Are you struggling to write SEO optimized content that is more engaging than it is bland?
Content marketing can be a powerful tool for brands to make an impact online.
By using it effectively, you can get in front of your ideal target market, help solve their problems and create a loyal fan base.
But to do that, you first need to master the art of writing content that appeals to people as well as search engines.
After all, it doesn't matter how useful your article is to potential customers if it doesn't rank.
Here are four simple tips you can start doing today to optimize your blog for both search engines and readers:
1. Relevant User Journey
Effective SEO is all about relevancy.
When you start producing content that is relevant to search terms being used by your prospects and with links from relevant high authority sites, your content will find itself on the first page of Google.
But one important thing most businesses overlook is a relevant user journey.
If you want to maximize your user results and boost sales, you need to make sure that each interaction with your content brings them closer to the end goal of making a purchase.
Watch this video to learn about the three natural SEO techniques you can do to boost your user journey:
2. Craft a Clickable Headline
All the legwork you have done to optimize your content for search engines will mean nothing if you have an uninspiring headline.
Why?
Because only 20 percent of visitors will click to read your article. So even if your content is ranking on the first page with your targeted keyword, that means nothing if people are not clicking through to your website.
Upworthy, a site that generates three million unique visitors per month, understands the science behind crafting the perfect headline. As part of their editorial process, each piece of content needs 25 different headlines.
The reasoning behind this: Once you start getting desperate, you'll start thinking outside of the box and create the gem that will make your content stand out from the crowd.
3. Improve The Readability of Your Content
Readability may not be taken into consideration by search engines directly - but it still affects your ranking.
How?
Search engines take into account how people behave when they land on your page.
Search engine giant Google has recently stated that they would not be considering any information that comes via DMOZ directory that was one of the most comprehensive directory back in the days, holding top websites and blogs in various categories.
As DMOZ was officially put to an end on 17th March 2017, Google would no longer be using the snippets from the directory into the search results. This means that if you're part of the DMOZ listing, it won't serve any purpose now in the search results.
For 19 years, we humans tried our best to organize the web, though it went clear that with the pace the net keeps growing, its practically not possible for humans to do it manually.
Instead, search engine giant Google mentioned that publishers should now instead be focusing on providing strong meta description for their pages if it doesn't hold enough content its self for the bot to fetch it out.
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##check## Say No to NOODP directive
So in case you were previously using NOODP directive to make sure that Google won't show any directory listing on your behalf, there is no point of using it anymore.
In a statement, Google mentioned:
�[W]ith DMOZ now closed, we�ve stopped using its listings for snippeting, so it�s a lot more important that webmasters provide good meta descriptions, if adding more content to the page is not an option.�
How to Improve Meta Description?
Below are the guidelines that Google has laid down to improve your web page's meta description.
1. Differentiate the descriptions for different pages: This means that you need to make meta descriptions of your blog/website unique from any other page that you might have. As every page must be having unique content and so as its description that tells the bots that the content is unique.
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##check## Say NO to copying!
Make sure that you never copy meta description from any other web source, believing that you have a similar content and it should represent yours too.
2. Include clearly tagged facts in the description: Meta description doesn't mean that you need to put a story in there. For websites that doesn't have a content like blogs, they could use clearly defined tags that express the content.
3. Programmatically generate descriptions: Google gives an example of some websites that doesn't offer any long version of content and are rather different in nature like database driven sites or data aggregators etc. For such platforms, meta descriptions can be made programmatically though what needs to be made sure is that the description is not entirely a formulation of keywords that serve near to no value to the readers.
Description needs to be human readable and understandable.
To Sum Up
Overall, the gist of it is to make sure that the description is unique and is not a part of the content as it is that is read by the readers. As Google mentioned in the documentation saying:
"Make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees" You can also checkout the detailed documentation from Google upon improving your meta titles and description.
It's one of the most common questions that I get to see on #AskHassam Facebook group where brothers and sisters ask about how the placement of blog's navigation bar could affect their SEO. What if they place the navigation bar anywhere else apart from the top and how it could affect the blog's search engine optimization. (SEO).
Let's get right into the question.
Placement of Navigation
The placement of blog's navigation bar doesn't need to be at the top, to avoid negative SEO. Though that being said, note that search engine crawlers go through your blog's code from top to bottom and anything that comes first gains attention.
Much like how the header section gains more attention in the eyes of search engines compared to how footer of a blog or a website is tackled.
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##check## Heat Map Tools & Analytics
Though my advice on this would be to know the power of reading your blog's stats how readers are actually playing with it. If you yet haven't tried a heat map on your blog, you can go check out how 'Crazy Egg' heat map tool could help you out in this regard.
If you're looking forward to replacing the top navigation with a call to action (CTA), like taking your blog's readers towards a landing page that aims to sell a certain product of yours, you can surely do that.
Though keep in mind, that navigation plays a vital role on any website or a blog. Users come by and first look for navigation and get an idea of what the site has to offer.
