But most of the time, duplicate content is not intentional and is caused by technical issues or automatically generated pages. 

Resolving duplicate content can be an easy process, and this guide will cover all of the causes of duplicate content and how to fix it before it negatively impacts your search engine rankings.

What is Duplicate Content in SEO?

Duplicate content is content that appears on the same website in more than one place. It can also refer to the same content appearing on multiple websites. This content can take the form of identical or near-identical content, and it is ultimately detrimental to SEO visibility.

Why is Similar Content a Problem?

Google wants webmasters to provide valuable and unique content to users. If your website has lots of similar pages, it doesn’t signal a website that provides a good user experience. 

The primary technical problem with duplicate content is that it causes search engines to have a more difficult time determining which version of the content should be indexed and displayed in search results.

When Google faces this problem, it usually promotes both versions of the content less often.

Does Duplicate Content Result in a Penalty?

You may have read about a possible duplicate content penalty, but Google will not penalize websites that make an honest mistake. Most often, webmasters do not intentionally publish duplicate content on their websites or are unaware that the same content is available on different URLs. 

But if a website is consistently copying content from other websites and publishing it as its own, that’s a different issue. Google will penalize and potentially de-index those domains that are copying content from other websites.

You can read more about what Google says about duplicate content here.

What Causes Duplicate Content?

There are a few possible explanations for why your website has duplicate content or duplicate pages.

• Duplicate content can be created inadvertently, such as when different versions of a URL point to the same page
• When the content is served with subdomains that are not the canonical domain, such as https://www.website.com/ versus https://website.com/
• When content is syndicated across multiple websites 
• Websites that are improperly set up can often cause duplicate content
• Duplicate pages that do not include the proper canonical tags to tell Google that they are copies of a master version of the page

How Do I Avoid Duplicate Content?

In order to avoid duplicate content in SEO, it’s vital to ensure that all web pages on a website have unique and original content. 

Additionally, it’s worth taking the time to make sure that the same content is not accessible from multiple URLs. It’s also necessary to be aware of syndicated content and to implement measures to avoid duplicate content issues.

But the simplest way is to use a site auditing tool. When duplicate content is found on your website, it will be flagged in the SearchAtlas site auditor.

Thankfully, duplicate content is a simple fix, and there are a few options for preventing repeated duplicate content from appearing on your website.

How to Fix Duplicate Content in SEO

If you have a web page that is flagged in the SearchAtlas site auditor for duplicate content issues, there are a few different options for resolving it. 

Update the Content on the Page

If the content or copy of the page is too similar to other pages, Google will not understand which page to promote in the SERPs for related keywords. In general, you want the different pages of your website to rank for different keyword clusters, and reoptimizing the page for a different set of keywords will help search engine crawlers more easily understand the content as unique.

Use a 301 Redirect

The first way is to use 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. This redirect lets search engines know that the original page has been permanently moved to the new page. This strategy prevents search engines from indexing duplicate pages.

Add Canonical Tags to Similar or Duplicate Pages

If your website has lots of product pages that are similar, you should get comfortable using canonical tags to communicate to Google which page is the master version of the content and should be indexed. This method helps search engines identify which version of the page should be ranked.

Add a noindex tag

The third way is to use the noindex tag. The noindex tag tells search engines to not index the page. This technique prevents them from indexing the duplicate page.

Consider a Content Delivery Network

Finally, you can use a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN is a network of servers that delivers web content to users based on their location. This network helps ensure that users are seeing the content from the original page and not a duplicate page. If you have different regional versions of a web page, a CDN may be the most viable solution.

Conclusion

Ultimately, fixing duplicate content in SEO is critical for any SEO strategy. To ensure that a website remains SEO-friendly, it’s necessary to identify and address duplicate content issues before they become a problem. Make sure you use the site auditor in your dashboard to identify and resolve duplicate content when it appears.

The post What Is Duplicate Content in SEO and How to Fix It appeared first on LinkGraph.

That’s why you need to know the on-page, technical, and off-page elements that influence how your content will perform in the search results—plus the best practices you need to follow. Doing this will help you avoid publishing content that doesn’t help you achieve your business objectives.

Here is a guide on WordPress SEO best practices to help you avoid making mistakes that will affect your website’s performance and improve the likelihood of high-ranking content.

Why Use WordPress Over Other CMS Tools?

Even with other CMS solutions available, WordPress is still the most popular CMS tool. There’s nothing simpler than navigating the WordPress dashboard and block editor that comes default with the platform.

