This page is only directed to a small group of contributors.
Most of them already do a pretty good job. Following this instructions will bring them to the next level.
Approaches to generating real content
- Research important questions.
- List good / bad examples.
- Passionately tell a story.
- Highlight recent trends.
- Survey best practices.
- Compile proven tips.
- Point out a problem.
- Recognize who.
- List what.
- Warn when.
- Show where.
- Debate why.
- Demonstrate how.
- State the so what?
Each one of these approaches, or combinations, takes you down a path to real, great, content. Most of the articles in Forbes chooses one or several of these paths.
Practical tips for better on-page optimization
As we transition from keyword placement to more advanced practices of topic targeting, it’s actually easy to incorporate these concepts into our content. While most of us don’t have the means available to calculate semantic relationships and entity occurrences, there are a number of simple steps we can take when crafting optimized content:
- Keyword research forms your base. Even though individual keywords themselves are no longer enough to form the foundation of your content, everything begins with good keyword research. You want to know what terms you are targeting, the relative competition around those keywords, and the popularity of those terms. Ultimately, your goal is to connect your content with the very keywords people type and speak into the search box.
- Research around topics and themes. Resist researching single keywords, and instead move towards exploring your keyword themes. Examine the secondary keywords related to each keyword. When people talk about your topic, what words do they use to describe it? What are the properties of your subject? Use these supporting keyword phrases as cast members to build content around your central theme.
- When crafting your content, answer as many questions as you can. Good content answers questions, and semantically relevant content reflects this. A top ranking for any search query means the search engine believes your content answers the question best. As you structure your content around topics and themes, make sure you deserve the top ranking by answering the questions and offering a user experience better than the competition.
- Use natural language and variations. During your keyword research process, it’s helpful to identify other common ways searchers refer to your topic, and include these in your content when appropriate. Semantic keyword research is often invaluable to this process.
- Place your important content in the most important sections. Avoid footers and sidebars for important content. Don’t try to fool search engines with fancy CSS or JavaScript tricks. Your most important content should go in the places where it is most visible and accessible to readers.
- Structure your content appropriately. Headers, paragraphs, lists, and tables all provide structure to content so that search engines understand your topic targeting. A clear webpage contains structure similar to a good university paper. Employ proper introductions, conclusions, topics organized into paragraphs, spelling and grammar, and cite your sources properly.
At the end of the day, we don’t need a super computer to make our content better, or easier to understand.
If we write like humans for humans, our content goes a long way in becoming optimized for search engines. What are your best tips for on-page SEO and topic targeting?
Optimized Meta Descriptions ARE Important For SEO
I can make the case that meta descriptions are important for SEO. I’m taking some time to explain this, because my goal in this article is to help you write killer meta descriptions. Once you realize that meta descriptions do have an impact on search ranking, it may inspire you to write better meta descriptions.
“The first metric I think Google makes broad use of is direct Click-Through Rate (CTR) from the SERPs themselves. Whether or not a result gets clicked on is one of Google’s and Bing’s first clues about whether any given result is a good match to a query. We know Google and Bing both have this data, because they directly report it to us.”
The meta description is the most important feature for improving click-through rate from search results pages
Google considers user behavior, specifically the click-through rate. So, how can we improve CTRs on our SERP entries?
By writing killer meta descriptions.
Advanced Tips For Writing Killer Meta Descriptions
So, how do you unleash a click-through-compelling meta description?
Be Descriptive. The language in your meta description should introduce the user to what the page is about. In general terms, sketch out the page’s content. If the user is going to the trouble of clicking on it, he or she wants to make sure that the page really is about what they are interested in.
Be Persuasive. Great meta descriptions involve a touch of the persuasive. To get clicks, go ahead and tug a little bit. Some SEOs advocate using a call-to-action in the description. I’m not convinced that this is necessary; I do, however, recommend that you create a meta description that invites a response, even if it doesn’t directly call for it.
Inspire Curiosity. One of the most persuasive things you can do with your meta is to spark curiosity. This is particularly true for informational queries (as opposed to transactional queries). By the time a user finishes reading your description, they should be curious about what the page will say about the topic. You need to provide just enough information to explain what the page is about but not so much that it ruins the curiosity factor.
Use The Right Words. The keywords may not matter for search engines, but they do matter for users. In order to be compelled to click, the user needs to see relevant words. These words should be associated with his or her query. The right words in the right places make the difference between a SERP entry that gets overlooked, and a SERP entry that gets a click.
Make Them The Correct Length. If you write a meta description that is too long, Google will truncate it. The standard accepted length is 156 characters long. Unlike page titles, meta description cut-offs do not seem to be pixel-based in the same way that page titles are.
Do Not Use Quotation Marks. Google will cut them off.
Whats google main goal:
Google wants to return the best, most relevant, most trustworthy, fastest solution to searchers’ queries. Google’s definitions of “relevant,” “best,” and “most trustworthy” almost never change*.
How to promote your article
- Contact ALL the Bali, Canguu, Kuta, Ubud centric facebook pages via message and let them know about the work you are doing on inBali – offering a content share / spill over and perhaps and guest post on occasion
IE: you’ll write something small for them in return for publishing your articles and linking to the website. - Call out via the medium of @replys and follows as many twitteratti as I can and try and get them to retweet.
- Get onto Bali Expat and go that route.
- Talk to venues / cafe’s and say to them – “If you put my article up on your social pages I’ll put a byline at the end of my article saying: ARTICLE WRITTEN WHILE AT WATERCRESS with a link to their site”
- I was also thinking about making some stickers that i would put on the magazine covers and inside magazines at cafes and hairdressers etc telling people to read something funny instead. I’ll work on the copy for those.
- Thinking of offering to write people funny status updates in return for sharing posts.
- Of course contact all the shop/restaurant/place mentioned in the article and ask them to share or link