another window” option if you’re that concerned about keeping your traffic.

Besides being the right thing to do, citations can also help you get backlinks.

Frequently, the sites you link to will see your effort and thank you for it with a reciprocal link or quote.

Read 14 Ways to Get Backlinks for more information on effective linking strategy.

6. Make the reader feel something.

There are a lot of factors that go into viral content. Promotion is a huge factor, and brand identity, timing and plain luck all play a role.

But almost all viral writing shares one thing in common: emotional impact.

In a recent article, Hubspot interviewed three different marketing experts on why content goes viral. Although each emphasized different factors, all three emphasized the importance of creating web content that evokes an emotional response in the reader. Megan Conley, Content Marketing Strategist at HubSpot, put it this way:

We all have opinions on what types of content go viral: a soundless social video, a sounds terrible. Click To Tweet

8. When writing for the web, chop it up.

If you’re writing the next Great American Novel, it’s okay to end paragraphs when pauses seem natural. Writing for the web, however, is a whole different world. Attention spans online are a LOT shorter than they are in Oprah’s Book Club, and your paragraphs need to reflect that.

Put simply: keep it short! A five-line paragraph is great, but a three-line paragraph is even better. Content kings like Derek Halpern even let single sentences fly solo.

Don’t worry if an idea doesn’t seem to be fully “complete” before hitting that enter key. Err on the side of short paragraphs and chop it up!

9. Update your links

Most website content writers know the importance of internal links. Linking to other pages on your site boosts SEO, gives readers useful info, and increases page views and time on site. However, it’s not enough.

You need to revisit older posts and pages to update them with new links. This boosts your search results, makes your pages more useful and relevant to users and helps your content stays fresh.

It’s just one part of revamping older, evergreen content to improve SEO. (More on that later!)

10. Invest in a good SEO suite

You can do SEO keyword analysis with nothing but a Google spreadsheet and some free tools,but there’s a lot of data to crunch. And digging through all the keywords and traffic data makes it easy to get lost in the analytics.

Not all SEO suites solve the problem. Some bombard you with too much data, without providing the tools you need to sort through it and tweak your content strategy. Other SEO tools break everything down into their own proprietary system, without giving you the enough data to draw your own conclusions. And when they get it wrong, you’ll have no way of knowing until your traffic starts to crash.

One SEO tool that gets the balance right is SEMrush — in fact, we’re such fans, we’ve even become an affiliate!

With SEMrush, you’re given a lot of data, but all of that data is easy to understand (and even easier to export, if you need to analyze it in another program).

Seriously, take a look at this screenshot:

All of the important analytics are displayed in front of you: what keywords you’re ranking for, how many backlinks you have, what your competition looks like, and the total ad value of your keywords.Even if you’re new to SEO content writing, it’s quick and easy to learn.

Likewise, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of keyword research, SEMrush makes it easy to parse data: you can sort keywords by common metrics like CPC or search volume, find related keywords, compare competitors or narrow in on a specific subdomain of your site.

Whether you’re trying to build out a new blog for your brand, audit your whole site, or zero in on your competitors strategy, it’s an invaluable tool.

If you’re interested in trying SEMrush out, click here for a free 7-day trial of SEMrush Pro!

11. Don’t forget SEO best practices

Repeating your targeted keywords a couple times isn’t enough — you need to use your keyword (and related phrases) anywhere it fits: in the url, H2 headers, meta description and even in the alt tags of your images.

If you’re using WordPress, Yoast can help you nail the SEO.

Once you’re finished inputting your content, expand the Yoast box and check out the Content Analysis portion for some helpful hints about what you should improve before you publish.

Not only does Yoast nail big problems like missing keywords in the meta description, it can also help you zoom in on granular issues like low keyword density to gie your site an extra SEO boost:

12. Give your readers a reason to care from the first sentence

Good intros are hard. It can feel unnatural to skip right to the point. You want to provide some background, warm the reader up and then work your way to the main topic when you feel ready.

But by that point, your reader is long gone.

Your website isn’t literature. Site visitors aren’t there for your nuanced language or slow, measured flow. They’re there to get information or solve a problem (ideally by buying your product or service.)

Content writing tip: your website isn't literature. Your readers are there to solve a problem, not gush about rhetorical devices. #marketing Click To Tweet

And if you don’t give them a reason to care about your article, they’re going to get that information or solve that problem somewhere else.

Our intro is a good example. The first sentence is “your website represents your company.” In five words, we’ve told you why this article is important. The rest of the intro expands that, talking about how website content writing can help (or hurt) your company.