Founded in 2003, it has won numerous awards, including “Best Open Source Software”, and powers most of the world’s websites. In fact, it powers around 43% of all websites.

What makes WordPress the go-to option for most website owners? Its flexibility. WordPress allows you to customize your website to fit your exact needs, including adding SSL, meta description, alt text, sitemap, breadcrumbs, and even schema markup – everything you need to optimize for the SERP.

For example, from a user experience perspective, you can buy WordPress themes that you can customize to align with your brand strategy and deliver content dynamically to different devices. Your web visitors will have a smooth browsing experience as they interact with your content because they can easily find what they’re looking for.

From an SEO perspective, WordPress allows you to use different plugins to optimize your content and improve website performance. Popular SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO, RankMath, and Meta Sync SEO are perfect for content optimization. You can also add an analytic SEO plugin such as Google Analytics or Bing Webmaster Tools.

WordPress SEO Best Practices

WordPress allows you to manage all your content in one place easily. Optimizing your WordPress site increases the chances of driving more organic traffic to your website and achieving your SEO strategy objectives.

While we could publish a WordPress SEO guide article about basic SEO practices such as using the Yoast SEO plugin, connecting Google Analytics, using a focus keyword, or writing a meta description, we’ll focus more on the concepts of WordPress SEO you should focus on to perform better on the search engine.

Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

1. Create and Publish Content that Satisfies User Intent

Since content is the vehicle you’re using to achieve your business objectives, it needs to be relevant to what your potential buyers are looking for in the search results.

Your readers might land on your blog post at any stage of their buying journey, which means you’ll need to stand out by providing the answers they need when they enter the search query. Then, point them to the solutions they’re looking for.

You could start this process by performing keyword research. SEO tools such as Google Search Console, Semrush provide SEO expert information to help find a specific keyphrase to focus on.

Publishing content that satisfies your reader’s intent requires you to start with the end in mind. This means creating a content strategy that helps you clarify your objectives and identify your ideal readers.

For example, let’s say your ideal readers are furniture vendors. A furniture vendor has two challenges when running their business: acquiring more customers and managing their product information. Suppose you are trying to sell a product information solution. In that case, content for this furniture vendor audience needs to teach how to solve their initial challenge (customer acquisition) before introducing a solution to their second challenge (managing product information).

This approach makes your content relevant and helpful, which is exactly what Plytix, a product information management tool, has done.

Their content helps the reader tackle both challenges by creating a furniture marketing strategy and then introducing their product with a specific page to navigate at the end of their post. As they get more customers, they’ll need to manage their product information better. Hence, their content ensures that the business owner knows what solutions to look for when they want to manage their product information effectively.

2. Make Your Content Accessible

In addition to making your content relevant and helpful, you must ensure that it’s easily accessible to both search engines and website visitors. Making your content accessible includes creating and submitting an XML sitemap to Google in Google Search Console so that its bots can crawl and index your content to ensure that it appears in search results.

Your HTML sitemap also needs to make site navigation easier so that your web visitors can find the information they’re looking for on your WordPress website. When using a WordPress sitemap, your content appears in a user-friendly format so readers won’t have trouble finding their way around your content.

You can use the SearchAtlas Site Auditor to ensure that there are no technical issues with your sitemap.

In addition, you also need to write a descriptive SEO title telling a potential reader what the web page is about. When writing descriptive page titles, be clear and direct. If your reader doesn’t understand what your page is about, they won’t click through to read your content. Instead, explain how readers will benefit from your content once they click on your meta title.

Your readers are intelligent, and making it easier for them to find what they need is a cornerstone of content accessibility. Use header tags that break down different sections of your content to help the reader self-select what sections to read and what to skim.

For accessibility, it’s also important to add alt text to your images. The alt tag not only helps visitors using screen readers, it’s also a ranking factor for image SEO.

One other aspect of accessibility is ensuring your SSL is up to date. This is important for both the search engine and potential visitors to trust your WordPress site. Luckily, it is pretty easy to generate a free SSL certificate from many major hosting platforms.

3. Use User-Friendly URL Structures

The URL structure of a webpage is easy to overlook, especially if you haven’t changed your permalink settings inside WordPress to have a custom URL structure for your content.

In addition to making your site crawlable, reader-friendly URL structures improve user experience. They do this by telling readers what the page behind the URL is about. This makes it easier to decide whether it is relevant to them or not.

When creating your permalink structure, narrow it down to your primary keyword. Then, get rid of any other information that makes it longer than it needs to be. This includes numbers and symbols.

