- 1. Make sure that your domain is ‘clean’
- 2. Create a professional looking website
- 3. Create a fast website
- 4. Demonstrate your Expertise
- 5. Publish long-form quality content
- 6. Learn how to write SEO friendly Blog Posts
- 7. Master On-Page SEO
- 8. Market your website on Social Media Networks
- 9. Be careful with off-page SEO
- 10. Respect your audience
- Conclusion
It is worth noting that besides small businesses, most people pursuing online success are bloggers. One of the most difficult tasks, especially for beginners in blogging, is identifying what works in terms of SEO and website promotion and what can get you in trouble.
The plethora of SEO tips and advice on the web makes the situation worse because you don’t know who to trust and why.
From my experience, if you follow the 10 SEO rules below without exceptions, you are more likely to become a successful blogger in your niche.
- Make sure that your domain is ‘clean’
- Create a professional looking website
- Create a fast website
- Demonstrate your Expertise
- Publish long form quality content
- Learn how to write SEO friendly Blog Posts
- Master On-Page SEO
- Market your website on Social Media Networks
- Be careful with off page SEO
- Respect your audience
1. Make sure that your domain is ‘clean’
I added this as an SEO rule because sometimes, this is the root cause of blogging failure.
This happens when people purchase a domain without knowing the history behind it. When a domain is penalized by Google, it is sometimes very difficult to recover, making your job harder.
Beginners may lose hope and give up, believing their work is not generating results. The real cause of the problem is the domain's penalty.
A similar situation occurs when your domain is penalized after a Google update. In such cases, it may be easier to forget about it and start cleaning up a new domain rather than try to fix it by removing the imposed penalties.
2. Create a professional looking website
I also consider this to be an SEO rule for the following reasons:
- A professional website that has an SEO-friendly design is more attractive to users and search engines
- Design and user experience is now more important than ever
By professional design, we don’t always mean that you have to buy a theme or hire a designer. I am sure there are many free themes for your blogging platform optimized for search engines, and with some work on the design, you can create a nice and professional website.
Even if you must pay $50 to purchase a theme or a couple hundred to hire a professional designer, I don’t consider this forbidden, especially when you take your blogging seriously.
I use the WordPress platform for all my blogging and business websites, and I use paid themes.
3. Create a fast website
We are living in a time when speed rules the web. All technology companies are trying to make the web faster, and Google is leading the way by making its products faster and adding speed as a ranking factor.
Their goal is to help users find what they want in the fastest possible way, so they produce fast browsers and operate the World’s most popular and fastest search engine!
A fast-loading website encourages users to visit more pages, keeping them on the site longer. Various studies have also shown that fast websites generate more conversions.
4. Demonstrate your Expertise
Blogging helps SEO by allowing you to demonstrate your expertise about a topic. Your blogs can show your visitors that you are an expert on a topic.
For SEO purposes, it's not enough to say that you are an expert; you need to prove it. Google introduced what is known in the industry as E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.
Websites that appear in the top positions of Google should demonstrate all E-A-T values.
5. Publish long-form quality content
It seems that both quality and quantity are important for achieving high rankings. If you regularly publish high-quality content that is more than 1500 words long, you are better off than bloggers who publish mediocre content that is also short.
Several people may disagree that content length is important for rankings, but this is 100% true for some niches. My tests have shown that articles that spam over 1500 words are more likely to rank higher than shorter articles, but the best way to find out if this is true is to check with your niche.
Search Google for several terms and check the top positions. If the returned results satisfy the above rule, then most probably, these claims apply to your niche as well.
6. Learn how to write SEO friendly Blog Posts
When you are ready to publish your next blog post, ensure you have followed these rules for writing SEO-friendly blog posts before hitting the publish button. Proper SEO copywriting can help good content stand out or make not-so-good content look better.
7. Master On-Page SEO
You cannot refer to SEO rules without taking into account on-page SEO. Under some circumstances, I would say that SEO rules and on-page SEO are the same thing, but how the SEO industry changes makes it necessary to distinguish between them.
SEO Rules cover a broader area that goes outside the boundaries of a website, while on-page SEO is about the page itself and how to optimize it better.
8. Market your website on Social Media Networks
Social is the new way to market your website. Social media marketing is an integrated part of digital marketing and one of the most efficient ways to promote your website and brand across the web.
Besides the marketing aspect, by ‘socializing‘, you are benefiting in terms of SEO and getting maximum return from your promotion efforts.
9. Be careful with off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is still important, but the rules have changed, and adopting practices of the past will get you into trouble. Instead of rushing into creating low-quality links, purchasing link packages, or hiring a fake SEO company, you better use your time and money efficiently by creating top-quality content or assigning your web presence to a reliable SEO firm.
10. Respect your audience
SEO is about the user, and one of the things you need to do is respect your audience. In my view, respect has to do with:
Providing accurate information – nobody can tell you what to write in your blog, but if you provide information that is not accurate, it is like telling your readers not to trust you again
Providing up-to-date information – nobody wants to read outdated news or information. Even if it is an old article, if there are new developments in the area, you must update the page to reflect the recent changes.
Making your website accessible to several devices – You cannot assume that all users use the same browser or device to access the web. Some are desktop users, while others prefer to use tablets and mobiles. A website that respects its audience will ensure the user experience is the same regardless of the device used.
Conclusion
As a blogger looking for the secret quick path to success, you may have read several techniques to promote your content and get top rankings in Google, but the truth is simpler and pretty much what I have outlined in the 10 SEO rules above.
Don’t believe in miracles or quick fixes, concentrate on your work, ensure that you got the basic rules right and success will come if you are patient enough.
