In the journey of blogging, every blogger has heard about the importance of SEO, and has most often been intimidated by it, thanks to the many myths around SEO. It takes too much time, it is too technical, and will there really be significant results? The truth is, it is not as hard as it sounds, and yes, it does work in bringing the right traffic to your blog. Anything is only difficult if we don’t understand it. So the first step would be to understand the little nuances of SEO, right from the beginning.

What is SEO and why do you need it?

In the simplest terms, SEO is the process used to optimize your site’s visibility in search engines. Google keeps updating and search results are constantly changing. When a search is made, Google looks for high quality content that is most relevant to the search and presents it. If you want your site to be found by Google, SEO is a pretty important tactic, and there are few steps that go into making your content SEO ready. Content that has been optimized has a much greater chance to get traffic than that which is not optimized at all.

From the experts

Atul

  • Content length: Write long form content, anything in the range of 800-1200 words is good to start with. The longer the better with short paragraphs.
  • Keyword Research: Target Medium to Long Tail keywords to rank better. Short tail keyword is already a crowded space. Google’s Suggested search phrases at the end of the SERP is a good place to know the long tail keywords.

For example, if you typed what is blogging on Google and you scroll down to the end, you will see this:

You can use the above as keywords, or to plan your content.

  • ALT Tags for Images: Always use ALT tags for images. It serves dual purposes. Firstly it helps people with disabilities to know what the image is about. Secondly, it also helps to rank better in Image searches. So your content might not rank in regular search, but the image might if you have ALT tags written correctly with keywords.

Puspanjalee

For better SEO, always think from your readers’ perspective. Research what people are looking for and then use the long tail keywords accordingly. Keyword research is the basic step towards SEO, so you need to cover it extensively.

Other places to do your keyword research:

 

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