You can also add keyword modifiers to your URL to align it with the searcher’s intent. Modifiers can be based on niche, location, or topic. For example, if your primary keyword is “local SEO,” modifiers might include: “how to,” “real estate,” or “New York SEO.”

These modifiers will appear in your title tags, so you’ll need to include them in your URL. This way, you’ll match with specific searches that readers will run when looking for information related to your primary keyword.

Lastly, ensure this final permalink is set as your canonical URL, which you can do in Yoast SEO or AIOSEO. Otherwise, the crawler might not be able to distinguish duplicate content. Properly mapping redirects and schema markup will also help avoid this duplicate content issue.

4. Add Internal Links

As you publish more content, you’ll need to create more internal links to relevant pieces of content. This means internal linking is another task you need to cross off your to-do list before you publish your post. Internal and external links are important in SEO for passing page rank, or “link juice” to relevant pages. These backlinks also tell the search engine where important pillars and trusted sources are.

We have three types of internal links: navigational, in-text, and sidebar links.

• Navigational links help your visitors move from one place to another on your website.
• In-text links help readers access similar topics within your content.
• Sidebar links help users access related content.

When publishing a blog post, you need to focus on in-text links to improve the chances of ranking on Google. If you have a huge library of content, use a WordPress SEO plugin such as Rank Math or Link Whisper to help identify relevant content to link to.

If you’re just getting started, create a content structure and choose topics that align with this structure. In addition, make sure you use relevant anchor text for your internal links. This makes it clear to both readers and search engine crawlers what the content on the next page is about.

5. Optimize your Site for Mobile

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Your web visitors access your site from different devices. More than 58.9% of traffic is attributed to mobile users, so there’s a high likelihood that one of your web visitors will access your site using a mobile device.

Mobile users expect to navigate the site smoothly, find the content they need, and take the actions they need to take.

For this to happen, your website needs a fast page speed and render properly on a mobile device.  Use WordPress themes that dynamically deliver content across different devices. Also, avoid full-screen pop-ups that decrease your site speed and prevent mobile web visitors from accessing your content.

We suggest you turn on the Google Accelerated Mobile pages plugin in WordPress and test using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Are WordPress Plugins Good for SEO?

Being an open-source software, WordPress offers a plugin library to expand and improve different use cases related to search engine optimization, website performance, and security. For example, you can choose an all-in-one plugin such as AIOSEO or Yoast SEO plugin, a cache plugin and an SSL plugin (to add an SSL certificate to your WordPress site.

However, due to the huge number of plugins, you need to ensure the plugin you choose meets your needs without compromising on website performance, security, or the functionality of other plugins you’re using.

When choosing the best plugin, get it from the list of plugins on WordPress.org. Read through user reviews to learn about the experiences other users had and also make sure that the plugin provider provides support for their customers.

Once you buy your plugin (or decide on a free plugin) and install it, monitor it to see if it negatively impacts website performance and address any emerging issues.

Use WordPress SEO to Boost your Content Rankings

Done right, WordPress SEO will move you closer to your content and SEO objectives. It’ll ensure your content shows up in search results for your readers.

It also helps you stand out among your competitors. If your content keeps showing up in the top search results, then readers know the solutions you provide must be what they need.

You’ll need to publish content that satisfies reader intent, make it accessible, create user-friendly URLs, optimize your site for mobile devices, and internally link your content to relevant content that readers need.

Along the way, you’ll need plugins to make your work easier. If you’re unsure which SEO plugin to start with, consider scaling your SEO campaign with Linkgraph’s SEO Content Assistant to help you implement the best practices we’ve covered.

About the Author:

Alex Birkett is the co-founder of Omniscient Digital, a premium content marketing & SEO agency. He lives in Austin, Texas with his dog Biscuit and writes at alexbirkett.com.

The post WordPress SEO Best Practices: 5 Tips for More Organic Traffic appeared first on LinkGraph.

Content pruning is all about removing any unnecessary content from your website, which can help your website rank higher in search engine results and can also improve user experience.

In this article, you will learn how to do content pruning for SEO, from identifying what needs to be pruned to taking steps to ensure that it’s done correctly. Keep reading to find out more.

What is Content Pruning?

Content pruning involves a thorough review of all content on a website to identify any content that could be seen as irrelevant or low quality from the perspective of search engine algorithms. Once identified, content pruning involves removing those low-quality pages from the website or replacing them with better content. 

A part of regular website maintenance is making sure that all of the content on the website is up-to-date and relevant to the website’s goals. This can help ensure that a website has content that is useful to its visitors and provides value to users who arrive from search engines. 