Finally, we remind you why you need us: you don’t want to waste time — “you want ROI.” So bookmark this article and reference it when you write.

Every piece of content you write should tell your readers why they should invest their time in hearing what you have to say. How will what you’re teaching them help them? What goal will they accomplish with your help? Why should they care?

13. Paint a picture

Give this paragraph a read:

“Is it just us, or do some people talk about gay dating like it’s an elaborate magic trick? Even unexperienced gay or queer persons may approach the idea of dating with the kind of abject fear one feels when opening the instructions for a new piece of IKEA furniture. ‘Am I doing this right?’ they may ask themselves, months, years and even decades into their dating careers.”

That’s the opening paragraph for blog post we wrote for our personal product client titled 8 Ways Gay Dating Is Just Like Straight Dating and it’s the perfect example to illustrate our point (pun intended).

That point is this — creating content writing is a lot different than writing a 7th grade book report.

Your audience isn’t an overworked and underpaid teacher with no choice but to read your reworded Cliffs Notes on Lord of the Flies. Your audience is choosing to read your content (or to head elsewhere on the web). Imagery is a great way to capture their attention.

Don’t think for a second that a boring or technical topic gets you off the hook either — IKEA assembly instructions have nothing to do with gay dating (usually) but we used a visual to help the reader make the connection. Push yourself to add a little creative fiction to your website content writing and see how much more fun it is to read (and write!)

14. “Do’s and Don’t’s” vs. “Dos and Don’ts” — which is correct?

The latter! Nothing drives us crazier than people putting apostrophes in pluralized words.

When in doubt about spelling, capitalization or grammar, Google it! Which brings us to…

15. If you’re not sure, look it up

There’s never been a better time to learn as you go. Double checking the words/grammar/spelling/etc. you don’t know about can help you catch mistakes and internalize the rules, so you can write correctly without looking it up next time.

If the finer points of grammar elude you, you can always download the Grammarly browser extension to catch issues in real time.

Don’t stop with language mechanics, either. Look up content marketing strategy, read industry blogs, study successful online social media marketing campaigns. The more time you spent thinking and picking up new information, the better you’ll get.

Soon, you’ll be writing your own blog posts about web content writing tips!

16. Dictionary.com is your friend — so visit the site often.

You’d be amazed at how many words people misuse on a regular basis. For instance, peruse probably doesn’t mean what you think it does (in fact, it’s probably the opposite). Never use words unless you’re absolutely certain of their meaning.

Bonus: follow Merriam-Webster on Twitter to level up your vocab and get the linguistic side of news.

Following a dictionary on Twitter might not seem all that exciting, but trust us: it’s a quality follow.

17. Don’t call a banana an elongated yellow fruit

Don’t use a $3 word when a 10 cent word will suffice, unless you’re going for the “most pretentious web content writer” award.

Overuse of meaningless buzzwords is a good way to show that you have an MBA, but a bad way to keep the interest of your readers (and it actually makes you look bad).

At the same time, you’ve got to write for your audience.

Industry terminology is often important for SEO, and in some cases it can make your content clearer and more authoritative for your audience.

So how can you tell when to use jargon? Look at it from your audience’s perspective. If you were the reader, would a certain technical term make your web writing more readable, or less? Would it clarify the article or read as meaningless ornamentation? Would plain language work just as well or better?

18. Revamp posts for maximum value

Good web content gains value over time. Social media accounts share it, blogs link to it, and Google boosts its ranking as the traffic comes in. At the same time, that content also ages. Information goes out of date, the market changes and user interests change.

That means there is no such thing as a “set it and forget it” content strategy (well, not if you’re good at what you do).

To get the most value out of your content, you need to watch how it performs, prioritize the blogs that do well, and revamp them to bring in new visitors.

In addition to constantly analyzing social shares, pingbacks and web traffic, you should monitor your web shares for the keywords it’s currently ranking for.

Often, you’ll get great results with the longer, more informative piece, but a shorter piece of content might surprise you and go viral, and start ranking for keywords you weren’t even targeting!

Revamp your most valuable posts with added content, updated info and a strengthened keyword strategy and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your page climbs in the search engine rankings.

Not sure where to start? Check out our complete step by step guide to revamping your old blog posts.

19. Web site vs. website vs. web site

Which one is it? For the love of all things awesome, it’s website (at least, so says the AP Stylebook which is sort of like a web content writer’s bible). Not Web site, not web site — and not any other variation you can think of.

Although “Web site” was once acceptable, it’s sort of like referring to your Blackberry as a “cellular phone” — it makes you look just as out of touch with technology.

20. Keep the reading level low

In general, the easier your article is to read, the better. Sophisticated content doesn’t Do you know the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score for your piece of content? There are plenty of free tools to help you find it. These tools crawl through your content, analyze your vocabulary level, and rate your readability by grade level.

Unless your topic is extremely niche and technical, you should aim for a middle school reading level or lower.

If your score is too high, it doesn’t mean you need to dumb things down for your readers — it just means you might need to make simpler word choices or cut down your complex sentences. This ensures that visitors of varying education levels can get value from your content, and that readers who may speak English as a second language will understand it too. It also just helps keep your tone clear and relatable which should always be a goal when you’re creating web content.

21. Provide added value

Your content writing should always offer value to the reader in terms of insightful ideas and actionable tips. But if you really want your content to earn repeat traffic and rise in search engine rankings, give your readers a parting gift.

It doesn’t have to cost you anything. It can be a link to a free webinar (like our webinar on earning free media coverage), a Google Drive Template, or even a worksheet. Give your readers a valuable takeaway and they won’t just view your site as a great resource — they’ll refer their friends too!

22. Never self edit your work (at least, not right away)

Ideally, you’ll have somebody to edit your writing. If you’re responsible for writing and editing your web content, don’t do both in the same day. When the writing is still fresh, your mind will automatically make up the gaps in your copy and your editing will be subpar. Instead, put it away and come back to it another day — or at least several hours later.

That’s only if you, for whatever reason, don’t have another person to edit your work. Even with a great spell check, there will be things you miss. Make sure there’s somebody in your organization with great writing and editing chops who can give your work a second set of eyes. Remember that behind every good writer — whether it’s a best-selling author, a Washington Post journalist or a copywriter for a viral marketing campaign — is a great editor.

If Steven King needs an editor, so do we lowly mortals!

To understand how difficult and necessary editing can be, try taking The New York Times “Copy Edit This” quiz!

Seo Basics For Your Website Blog Or Online Store On Amazon

The quiz takes grammar and style errors that made it to print and challenges readers to identify the errors. It sounds much easier than it actually is. I’ll give you an answer I got right on the first try to show you how nuanced it gets — this is one of the easier questions, a simple dangling modifier issue.

23. Level up your skills with online content writing & SEO training

With enough discipline, solid web content writing skills are within anyone’s reach. Having excellent copy on your website is one of the easiest ways to grab the attention of new visitors (and keep them coming back for more — or better yet, sharing your links). Want more content creation tips and tricks? Shoot us an email with your questions and we’ll get back to you.

The Content Factory also offers online SEO and content writing training. If you want to go from novice to pro in just eight hours of self-paced digital learning, sign up for our comprehensive SEO course. You can check out our free webinar on common SEO mistakes to see what it’s like!

Does website content seem too complicated to tackle on your own? Outsource your content writing to us. Click here to get in touch with us today.

You’ve had a great new business idea, registered your domain name and started to build your website. How can you make sure it’s easy for Google and other search engines to discover and rank?

SEO is a long-term process and results are rarely immediate, but the first steps you take after you launch a new website can have a big impact on the website’s potential to rank in Google search for its target keywords and start bringing in traffic, leads and sales.

Get things right at the beginning, from an SEO perspective, and you’ll save yourself hours and hours of work further down the line fixing a website that wasn’t originally built with SEO in mind.

Below, we’ve listed seven first steps that you should take whenever you launch a new website to make sure it’s designed from the very beginning to rank for its target keywords and attract as much traffic as possible from organic search.

Structure your website for your target keywords

The structure of your website has a huge effect on its ability to rank. In order to rank effectively for your target keywords, you need to structure your website so that each page targets its own set of closely related, highly relevant keywords.

For example, pretend you’re launching a website for a men’s shoe shop. You sell a variety of different men’s shoes, from leather shoes and boots to sports shoes. You’d like each category to rank for its target keywords and attract searchers looking for a specific type of shoe.

This means breaking down your website’s structure into categories, with each category aimed at a different search keyword. Below, we’ve included an example site structure, with the homepage targeting the main keyword (“Men’s shoes”) and subpages for each secondary keyword:

Structuring your website like this has several benefits. First, it creates a clear theme and target keyword for each page on the website, instead of having one page target multiple keywords. It allows you to closely target each keyword on each page for maximum relevance.