So my take on that would be to use any navigation design that goes in the sidebar atleast like slideout navigation so that the user gets to see the internal links of your blog in 'above the fold' section of your blog. Above the fold area is all the section of your blog that shows up to the reader without them doing any scrolling down.
The best way is to test your reader's behavior and how they interact with different UI changes on your blog. You can see how users flow gets effected using Google Analytics too.
Link Juice Distribution
One of the most important advice I could give is to stop designing your blog's navigation, keeping in mind how it will affect your 'link juice distribution'. Meaning by that how search engine authority of a particular page on your blog would get effected by linking it up on the home page (that has the highest authority generally, in the eyes of the search engines).
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##check## Visualize Your Reader's Behavior
Keep your readers in mind and design your navigation as to what will help them the most. Ask yourself? What if you landed on your blog for the first time? What would you be looking for?
Previously people did all sort of things to manipulate search engine authority of a particular page on their blog or a website, though it's clear that if your content offers the purpose of why it's there in the first place, you'd see how it would rank up in the search results automatically.
Simply focus on what value your blog/website offers to your visitors? Why should they be on your blog? Is your content interesting? Do you publish out fresh content frequently? Is your blog easy to grasp?
Design your blog's UI navigation keep in mind all those questions and you won't have to worry much. Bring out the best of your website/blog in your navigation, even if it's in the slideout style in the sidebar.
Hope that helped you out. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comment section below.
Do you want to implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in Blogger? Or you would like to know the advantages and serious disadvantages of creating an AMP Blogger Template? If your answer is yes, then you have landed on the right page. Before making your site ready for AMP, please read why major companies have not yet adopted AMP.
IMPORTANT:All AMP Blogger Templates that you find online are not AMP at all!
What are Mobile Accelerated Pages (AMP)?
AMP HTML is an open source project by Google to provide mobile-optimized content that can load instantly everywhere. In short AMP makes your site load faster like a speeding bullet on smart phones but by sacrificing major portion of your advertisement revenue and third-party JavaScript.
FB instant articles is platform dependent, meaning your website get traffic from Facebook users alone and you can't provide the same bullet speed to your website visitors coming from search engines.
Same is the disadvantage with Apple News App where you can't publish your own content.
But AMP is platform independent, providing publishers to optimize content for mobile and make it accessible for all devices through a web browser. It has some advantages but several cons, which are worth noting before you opt-for AMP.
Following are some of AMP restrictions
Allow only asynchronous scripts
Size all resources statically
Don�t let extension mechanisms block rendering
Keep all third-party JavaScript out of the critical path
All CSS must be inline and size-bound less than 50,000 bytes
Font triggering must be efficient
Minimize style recalculations
Prioritize resource loading
Can you Implement AMP in Blogger?
Yes you can but partially!
Blogger team has officially not implemented AMP in Blogger blogs. Blogger XHTML templates currently do not support AMP HTML tags.
Designers who are implementing AMP in blogspot are forcibly removing important XML tags from the template which is not recommended and will seriously effect your blog in the long run.
This forcible action of making a blogger template AMP, is same as if you place a Mercedes engine inside a low budget car and expect it to drive fast. Yes the car could be forced to run the Mercedes engine but with no support to its best features. Thus wasting your entire effort!
You can surely create an AMP Blogger Template for your blogspot blog but by sacrificing several important features of Blogger and look of the template. AMP in short will convert your blog into an ugly Flat CSS/HTML design without allowing third-party fancy jQuery and JS effects.
AMP uses just some custom HTML tags that needs to be inserted inside your blogger theme to make it AMP validated. Once validated, Google will add the AMP icon next to your blogspot blog in search results. You can expect better traffic but by sacrificing ad revenue and blog look.
Difference Between AMP and Responsive Templates
AMP = Responsive Template + Custom HTML Tags
Before converting your template to AMP, it must be first made mobile responsive by adding CSS media queries and several breakpoints.
AMP is basically a much simplified/optimized version of your responsive template with addition of some custom HTML tags.
Just like your have a diet Pepsi Cola, you have a Diet HTML page today named as AMP.
Are AMP Templates Faster Than Responsive Templates?
Theoretically AMP Page must load faster than a normal responsive page but if a page is not coded properly than the same AMP page could load slower compared to a mobile responsive page.
Responsive Templates displays both the sidebar, footer and run all third-party JavaScript. Responsive blogger theme is simply a mobile compatible version of your desktop theme with almost the same features, widgets, plugins and other web elements.
In AMP Templates, you can't use a stylesheet greater than 50,000 bytes, you also can not use third-party widgets such as add-to-cart buttons or social media sharing buttons of your choice. AMP will convert your professional looking desktop look into a flat design with just the Logo, Menu, Post Body and footer.
When you sacrifice so much for load time, then of course, such a light weight AMP page will perform and load much faster compared to a responsive page.