By removing low-quality or outdated content, websites can see improved search visibility for their highest-value, highest-converting web pages.

Why Remove Content From My Website?

Content production takes time and resources. So you may be wondering: Why remove content from my website after all the work it took to create it?

Although it may feel counterintuitive to your content strategy, content pruning can actually have major benefits to your search engine performance. This is even more true for websites that have a robust SEO content strategy and are publishing new web pages on a regular basis.

Some of those benefits include the following:

• Improve a website’s visibility by allowing search engines to index your best and highest-converting web pages
• Ensure visitors are presented with the most up-to-date information
• Provide higher-quality content and a better user experience
• Prevent visitors from seeing any low-quality pages
• Ensure your crawl budget is spent on rank-worthy content

Any content that sits on your websites that doesn’t pull its weight in either traffic or conversions isn’t actually bringing value to your business.

By taking the time to regularly prune their content, content managers can ensure that their website is performing at its best. That’s why sometimes content pruning is the right choice for your content strategy.

What Makes a Web Page Prunable?

Here are some of the qualities to look for when searching for content on your website that may need to be pruned.

Low-Quality

Bad content can have a negative impact on a website’s rankings. Low-quality content can include pages with duplicate content, thin content, or other qualities. It can also include pages that are not user-friendly or are low on useful information. Content pruning can help to identify and remove such pages, allowing search engines to easily index the more relevant, more quality content on the website.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is web pages with the same content or similar content that search engine crawlers do not identify as distinct. Google does not want to see duplicate content on a website unless it has been clearly identified as such via a canonical tag.

Thin Content

Thin content is often short-form content that doesn’t provide any real value to the user. Although there is no exact content length that Google privileges in search engine results, experiments have shown that longer, in-depth content tends to rank higher.

Most often, thin content can be combined with other pages on your website to provide a more comprehensive, in-depth answer to a topic, question, or keyword query. Combining content, or redirecting thin pages to more in-depth ones, are also a part of the content pruning process.

Outdated Content

The reality is, the content on our website will become outdated over time. This is why creating evergreen content is important, however, it’s unlikely that your long-form content will last forever without the need for updating. Trends, technologies, and knowledge will change, and web pages should include the most up-to-date, useful information for search engines. 

Also, outdated information can be confusing for visitors and lead to a poor user experience. Removing outdated content can ensure that visitors are presented with the most relevant and useful information.

Under-performing Content

If you have a web page on your website that does not get traffic or conversions, what value is it bringing your business? If the web page does not rank in search results, convert users, or is not a vital part of the buyer journey, it doesn’t really have a place on your website unless you take the time to improve its content.

How to Find Pages for Content Pruning

You can use the Page Pruning tool in the SearchAtlas dashboard to discover pages that may be eligible for content pruning.

To find the tool, navigate to Site Auditor > Page Pruning. 

This tool will show you any pages that are eligible for pruning due to a variety of reasons:

• Low organic impressions
• Low clicks
• Indexability
• Total ranking keywords
• Average position
• Content quality/scores

Remember, just because a page appears on this list doesn’t mean that it has to be pruned/deleted, but that it may be eligible based on its performance metrics.

Next Steps for Page Pruning

Once you have reviewed the software’s suggestions and confirmed that the pages are eligible for pruning, here are the next options for you to take.

1. Improve the Content on the Page

The underperformance of the page may rest in the fact that the content is thin or is not providing a comprehensive answer to the user’s questions. 

You can look to the “Boostable,” tab in the Page Pruning tool to identify those pages that just might need a slight content score boost.

The URLs that are listed here are already earning organic impressions but are not seeing as much success in organic traffic. Most likely, Google sees those pages as relevant but is not ranking them on the first page as a result of the content.  

You can use the SEO Content Assistant in your SearchAtlas dashboard to discover ways to strengthen and improve your content. Or, use the on-page audit tool to see what on-page elements may be impacting your performance.

Follow the guided suggestions for focus terms, headings, questions, and internal links. Include them on the page to make the content more rank worthy. 

2. Update the Content to be More Evergreen

If your content covers trends or keywords that have seasonal search volume, that may impact their underperformance.

Consider updating the content with more evergreen information so the content has a longer shelf life in the SERPs.

Also, make sure that the information on the page is up-to-date with accurate, relevant information. Over time, links may break or content may become outdated. Updating your blogs and articles every 1-2 years should be a part of your regular website maintenance.

3. Build Backlinks to the Page

If both the SEO Content Assistant and on-page content school confirm that your content has high scores and is rank-worthy, you may just need a bit more of a link boost.

