Table of Contents
1. Understand the Value of Outbound Links
Don’t you mean Inbound links I hear you say!
No. I want to start off with outbound links because this is an absolute key tip that so many beginner bloggers miss. And it is one of the key ways that Google evaluates and understands exactly what your site is about.
This comes before worrying about inbound links (that is links pointing from other sites to yours)
Give a certain level of attention to your outbound links profile!
This is often ignored and yet power-bloggers always pay attention to developing outbound links to all of the key players in their niche.
Why?
Because search engines will see clearly that you are in essence related to these sites to which you link out. It tells the likes of Google a significant amount about your own sites identity.
So do not only focus on inbound links but inbound and outbound.
Building a strong outbound links profile, in essence, is a form of piggyback marketing in that, if you link out over time to all of the main players in a specific niche, your own site will be seen to be themed around that niche.
As SEO Moz explains, ‘relevancy’ is an important search engine ranking factor and outbound links help to show search engines what you consider relevant (important) in relation to your own site.
ACTION: Do NOT be scared of linking out, including to your competitors. Make sure you link out at least twice in the next blog post you write, to quality sources.
2. Updating Content
The importance of keeping content up-to-date cannot be understated!
Think about it logically. Imagine if you do a search for the best tourist attractions in Miami.
Quite naturally you will want to see up-to-date results because you do not, for example, want to see results from let’s say 2010 and, as a result, you end up visiting a museum that closed 3 years ago right?
So if your site is going to be relevant, then your content needs to be up-to-date!
There is something called ‘Evergreen Content‘ and this refers to content that stays relevant such as a page that tells the history of something (although even that can be sometimes updated).
Google, in fact, makes it very clear how they value the latest publication dates for your posts!
There is, by the way, a great tool for putting the ‘Last published date’ automatically on the top of your blog post, just like I have on this post. I use the WordPress Plugin WP Last Modified Info to achieve this (along with one million-plus other people).
ACTION: Two things to do. i) Keep your content relevant by updating content. If something is clearly old and cannot be updated, consider deleting it! Better though is to update and refresh your content if you can. ii) Consider installing the WP Last Modified plugin.
3. Understanding the Role of Social Sharing
Now I know very well that spending time on social media can be very time-consuming but it is super-valuable in terms of getting your content out there.
Many bloggers make the mistake in believing that creating great content is enough.
You might have written an amazing piece of content that is 2200 words long and with great images and headings and links in it and that is better than anything your competitors have published online.
And you are not getting any traffic or search position for that post? Does that scenario perhaps sound familiar?
The reason and the solution is that, after writing a killer piece of content, you cannot just leave it.
You then need to market that content and raise awareness of it. The writing, in other words, is only the first half of the job!
Some of the things we do, for example, are:
- Add three to five new pins on our Pinterest account that point to the new blog post. We also use Tailwind to schedule pins and to use Tailwind Tribes.
- We send out a newsletter message to our mail list subscribers to let them know about the new post and how it can benefit them.
ACTION: The next time you publish a new blog post, choose one social media platform to market your post on, to raise awareness of it. If you use Facebook, for example, there are numerous groups for sharing your new blog posts such as the Becoming a Blogger group.
4. Remove Any Low-Quality Content from Your Site
Over the last five years, Google has published several algorithm updates that have tackled improving the quality of content published online.
In other words, gone are the days when the number of pages you have is more important than the quality of the content you publish
If you have any posts that are less than 400 words (other than pages such as Terms and Conditions and Privacy pages) then consider either deleting those pages or adding and improving them.
One of the best ways to improve the SEO value of your site is to clean and remove spammy content from your site. This alone can sometimes significantly improve your search engine rankings if you have a large site with lots of redundant pages.
Why you might ask?
Having low-quality pages and posts on your site can negatively affect your search engine ranking because Google does not like sites that produce spam and poor-quality content. They favor high-quality sites producing high-quality content.
ACTION: Go through all of your existing pages and consider if any should be removed completely or at least updated and given a content upgrade (this is something we talked about in the last post on 10 Essential SEO Tips for Bloggers).
5. Start Accepting Comments on Your Blog Posts
It is really quite surprising how often I see bloggers not allowing people to add comments on the bottom of their blog posts!
I can understand the idea that you might want to have complete control over the content you add and indeed, you do with blog comments. You can reject any comments that are clearly spammy and that do not fit in with your niche.
Blog posts that attract comments achieve an important thing when it comes to search engine rankings.
They show social engagement!
What? I hear you ask 🙂
If you are attracting other people to leave comments at the bottom of your content then Google and other search engines ascertain that:
- your content is strong enough to attract other people (a positive signal)
- your site is creating social interactivity (another positive sign especially given the whole point of the internet is sharing).
Have you ever wondered why someone such as Brian Dean of Backlinko.com so actively encourages everyone to comment on his blog posts? You will, in fact, see dozens and sometimes hundreds of comments on the bottom of each post.
ACTION: I recommend if you have not done already done so, to enable people to add comments on the bottom of your blog posts. Also though install the Akismet anti-spam plugin and make sure you enable comment moderation in your WordPress settings under the ‘Discussion’ tab (see image above).
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Thank you, much needed actionable advice. Really useful as we are experiencing information overload and really need it broken down into manageable chunks. Tracy
Thank you for your feedback Tracy. Yes, I will keep that in mind regards SEO and breaking SEO down into manageable parts when teaching it. Great feedback for sure.
2020 is the year to make my blog profitable. Thanks for sharing this informative post.
Yes. 2020 could be a great blogging year!
I am doing all of these things on my blog. Glad to see I am on the right track
Great to hear that Lara. All the best with your blog.
Very helpful article. Thanks for the tips.
You’re welcome Katie 🙂
I just started my blog a year ago, and I definitely need to go back and update some of my first posts. Thanks for the tips!
Hi Laura. I just checked out your site and it looks great especially given only a year old. Glad you enjoyed the tips.
Really thoughtful post with easy to implement advice! Would you really suggest I delete old content that I know is not as good as my recent content, especially if it’s not evergreen?
Hi Leigha. Yes, either delete redundant content or otherwise upgrade it. Freshen it up and make it relevant. Outdated content can drag the rest of your site down otherwise, SEO-wise. cheers, Paul
Great advice! Thank you I will use these.
Best of luck with your blogging Ashley.
These tips are so good and unique. I always wondered if comments on my posts would add to seo and you answered that. Also glad to learn that updating my posts is helpful. Thank you so much!
Hi Jen. Yes, I think blog comments essentially show social engagement and that is a core part of how the web is intended to work.