You have two main sources to drive readers to your articles and increase your compensation, SEO and Social Media - today we’re gonna look at the SEO world.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it's the art of making your content appear at the top of the result pages of a web search engine. Google is the most used search engine in the world.
The higher your article is on a search engine result page, the more readers you will get, the more money you will make. So, how do you climb up the result page rankings? There is no magic formula, but the following tips will help you create more engaging and attractive articles.
Remember: you can always find a summary of these suggestions on the right side of the writing platform (the “SEO Golden Rules”).
Tip number 1 - Put your readers first
Become an expert on a specific category by focusing on a few topics within that category and gain a high reputation, by writing insightful, unique, and original stories.
Choose what you love the most and write everyday about it.
For example:
If you are passionate about NBA and the LA Lakers... Write frequently about them.
Search engines will recognize your expertise and authority and they will increasingly propose your content to readers that love them.
Additionally, to help search engines know that you are an authoritative source of information, link your LinkedIn profile to your Blaster Page.
Here's how it's done
On your LinkedIn profile Page
Click on “Contact Info” add the URL of your Blaster Page under the label “Websites”.
Searching for inspiration?
Check out the Hot Trends Tool on the Dashboard of the Blasting News Writing Platform. It will give you plenty of suggestions, which are updated every 20 minutes!
Tip number 2 - Choose the Main Keyword for each of your articles.
After you've chosen the topic you wish to write about, you should decide what is the Main Keyword of your article.
It is especially important to make sure you have a clear and specific keyword focus to offer to your readers and to search engines.
The Main Keyword highlights the key focus of your article and it can be made up of one or more words.We suggest using between one to three words.
Not sure which keyword to pick? Follow these tips:
- go to the Google home page
- write on the Google search bar the generic topic of your article (for example: NBA).
- while you are typing Google will suggest you some more specific keywords (that you can also find at the end of the result page, if you choose to run the full search).
pick one of these keywords suggested by Google for your Main Keyword - Google suggested keywords are the hottest keywords to use as they represent the keywords that people are searching for!
For Example:
You decide to write an article about yesterday's NBA game. You now need to decide what is your Main Keyword: it could be “NBA results”; or “NBA yesterday scores”; or “Cleveland vs.
Golden Gate”.
Don’t be too broad or too niche, when choosing your keywords. Simply choosing “NBA” wouldn't be suggestive enough, while on other hand “NBA results in Alaska” might be too narrow. Your gut feeling mixed with some Google suggestions, as explained before, can give you the right balance.
Tip number 3 - Start the title of your article with the Main Keyword
Everyone’s reading their news on mobile device these day, and have no time to waste, so you want to create titles that grab their attention. The best way to do it, is placing your Main Keyword at the beginning of your title.
Make sure that your title is informative and relevant to the content. Don’t go for tricky headlines, as they are counter productive: Search engines will punish you if the readers land on your article and don’t read any of it.
For example:
If your Main Keyword is “NBA trade rumors”.
- A good Title would be: “NBA trade rumors: DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall are going to the Celtics”.
- On the other hand, if your Main Keyword is “DeMarcus Cousins”... A good Title would be “DeMarcus Cousins is on his way to Celtics, NBA trade rumors say”.
Tip number 4 – Include sub-headings in your articles.
Each sub-headline should be short and descriptive, and start - or include - the Main Keyword of the article.
Readers won’t give you a second chance: as soon as they land on your article, they will quickly scroll to it before reading it to check if there is anything they really care about.
To make sure you grab their attention, it's good to create between two and four subheadings per article.
Try following the 4th golden rule you find in the writing platform, which explains the perfect article structure.
Here are some numbers to keep in mind:
The intro paragraph should be at least 500 characters long.
Every other paragraph should be at least 750 characters long.
It is a beneficial not to repeat the Main Keyword more than 6 to 8 times total.
However, there’s isn't a magic number... so repeat the main keyword and its variants in the subheadlines and in the body of your article as many times as you feel it’s needed by your readers.
Tip number 5 – Place the best internal links inside your article.
Placing a linking to other related articles published on Blasting News; is one of the most important ways to create value for your readers, and search engines extensively appreciate it.
Place at least two links inside your article making sure to point to other related articles published on Blasting News, so that your readers will get more information about the topic; and to carefully choose the anchor text of your links, keeping it informative and, if possible, include the Main Keyword of your article in the link.
We understand that the research of related articles and the assessment of the best anchor text may take some time, but both the readers and search engines will give a premium because of it.
These are some of the most important tips we have found so far to make your readers, and search engines, more likely to like your articles.
Remember: it will take some time to get readers and search engines to notice you. Keep at it and don’t give up if you don’t see results at the very beginning.