Backlinks are Google’s number one ranking factor. If you don’t have very many backlinks pointing to your web page, that may be a reason why it is not ranking on the first page.

You can use the backlink research tool in your dashboard to see which of your web pages have the least amount of link equity.

Consider investing in a link-building campaign in order to improve the off-site signals of the content. Doing so is likely to improve the overall keyword rankings, impressions, and organic clicks.

4. Reoptimize the Page for a Different Keyword

Another possible explanation for your content’s poor performance may be keyword related. 

Some keywords are more competitive than others. If you optimized the page for a keyword that is out of reach, reoptimization may be your next step.

When choosing keywords for SEO, you want to make sure your website has a realistic chance of ranking for the target keyword. Websites with higher Domain Authority will stand a better chance of ranking for competitive keywords.

At LinkGraph, we suggest keywords that are less than or equal to your website’s Domain Authority.

So once you find a more realistic goal, optimize for that keyword instead. This will likely involve changing metadata, website copy, and headings on the page. But it can make a huge difference in improving organic performance.

5. Redirect the Page to a More High-Quality One

A page may be flagged for pruning because Google is ranking a more helpful piece of content on your website.

This is known as keyword cannibalization. It happens when two pieces of content are very similar and Google doesn’t know which to promote. If there is a page that is ranking less often but is similar in relevance, you can do your “content pruning,” by adding a 301 redirect from the less comprehensive page to the better performing. 

6. Combine Thin Content into a More Comprehensive Resource

If you have a series of pages that are thin on content but relate to a similar cluster of keywords, consider combining those pages into a more useful, long-form resource.

Why? Because Google likes to promote content that satisfies users’ search intent. That means not only answering their initial questions but all of the additional questions that might follow regarding that primary topic. 

So before giving up on that set of keywords entirely, combine those various pages into one page. Then, see if the overall keyword rankings improve.

7. Consider Removing the Page Entirely

This is the last step you want to consider after you have concluded that none of the above steps help to elevate content performance.

The reality is, if a piece of content is not driving website traffic, converting users, or an essential part of the buying journey, it doesn’t really deserve space on your website. 

Take the ultimate step and trim that content branch off your tree.

Conclusion

Making content pruning a regular part of your website maintenance is a good habit to get into. This is especially true for websites that publish a lot of content and have a robust SEO strategy.

You can also use the same SearchAtlas tools to scale up your content marketing and blog strategy. Connect with one of our product managers to learn more about our enterprise SEO software platform.

The post Content Pruning Guide for Content Managers and SEOs appeared first on LinkGraph.

But people hate ads. And 93% of online experiences start with an organic search. That means most people run to Google to help find what they are looking for. And let’s face it, they aren’t clicking on the ads.If you aren’t ranking at the top of those organic searches, you’re missing out on a big piece of the pie that could help grow your business.

In this guide, we’ll share six SEO strategy tips to drive business growth in 2023 and beyond.

Let’s dive in.

1. Enhance Website Speed and Usability

Before focusing on the nitty gritty of creating content and building links, it’s crucial to make sure your website is fast and easy to use.

After all, what’s the point of spending money, time, and energy on driving visitors to your website if it can’t handle the traffic you are generating? Or worse, providing a horrible experience that causes visitors to bounce immediately and lose trust in your brand?

When it comes down to it, if your site is slow to load, your visitors will leave your page in search of a faster answer. This action sends a negative signal to search engines, which can seriously impact rankings. Further, if your site has poor usability, like hard-to-navigate menus, or doesn’t scale properly on mobile devices, you guessed it, another negative signal.

Your website should load in three seconds or less on any given device. That’s the sweet spot.

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to test the current speed of your page. If your page is slow too load, Google will offer helpful suggestions to improve the performance.

For usability, focus on adding a search box to your website, so it’s easy for users to find what they are looking for. You can also create collapsible menus for display on mobile devices to clean up the look and feel of your site.

2. Zero in on Keyword Research

If you build it, they’ll come. Right?

Wrong. The internet is a black hole of information. And once you hit publish on your blog post, it enters into the deep abyss.

So how do you get your content to see the light of day? It all comes down to choosing the right keywords. What are users really searching for? That’s where you need to focus your attention.

Finding proper keywords that both relate to your product or service and align with what your audience is searching for is the bread and butter of a successful SEO strategy.

Take Nlyte, a company focusing on data management and infrastructure solutions, as an example. They do an excellent job creating simple FAQ pages that target competitive keywords such as “colocation data center” or “data center infrastructure” to provide value for the audience searching for more information about these terms.

Let’s look at some numbers to drive this concept home. One targeted keyword generates almost $10,000 worth of traffic value to their website.

What does that mean? $10,000 is the estimated monthly cost it’d take to generate the same amount of traffic using a paid search for that single keyword.

The takeaway? Writing helpful content around the proper keywords that resonate with your target audience is a surefire way to boost organic traffic for a fraction of the price of paid ads. It’s a no-brainer.

Use a Keyword Research Tool

Thankfully, there are plenty of SEO tools like SearchAtlas that help you streamline keyword research and identify high search volumes. But you don’t always want to target the most competitive keywords.

The secret sauce is finding the less competitive long-tail keywords that still have decent search volume. For example, the generic keyword “garden tools” has a keyword difficulty of 45 with 61,000 monthly searches, according to SearchAtlas. The more specific keyword “garden tools names” has a much lower keyword difficulty of 10 with 4,000 monthly searches.

Of course, the monthly search volume is much lower for “garden tools names,” but you’ll have an easier time ranking for this keyword and can quickly drive traffic to your site.

Rinse and repeat this process and watch the organic traffic come flooding in.

3. Align Content with Buyer’s Journey

Now that you have followed my SEO strategy tip of choosing fresh, hot keywords, it’s time to pump out the content.

As we mentioned, you can’t just build a few pages and expect to drive 100,000 qualified leads to your website every month.

People must be able to discover your website by searching for relevant keywords across all of the stages of their buying journey. To make that happen, you must publish high-quality content with relevant keywords for each step of the journey.

Suppose you are a fintech startup that provides a debit card for teens. You want your brand to appear as the first result in Google when parents start the search for banking options for their kids and also when teenagers decide to sign up for a debit card.

Here are some examples of content that you could publish to align with each stage of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness: A research report on how teenagers spend their money
• Consideration: An expert guide about the pros and cons of debit cards for teens
• Decision: A comparison post about your teen debit card features vs. those of your main competitor

Create and publish 5–10 pieces of high-quality content each month for the best results. If this doesn’t sound possible, try using a blog idea generator or other AI-based writing tools to help speed up the process.

Note that AI tools aren’t meant to replace writers completely. They do, however, speed up your workflows, help pull in topical relevance, and allow you to focus time on other critical growth areas.

4. Differentiate your Content in Search Results

Over 2.5 billion blog posts are published every year. And everyone is trying to land a spot on the first page of Google.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to differentiate your content in search results to drive better results.

If everyone is writing posts about the “XX Best Dining Tables,” simply creating another “XX Best Dining Tables” piece won’t help you stand out or rank well in search results.

Creating a rehashed version of what already exists is no longer the best way forward. Instead, focus on the topic vs. angle approach.

In this case, the topic is dining tables. The angle is the differentiator that helps you stand out from the crowd, rank higher on search engine results pages, and drive higher click-through rates.

Find a unique angle that puts you on the radar and encourages clicks:

• 2023 product comparison
• Beginner’s guide on how to choose the right dining table for your home
• Compare genuine customer reviews
• Interview interior design experts and rank the top dining tables based on your data

The key is to avoid restating what already exists online by adding new value to the topic from a different angle.

5. Prioritize On-Page SEO

Once you have content ready for publishing, you can start thinking about on-page factors that’ll play a contributing factor.

These include the URL, the title of your post or page, the meta description (a blurb describing what a page is about that appears under the link in search results), and image alt text.

On-page optimization can help search engine crawlers better understand your content and enhance the user experience. When people spend more time on your site, it increases their chances of converting into a customer.

URL String

Make sure to include your long-tail keyword in the URL string. For example, if you are writing a post about “what is a virtual receptionist” your URL should look like this: 

Keywords

When you write the introduction of your content, try to use the keyword you are targeting naturally. This will help search engines understand your article and reassure readers that they clicked on the correct link.

You can also use an optimization tool like the SEO Content Assistant. These tools are easy to use and can help improve the quality and relevance of your content for a given keyword and maximize the impact.

Image Alt Text

Adding alt text to your images is an easy way to tell search engines and screen readers more information. If you don’t include them, your images may not be crawled or understood by search engines.

Use simple phrases that describe the picture. Also, don’t stuff keywords in your alt text.

Internal Links

Internal links help search engines identify and organize your site’s content, connect related pages, and spread link authority.

External links can provide you with authority and credibility. Internal links help you distribute that authority across your site and create an interconnected web of content. They also give users helpful information and let search engines know how your web pages are connected.

Follow these simple steps for a results-driven internal linking strategy:

1. Scour pages on your site with quality backlinks (the most link juice) and create an internal link back to lower authority pages with relevance.
2. Focus on building internal links to pillar posts and hub pages.
3. Make sure all links are only three clicks away from the homepage.

Internal links are the workhorses that ensure that your site stays organized. Without proper internal links, Google has difficulty figuring out what page goes with what keyword and what pages on your website are related.

6. Invest in Link Building and Digital PR

Link building is a crucial component of ranking well on search engines. Links from other websites (external links) can signal to Google that your content is trustworthy and helpful to readers.

For example, as a travel startup, getting a mention from Travel and Leisure’s blog would be a reason to celebrate. But why?

Travel and Leisure is:

• A company that’s highly relevant to the travel industry
• The website has a high authority (recognizable brand that’s been around for a long time with lots of content and links )

When you gain an external link from sources like these, the site’s authority gets passed back to you.

With a few high-quality links from reputable sources, you can start to move the needle and improve your organic rankings. But it’s easier said than done, from guest posting to conducting studies or writing yearly reports to helping a reporter out (HARO).

All these tactics are tedious and time-consuming. If you don’t think you have the time or resources to pull this off, consider investing in link building services that can speed up the process and guarantee results. You won’t regret it.

Conclusion

Building a solid SEO strategy isn’t difficult, but it’s not easy either.

It requires maximum effort, consistent content creation, and ongoing tweaks.

But if you want to succeed online, don’t wait to follow these SEO strategy tips. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to rank and the longer it’ll take to see results. And you are opening the door for competitors to gain an advantage.

Start by familiarizing yourself with what your ideal customers are searching for and how to add value to their buyer’s journey. And then create, optimize, and distribute that content to improve your rankings.

And finally, this is your sign to invest in targeted PR and link building efforts so you can sit back, relax and watch the traffic on your site continue to climb.

About the Author: Guillaume is a digital marketer focused on handling the outreach strategy at uSERP and content management at Wordable. Outside of work, he enjoys his expat life in sunny Mexico, reading books, wandering around and catching the latest shows on TV.

The post 6 SEO Strategy Tips For Better Rankings in 2023 appeared first on LinkGraph.

Here are 14 ways to upgrade your content alongside your blog posts to increase lead generation

Content Upgrade #1: Use CTAs in Blog Posts

As mentioned in the introduction, if you’re not already putting CTAs in your blog posts, you really should be. CTAs compel readers to take action once they’ve read your blog to either find out more about the topic or to engage with your goods and services. Include links to other internal blog posts, or to a relevant service you can provide which is connected to the topic of the blog.

This is especially important when we consider that inbound links are one of the most important factors Google takes into account when ranking your website, and play a critical role in SEO.

Content Upgrade #2: Continued Content

Continued content is a type of exclusive content where you simply continue the blog post for email subscribers only. This increases lead generation by getting users to input their email addresses to read the full article. Sometimes, it’s a simple case of instead of writing a top 15 blog post, write a top 10 but include an extra 5 points in the email marketing campaign sent out to subscribers.

To do this effectively, you’ll need to include a CTA at the end of your blog post with an email subscription box informing readers they can have the rest of the blog sent directly to their email address.

Content Upgrade #3: Exclusive Discounts

If you have a landing page where your ultimate CTA is to sell a product, offering exclusive ‘members only’ discounts to email subscribers is a great way to increase lead generation.

The discounts don’t have to be huge – even 5-10% will be enough to get a portion of your readers to sign up with their email address. Nowadays, this is a common practice even in large companies to improve lead generation.

Content Upgrade #4: Cheat Sheets

Cheat sheets are an excellent form of content upgrade because it provides a huge amount of value to both you and your subscribers. These are especially useful for blogs surrounding practical topics such as coding. For example, you could create a cheat sheet of simple commands for a particular language such as Linux, meaning subscribers can use your simple cheat sheet in their day to day lives. Connecting this to a blog post about the topic it’s attached to is a great CTA and should drastically increase lead generation.

Content Upgrade #5: Checklists

Checklists, like cheat sheets, are a great way for your subscribers to practically engage with your content and to make their own lives easier. It also gives your audience an opportunity to keep themselves on track with whatever they’re working on with a list outlining every step they need to complete to achieve their goals.

Checklists are also a great way to show off your creativity and visual flair to customers by making an aesthetically pleasing piece of content which matches the style of your brand.

Content Upgrade #6: Taster Courses

If you’re offering some kind of course or service alongside your blog posts, why not curate a small, free course for your email subscribers to increase lead generation towards your paid courses?

The course could really take the form of anything – from e-books and video tutorials to an entire email series. You can also take this into account when thinking about what your course actually offers. For example, if your blog posts or company provides advice for start-ups you may want to offer a free email course on how to use social media marketing.

Content Upgrade #7: Printable PDF Guides

A great way to get your subscribers to practically engage with your brand is by sending printable planners, worksheets or goal trackers for them to fill in using pens and pencils. Although this may not be for everyone, if your business provides advice, goods or services for creatives it may just be the best option. 

The best place to start when creating a printable and downloadable PDF guide is to think about what people enjoy writing down or crossing off and how this could relate to your blog content. You can create even a basic Google Doc that they can print and use.

Content Upgrade #8: Audio Blogs

Multiple newspaper websites have already taken to providing audio options for readers who may be hard of sight or who need their eyes elsewhere while they listen. Giving your readers the option of listening to your blog posts rather than reading them is an excellent way to both boost inclusivity and capitalize on those who would rather listen than read.

Additionally, if your organization holds livestreams or webinars these can be re-uploaded and distributed to your customers via email. The easiest way to do this would be by uploading the content as an unlisted video to YouTube, meaning only those with the link from the email would have access to it.

Content Upgrade #9: Scripts Templates

Scripts are great for anyone looking to send out mass emails, or who email the same types of people very frequently. This could be super helpful for PR managers reaching out to journalists, or anyone who is struggling to find the right words for certain situations. 

A great way to implement this would be as a CTA on articles which are designed to target people who are new to a certain employment status, e.g. new PR managers or anyone else who needs to get to grips with the basics of their job.

Content Upgrade #10: Case Studies

Case studies are a great way to connect simultaneously with both customers and those on your email list. Showcasing your product or service’s success is a great way to increase lead generation, since it shows customers exactly how your product or service could be used in situations that may be similar to their own. 

Case studies are usually accessible on an organization’s website, but using them as a way to generate leads is also a really smart idea.

Content Upgrade #11: Challenges

Another interactive way to improve lead generation is through challenges. This could be through email or done via avenues such as Facebook groups so everyone can participate and interact with one-another. This works great as a CTA in a blog post dedicated towards a certain goal, such as increasing your email list to X amount of people or creating a certain amount of content within a certain time. 

This simultaneously allows your readers to connect with you as a creator whilst creating a fun and productive challenge to generate new leads and email signups. As a challenge reward, your readers can also get bonus content such as free templates or checklists.

Content Upgrade #12: Infographics

Creating infographics might sound a bit daunting, but infographics can be made relatively easily using certain graphic design tools such as Canva or Visme. Infographics are great for providing statistics and quotes in a visually appealing style, and the format is easy-to-understand and digestible. 

Infographics can also be used for data visualization using charts and graphs to share significant numbers and data points. These can be shared as a CTA at the end of a blog post, telling the reader that if they sign up to the email newsletter they can find all of the statistics behind your blog post in one place.

Content Upgrade #13: Ebooks

Free ebooks are an excellent way to provide further information on a relevant topic covered in a blog post. As a CTA, they can be useful in persuading people who want to learn more about the topic to subscribe to your email list. The great thing about these is they can be as long or as short as you want – there really is no standard length for an ebook (you can also write a mini ebook 🙂

Content Upgrade #14: Free Trial

Free trials are used ubiquitously across all industries, and for good reason. Giving customers a sneak peek into content they could have access to for a monetary fee makes them more likely to pay for the full experience. Even if your organization offers a free version of the paid product, giving email subscribers access to the full experience is a great way to increase your conversion rate and convert free users to paid users.

Increasing your Business’s Lead Generation with Content Upgrades

These 14 content upgrade ideas should be enough to give your business all it needs, get more lead magnets and improve lead generation efforts. Better CTAs in your blog posts combined with more people signing up to your mailing list should drastically improve your organization’s lead generation abilities.

About the Author: Romana Hoekstra is a Content Marketing Lead at Leadfeeder, a B2B visitor identification software that tracks and identifies companies that visit your website. Currently, she is leading the remote-first content marketing team and crafts high-performing content marketing strategies with a focus on organic growth, SEO, high-quality content production & distribution. You can connect with Romana on Linkedin.

The post 14 Content Upgrades That’ll Skyrocket Your Lead Generation appeared first on LinkGraph.