I have found that many internet marketing entrepreneurs have never really learned or practiced SEO. What may have worked before, may not work now.

Search engine optimization is much like continuing education in various professions, you need to keep up to date.

The nice thing about SEO is it is free. The downer is it’s slower. But, it is a must for marketers looking to stick around for the long-term. If you want a loyal base who you can count on to be there for you, and your site for them, you need proper SEO.

Also, if you are creating a “Brand” or “Authority” site, you need to optimize your web business. The risk of getting the proverbial “Google Slap” becomes less of a risk.

Internet marketing has almost become an art, in regards to proper SEO and good usable content. Typically though, if you write from the mind or heart, without copying or repeating keywords, you are safe.

In this article I would like to touch on a few tips that may help your blog’s search engine rankings. I will try to stick to a few of the main ones in this short blog post. If you aren’t at least doing these steps, you are missing the boat.

When writing a blog, include your main keyword in your title. The title should be repeated three times. These three are Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3. Heading 1 should be the main post title. Heading 2 should be at the beginning of the title. Heading 3 should be at the bottom of the page. If using WordPress, utilize the correct font in the menu for each.

For best results and to attract a more targeted audience, try to limit your number of keywords to three. Include long tail keywords which consist of three or more words.

Internet marketing is a bit of wasted effort if your SEO does not include keyword density and meta description. Try to keep keyword use at between 2 and 4% of the total article. This is very easily done with a WordPress Plugin called SEOPressor. This plugin displays your keyword density and you do not have to do any math!

Your meta description is what is displayed in the Google search results. It should be eye-catching and includes your main keyword.

Lastly, use the following SEO tips on your blog’s keywords:

Bold print a keyword at least once.
Put a keyword in italics.
Use quotations on a keyword,
Use a relevant YouTube video in your article.

Have a specific niche

Your niche is what makes your business. What is your niche under a particular category? For example, if you’re dealing with real estate business, your niche could be on traditional rental or short lets. Same thing applies to any category you choose to use. Discover your niche. After that, use keywords and phrases related to that particular niche. Add tags of relevant keywords to your site and watch as it gets higher rankings on Google.

Engaging content

The content of your site/blog is helping people understand some of your services. And hence, content shouldn’t be underestimated. Write top-notch, engaging content for your audience and they will come around eventually. Don’t forget to include keywords into your content, add tags and split your articles into different categories so they’re easier to locate. And do not forget that the misuse of keywords in an article could have a negative impact on your rankings.

Keywords placement

The title of your article, its header and subheaders should have at least one keyword. This helps the search engines to immediately find your website when certain keywords are searched for.

Link building and references

When writing an article, there would be some times when you should insert links to other pages on your site. This is to give direction to your audience so they’d know where to find certain topics in your website.

When writing a content, don’t forget research. The thing is, most of the niches talked about today have already been written by others. So, when you research your content from other sources, don’t forget your references. Write your references at the bottom of the page by inserting the links gotten from your source materials. Of course, you need to write the contents in your own words to avoid plagiarism.

While writing an article, if possible, include links to other sites as a ‘go to’ place to learn more information or, if it is almost unrelated to your niche, for a call to action. And, if you can get other sites to include links to your sites in their content, this creates useful links. And this is an important step in SEO.

Regular posts

Just because you have written a few topics on your site, don’t think that you could just fold your arms and let some miracle happen. No. The most rewarding thing in the business world is consistency. Don’t stop pushing, don’t stop writing. Have a regular schedule for your article posting, create time to write engaging and fresh new articles every now and then, and watch your efforts get rewarded.

Meta descriptions for every page

A well written meta description increases the rate at which your page gets clicked. It doesn’t help you with search engines, but rather it is for your audience. A well written one will compel the audience to click on your links, and increases the website’s traffic.

Filling your blog posts to the brim with affiliate links will hurt your SEO. But there is a way to use affiliate links to boost your SEO score. It’s all about what kind of content you’re writing.

