Are you new to blogging? Have you written a few posts on your blog, but are still struggling to get traffic? One of the simplest ways I have found that will help you bring consistent traffic to your blog is by using keywords in your titles and articles says Vito Proietti.
I am sure there are many more benefits for including keywords in your articles, but 2 of the most important ones are:
It will help search engines find you when people Google terms related to what you write about it will attract new visitors who might not have otherwise visited or subscribed to your blog.
Keywords don’t guarantee instant results though. I know several bloggers who have been disappointed because their web stats showed no improvements after spending hours carefully choosing the best keywords for their articles. One of the main reasons they wonder why this is happening is because they don’t really know what keywords are and how to use them.
If you fall in that group, then do not worry; I am here to help!
Here are 6 easy steps you can take right now to improve your blog posts by using more effective keywords.
1. Use Keywords in Your Post Title
The title of your post will be what search engines display on Google, Yahoo, or Bing if someone searches for a relevant term. The most important thing with titles is to keep them short, only about 65-75 characters on Google/Bing or 90-120 characters on Yahoo. This way people can see the whole title when it’s displayed under the link to your blog.
2. Include Related Keywords in Your Post Body
The title is not the only place where you can use keywords, but it’s also important for you to include them in each post. When writing about a specific topic, make sure to include several words or short phrases related to it throughout your article, instead of repeating them over and over again.
3. Make Keywords the First Word on Each Paragraph
If someone was reading your post online on Google Reader, Yahoo! reader or another service that allows users to read text on their computer screen without clicking through first (“screen scraping”), then they would see each paragraph as new paragraphs appear with a bit of white space between them; this makes it easier to read.
When writing your blog posts, make all of the keywords the first words of each paragraph. This makes it easier for search engines to pick up on them, which will help improve your results in the long run.
4. Place Keywords at the Start of Each Sentence
This is another trick for improving your search engine rankings by placing keywords where they are easy to notice and quickly identified by crawlers explains Vito Proietti. Think about it this way: If you have 10 people reading an article about”5 ways to generate traffic”, how many do you think will actually go through each point? The answer is probably less than half, maybe only 20% if some bloggers are kind enough while others aren’t that interested in what you wrote about.
If a crawler reads your whole article, then it will pick up on all of these keywords and when someone searches for “How to generate traffic”, they would display the content from your blog. This is also why I recommend that you keep each post under 3,000 words in length (this gives room for extra keywords even if the reader only goes through half of them).
5. Put Keywords in Your Headings and Sub-headings
Most people skim articles before reading them, so having good headings is important to make sure people notice your most important ideas and don’t miss anything (because we know how easy it can be to skip over something in a hurry). Vito Proietti says it’s very similar to sub-headings; people don’t have time to read everything, so they skim the sub-headings and if they see something interesting, they will go through it.
6. Don’t Overdo Keyword Stuffing
The last step is to always be sure not to overdo it with your keyword stuffing. It has been shown that people are doing this every day because there are many examples on the Internet where searches show thousands of results for keywords stuffed in too much without any real meaning behind them (these are no longer effective now). If you want your blog posts to rank well in search engines, then don’t do this.
Instead of repeating a term 3 or 4 times, for example, change things up by using synonyms or related terms instead; this will make your posts more interesting to read and likely draw in more traffic than if you were to continue using the same word over and over again.
Conclusion:
Keywords are important, but they shouldn’t be used as a way to trick search engines into thinking your content is valuable explains Vito Proietti. Instead, think of it as an opportunity to show off what you do and craft unique posts that people will enjoy reading.