Pros and Cons of AMP Blogger Templates
Following are important advantages and disadvantages of using AMP Blogger Templates:
Advantages
Disadvantages
1. AMP templates load Faster
AMP pages load much faster compared to a responsive blogger template.
1. AMP Badly Effects Your Ad Revenue.
You won't make as much money as you were making with a full mobile website.
All those interactive widgets and plugins that make your blog look cool are not allowed. You have to use an off-the-shelf JavaScript library that Google provides you with. You can however use the AMP iframe but it will be loaded slowly with a condition that the iframe must be at least 600px or 75% of the first viewport away from the top.
3. Your Blog pageviews would increase.
Blog Pages will load instantly thus providing a better user experience as far as speed is concerned.
You can however use either Facebook/Disqus/Google+ comment plugins instead but since the official comment form by Blogger uses iframe which can't be edited so it's not allowed.
4. AMP templates are best suited for news blogs.
4. You Can't Use Blogger Template Editor
You can't customize your template in Template Editor. <b:skin> tags and <b:template-skin> tags are removed or comment-out.
5. All Images Posted Must Be Edited
You will need to edit <img> tags of all images inside your blog posts one by one with amp supported tag of <amp-img>. Which of course is time consuming in blogger if you have over 100 posts.
6. You can't use Widgets in Sidebar
AMP does not allow third-party JavaScript. If you wish to use a widget that runs on JavaScript then you can't use it. Some widgets available in layout section that uses text+image are supported only after their code is edited inside template section to make it compatible.
7. You Can't Sell items on your Blog
The Add-to-Cart button is not allowed
8. All Videos and Audios embedded inside Posts Must Be Edited
You will need to edit all your YouTube/Facebook/Vimeo videos, all your soundcloud audio clips through different embed tags as mentioned on this page.
9. All iframe tags used inside Posts must be edited
You can display an iframe on your page only through the amp-iframe element.
10. Email Subscription Form Can't Be Used
onclick, action, onsubmit, onfocus, onblur attributes are not allowed in AMP without which you can't possible create a subscription form for your blog readers unless you use an iframe.
11. AMP supports limited Ad Networks.
BuySellAds does not currently support AMP. You will suffer greatly in BSA revenue if you go for AMP. At present only AdSense ads are properly supported.
12. XMLNS attributes must be removed
xmlns attribute are added inside the opening <html> tag if your blog that gives important information to web browser about the web technology being used by your blog.
AMP asks you to remove all such attributes and add only the amp="amp" attribute. Your blog will not be validated by http://w3.org if the xmlns attribute which specifies the xml namespace for a document is missing.
Do We Recommend AMP?
Honestly speaking AMP is not the best choice of all publishers. Even corporate news blogs like Washington Post and CNN who were using AMP previously and openly supported last year, seems reluctant to support it in 2017. You can clearly see AMP tags removed by these two sites and they no more support it.
AMP does speed up your site but on the expense of your Ad revenue and less freedom on customization. Without freedom of UI customization, no technology can survive.
An article by Wall Street Journal expressed serious concerns of publishers who did not find AMP very helpful in improving their ad revenue. Some even complained that an AMP page view currently generates around half as much revenue as a page view on their full mobile responsive websites.
Some publishers aren�t generating as much ad revenue as they had hoped - The Wall Street Journal
AMP is not a good option for Blogger platform at present because there is no official support present for it currently. Forcibly converting a templates code to AMP will only make it a headache for people not quite well versed with code tweaking.
I will recommend that you wait and let Blogger team provide a CMS support to implement AMP in Blogger themes. Just like Blogger provided support for https when we raised questions on how Blogger blogs will solve absolute image urls issue in https.
MBT is currently mobile responsive and we won't opt for AMP unless a proper support is given officially by Blogger.
For Wordpress users, there is a plugin called AMP For Wordpress that you can use to convert your WP site into an AMP site, but as I mentioned, yes you will get a fast load time but at the expense of ad revenue and less freedom.
Please share your precious thoughts on this trending topic and let us know whether you like AMP or you would expect more improvement on it. If you are already using an AMP supported blogger theme, please share your experience with us. Peace buddies! =)
I remember when those two words caused people to look blankly at you within a crowded room after they had asked something like, �so what do you do for a living?�
Seems innocent enough.
Hearing the response, �I�m an Online Marketer� was always something they didn�t anticipate.
Then came the task of trying to explain what those two words meant.
Much has changed since those early days.
Changing Tides of SEO
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes, talking about the web surfing I was doing. That�s when I found The Bottom Line of SEO in 2017 which offered thoughts on where SEO is headed as we move into the year 2017.
There was great stuff in that article. Two key areas of focus included:
The Future of Social Networking
The rage of mobile media
It is recommended reading in my opinion, though I believe there is an area where that article could experience further development.
Here are four simple tips you can start doing today to optimize your blog for both search engines and readers:
