Search engines have been around for a while. They are how we find the information we are looking for, and most people probably use one daily. With that in mind, content creators, especially bloggers, need to find a way to best promote their articles and ideas. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes into play.
SEO is NECESSARY for today's technology landscape. If you want anyone besides your mom to read your work, you need to make it easy to find through good SEO. Marketing professionals use SEO all the time, but it doesn't have to just be for the professionals. Today, anyone can write and publish articles online, meaning anyone can promote their work online as well.
To be honest, I am horrible at SEO. I am crazy busy, and oftentimes way to lazy to spend the extra time promoting my writing. I know I'm not the only one, so I wanted to share some fast and easy ways to up your SEO game so even the laziest of us can stay on top of it.
1. Add internal links
Internal links are amazing. Link other websites, other blog posts, statistics, or anything else you make reference to. Linking other sites will affiliate your two pages, which makes your page all the more likely to be found. It is super easy to hyperlink pages and so worth it.
2. Use LOTS of tags
Hashtags can be a perfect way for your content to show up in someone's search. On social media, too many can be a little much, I'd stick to between 5 and 15, but when on your site or blogging platform add as many as you can. Make sure they are relevant and general enough that someone would likely search for it. This will take you five minutes tops. Seriously.
3. Have solid meta descriptions
Yay for meta descriptions! Your meta description is what shows up under your headline on a Google search. Often people forget about these or leave them blank. Don't do that! It can be short, just a sentence or two, but it's the first impression your article makes on a searcher, so make it count. Like I said, it takes almost no time, but it will help you out immensely.
4. Photos, photos, photos
Photos come with their own tags and keywords, so the more photos you have, the more people will find your article! Have you ever searched for a photo and when you click on it, it takes you to a website? That's what can happen with photos on your page! Find photos that are related to your topic and add a few! Plus, photos can make your page look more appealing and break up large sections of text that look intimidating to read.
5. Keywords are key
Keywords are the couple of words that your article is about. Use these words often in your writing, and it will help your piece get found by people searching for things with that word in it. For example, this article is about SEO, so I'm going to try and use the term SEO often, so when someone searches for ways to improve their SEO, they will get this article. SEO. SEO. SEO.