Google wants to give people the best answer to what they are searching for. It uses artificial intelligence to help it find the best answers to every conceivable search. AI is used to analyze web content but also to make sense of what people are actually looking for when they use a particular search query.

Writing the best answer to a search is how you get boosted on Google.

That’s a lot easier said than done though.

You can’t just write an article about, for example, ‘best way to brew coffee’ and throw in dozens of affiliate links to different coffee pots.

You have to produce well researched, well put together content. That means images, videos, clear summaries and writing. It is hard work.

Google also treats affiliate links as ads. On every post you want to include as many recommendation links as possible. But that means the ad count on your post adds up quickly.

Google wants to show helpful content, not adverts. So, don’t litter your post with links, don’t make constant calls-to-action. Use one affiliate link, one CTA and make it count. Put it at the bottom of your article so you have a concrete suggestion of how to do what your post talks about.

Go through your old blog posts and remove unnecessary links. Delete fluff – that’s not helpful for readers and Google punishes it. Really think about why people are reading the post. What are they trying to solve? Lean into that and make sure your post answers that question.

Reading duration is a key factor in determining your Google ranking. Think about it. The longer a person reads, the more they are interested in the content. Google knows this and rewards posts that keep a reader’s attention.

It’s a good idea to have a content strategy with different types of posts planned for your blog. You should have short articles with no promotional links, long articles, again with no affiliate links, and only some longer articles with links. Maybe only a third of your content should include links.

You may think that limits how much you can make. But there’s a way around that: Use internal links.

Link to other blog posts which have affiliate links in them. Make sure those links add something to the post though. You can’t just throw in a link to a completely random post and expect people to click on it.

Imagine a reader of this post is given two links they can click. One is for a review of a blog post writing course and one is a review of the best places to get fireworks online. Both have promotional links. Which one are they more likely to click on?

Affiliate marketing doesn’t harm SEO, if you do it correctly. Follow the advice here and you will be fine.

Building Local Citations

When it comes to local SEO, there are three important things that Google takes into consideration: the time that your business or domain has been around, links or citations back to your website, and reviews. Though getting links is important, including local citations is essential in order for Google to know your location. You must have local directions or citations pointing to your website, which should include consistent information – contact number, address and email, among others.

To do this properly, you can use a tool like White Spark/Moz Local. On the other hand, if you prefer to do-it-yourself, you can make use of an automated directory solution. However, you can get a better outcome from tools such as White Spark/Moz, as well as our own SEO services that manually make each and every local citation.

Create Local Editorial Links

Aside from citations, you should also have editorial links that do not come with nofollow tags in them. All directories/citations include their outbound links as as rel=”nofollow”, telling Google to not crawl the link to your website. So, you have to get do-follow links to your website. You can come across very significant local sites like local blogs or national blogs that are related to your industry. In this way, Google can provide you with results from sites that permit contributing writers. Next, send an email to them and secure a spot then write content for them. Though they often nofollow the links in your bios, your articles can have links to your actual site.

Build Social Media Signals

This is a lot different from simply doing social media. First, you have to post your blogs on your social media platforms, then build relations with your target market. Promote content to website visitors by retargeting, promoting it to people within your area (note: it is a must to use great content, so if you have not created such, start now) and utilize all possible advertising tools to get likes, views and shares for your content. This lets Google see that people talk about you, and your content is a good source for keywords you include.

Get Reviews

User generated content is among the three most important things Google takes a look at. They want to make out the things that viewers say about you. So, make sure to send them over to your Google+ and Yelp pages to write their reviews, then look for review sites in your niche by searching with the use of your keywords and “reviews”. When you receive real, great and positive reviews, Google will value your website over others, provided that you have the other important parts: links/citations, plus the time you have been active.

Measure Your Traffic

The moment you apply these strategies, remember to measure your traffic in order to benchmark your progress. Make use of Google Analytics plus Webmaster Tools in segmenting your organic search traffic. When your traffic, rankings and sales go up, you can rest assured that your local SEO campaign is thriving.