It also allows you to further break down each category into subcategories. For example, if our example website sold several different types of men’s leather shoes, we could further break it down to target additional keywords with subpages:

This structure lets each page target its own primary keyword, as well as a set of secondary keywords. A website structure like this, with each page dedicated to its own set of keywords, gives each page greater relevance and improves its potential organic search visibility.

Key Points:

  • Make sure each page of your website targets one primary search keyword and several secondary keywords.
  • Structure your website so that each page is as relevant and specific as possible using the example structure shown above.
  • Avoid optimizing one page for too many keywords. It’s better to have several pages, each extremely relevant, than one page covering multiple topics poorly.

Make sure each page has great, Google-friendly content

In the world of SEO in 2016, content is one of the most important on-page factors for helping your website rank. Before you start any active SEO efforts, it’s important to make sure your website has content that engages and helps its users.

Data shows that pages with 2,000+ words of content typically rank higher in Google search than pages with short, light content. Going into detail might take more time, but it has a positive effect on your website’s ability to rank in organic search for its target keywords.

Research also shows that long, detailed pages are more likely to get links than short pages. As time-consuming as it might be to develop long-form content for each of your pages as you build your website, doing so can pay for itself in a greater number of inbound links to each page.

A great way to think about your content is as the solution to someone’s need. We’ve previously written on using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a source of inspiration for your content. If you can solve a crucial need, your on-page content is far more likely to attract valuable links.

For optimal on-page SEO, include your target keywords in your content occasionally, but don’t overdo it. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to detect keyword stuffing, and it will usually lead to your website being penalized in the rankings for its target keywords.


Instead of stuffing keywords into your content, use them strategically. Add your keywords to H1 and H2 tags on your page. Add long tail keywords to H3 and H4 subheadings. Once you finish writing each page, double check it to make sure your keywords fit naturally into the content.

Key Points:

  • Try to write at least 2,000 words of content for each page, using your keywords when relevant without overusing them or “stuffing” them into the content.
  • Use the H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags to mention your primary and secondary keywords, as well as long tail keyword variations you’d like to rank for.
  • Don’t just write for writing’s sake -- try to answer questions your users might have and solve their problems in your on-page content.

Optimize your title tags for each primary keyword

Your title tag is the text that Google will display as your page title for every search result, as well as the text that will display in the user’s browser when they visit your page. It’s important that all of your pages have title tags that are optimized for their target SEO keywords.

A good title tag should accurately describe the content on your page while mentioning the main keyword you’re targeting for SEO. For example, the “Men’s Leather Oxfords” page on our shoe website above would benefit from a title tag like this:

Men’s Leather Oxfords - Browse Shoes and Buy Online

This title accurately describes the content of the page (after all, it’s a list of men’s leather Oxford shoes) and tells users what to expect after they click through from Google’s search page. It also includes the target keyword (“men’s leather oxfords”) at the beginning of the title.

Here’s an example of how the title tag above would look in Google’s search results for someone that searched for our example website:

You can see that the keyword is right at the beginning of the title, attracting the attention of the user and showing Google that our page is relevant. Since our site is structured with each page targeting a specific keyword, “men’s leather oxford” is also highlighted in the page URL.

Google will crop your title tag if it’s longer than 60 characters, so make sure you keep your page titles brief and simple. It’s best to use your target keyword as close to the start of the title tag as possible for optimal SEO.

Key Points:

  • Start your title tag with your target keyword, then describe what users should expect when they click through to your website.
  • Avoid stuffing keywords into your title tag. Use your primary keyword once, then add relevant information about your page.
  • Keep your title tag under 60 character (55 is recommended) so that Google doesn’t truncate it due to excessive length.

Add engaging, action-focused meta descriptions

The meta description is the short snippet of information that appears below your website’s title and URL in Google’s search engine results. Although meta descriptions aren’t a ranking factor, it’s important to give each page on your website a relevant, keyword-focused meta description.

One reason for this is that your meta description can have a huge effect on your page’s CTR, or clickthrough rate. A detailed meta description will encourage users to click your result instead of a competing website, increasing your total share of search impressions.

Below, we’ve added a meta description to our example page on men’s leather Oxfords. You can see that the listing now offers much more detail about what users can expect to see, as well as a compelling reason to click through in the form of our free shipping offer.

Each page of your website should have its own unique meta description that explains the page in more detail and offers a reason for users to click. If you’re using WordPress, you can quickly add unique meta descriptions using a plugin like Yoast SEO or SEO Ultimate.

To enter your title tag and meta description, just scroll down to below your page’s content box and find the SEO settings area. Enter your title and meta description into the data entry boxes shown below:

Key Points:

  • Make sure each page of your website has its own meta description, since it makes a big difference to your organic search clickthrough rate.
  • Use your keyword in your meta description, but don’t stuff it in unnaturally. Google can see when you’re overusing keywords, and they might penalize your website.
  • Focus on encouraging the user to click, since the goal of a meta description is to “sell” your website to its target audience.

Set up Google Analytics and add your website to Google’s Search Console

Once you’ve built your website, developed content and given each page a unique title tag and meta description, it’s time to install Google Analytics. Google Analytics is free tracking software that lets you monitor how people use your website, as well as how they find it.

From an SEO perspective, Google Analytics is a great tool for spotting opportunities to further optimize your website for specific keywords. Installing Google Analytics as soon as you launch your website gives you data right from the beginning, helping you further optimize later.

Installing Google Analytics is simple. Just visit Google.com/Analytics and sign up using your Google account. Once you’ve configured your website in Analytics, you’ll need to paste your unique Analytics tracking code onto your website.

If you use WordPress, you can add the code using the Google Analytics by Yoast plugin. If you have a static HTML website, you can add the Analytics tracking code to each page by following Google’s instructions.


Once you’ve set up Google Analytics, it’s time to add your website to Google’s Search Console.

Search Console is Google’s platform for webmasters. It gives you access to valuable data about how your website performs in organic search, from the keywords for which it ranks to its search CTR for each keyword, total keyword impressions and other valuable metrics.

To add your website to Google Search Console, visit Google.com/Webmasters. Since your site is already linked to a Google Analytics account, you can start using Search Console without any additional verification process.

The two steps outlined above might not seem that important now, but they’ll become very useful when your website starts to rank for its target keywords and generate traffic.

Key Points:

  • Setting up Google Analytics and Search Console gives you additional insight into how your website performs, so it’s worth doing it as early as possible.
  • Search Console will keep you updated as to new opportunities to optimize your website for search, so make sure you check it every week or two.

Reach out to friends and influencers to build links

Congratulations! With Google Analytics and Search Console configured, your title tags and meta descriptions optimized and great content on each page of your website, you’ve taken care of the on-page site of search engine optimization.

Now it’s time to move onto the next step in the SEO process: building links. A great way to start building links to your website is to reach out to your personal network -- friends, influencers and colleagues -- and ask them to help promote your website.

If you’re friends with bloggers whose content is relevant for your website, reach out and ask if they’d be interested in writing about you. If your website is newsworthy, contact a local paper and ask if they would be interested in reporting on you.

Struggling to attract the attention of bloggers and website owners? QuickSprout has a variety of email outreach templates that, while far from perfect, are useful for developing your link building outreach campaign.

Link building is a slow, gradual process, but it’s often easy to kick-start it in the earliest days of your website by making use of your personal network. A friend or two linking to your website is often all it takes to put it on Google’s radar and start improving its visibility for some keywords.

One great way to start building links is through guest blogging. Our guide to guest blogging is full of insightful tips on how to reach out to bloggers and earn the opportunity to write for them, building high-value links to your website in the process.

Key Points:

  • If you have existing relationships with bloggers and website owners, feel free to use them to promote your newly launched website.
  • Don’t worry too much about factors like anchor text optimization at this point, since your goal right now is just to establish a strong link profile.
  • If you’d like to earn high quality links from great websites, use our guide to guest posting to discover great blogs and contact their editorial teams.

Build a long term strategy to produce ongoing SEO results

Seo Basics For Your Website Blog Or Online Store Free

SEO is a long process, and it’s rarely enough to simply launch a website and wait as the leads, sales and revenue start to roll in. If you’d like to rank for competitive keywords, you need to put together a long term SEO strategy with clearly defined goals, milestones and objectives.

This strategy could involve content marketing, or it could simply be a matter of reaching out to website owners to highlight link building opportunities. There’s no one “right” way to do SEO -- since every website is different, everyone’s SEO strategy is ever so slightly unique.

Are you ready to start optimizing your website for search?

Seo Basics For Your Website, Blog Or Online Store

If you’ve built your website and implemented the seven steps outlined above, you’re well on the path towards SEO success. As you start to generate traffic, stay up to date on the SEO metrics that matter for your website with our practical guide to SEO metrics.

Seo Basics For Your Website Blog Or Online Store Shopping

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Whether you're a complete beginner, business owner or marketing professional looking to upskill, this digital marketing course is perfect for you.