Download our Optimization Checklist for SEO
There are two reasons why internet marketers never reach their full potential with SEO:
One, they give up too early in the promotion stage.
Two, they don't test and optimize their rankings.
Today, I want to talk to you more about the latter - adding that "Extra Mile SEO" into your workflow.
We'll be listing out some quick tactics for you to employ right away once you start getting a trickle of traffic.
What You Will Learn Today
Increase your readers engagement
Increase your click-through-rate
Scaled content promotion
Attracting influencers audiences
Content syndication to social networks
3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Time On Page
Low bounce rates and a long visitor session are indications of highly relevant and quality content to Google. User engagement is one of the top 3 factors Google considers.
Here are three ways to increase engagement:
Adding a video, testing your opt-ins, and creating "buckets" in your words.
Adding a video should already be in your checklist, if it's not then add it. Youtube is full of specific videos on every subject.
Your opt-in's are supposed to be highly relevant to the visitor. If you notice a low amount of subscribers - it might be because your site wide opt-in isn't relevant for every category and page - if so, try and upgrade your content with something more specific to give away.
Once a user makes one click on your page, they've performed an action which reduces the bounce rate percentage.
Buckets (or Bucket Brigades) is a classic term copywriters use to keep your readers engaged through the sales page. It helps to keep your thorough readers entertained and it also helps the skimmers find exactly what they're looking for.
Which usually increases the likelihood of skimmers to read the full article.
In fact the above sentence "So try to increase engagement by:" is the bucket brigade.
I try to keep them like mini headlines and with that, provide at least one benefit on why the reader should pay attention. We talked about headline optimization in our On Page SEO article.
Get More Clicks by Adjusting Your Descriptions
This is a tactic I first heard from Neil Patel's blog:
Increase your click-through-rate (CTR) by changing the meta descriptions and title. Base their importance on both search volume and the impressions you already receive.
Organize the pages by Impressions and look to see what searches you're showing up for. If it's really specific, try and incorporate those exact words into your meta description or title and...
Inspire people to Click Through with a Call To Action!
Google also gives you hints too. Click the icon beside the "search appearance" menu link and you'll get a pop-up. Click around and see the advice they give you for improving CTR.
You can combine this strategy with another from Brian Dean's SEO copywriting post.
Steal Adwords Descriptions from successful marketing funnels.
If your niche has plenty of advertisers, look at their ads and use them for inspiration. Many of them have excellent click-worthy titles and great call-to-actions.
Commit to a One-to-Many Approach for Content Promotions
I'm always trying to get more links for Human Proof Designs through anything that's scalable and automated.
And recently I stumbled upon this:
One of the best places to spread your content is Pinterest.
Check out our Pinterest Profile here.
We've automated a lot of the work and have grown social traffic from Pinterest substantially.
One of the best things about Pinterest is the "Group Boards". These are similar to Facebook groups, but people are encouraged to share content and it doesn't look spammy.
There are rules of course, but in general, it's giving you access to a larger audience in your niche and the general stats on Pinterest users is that they are at a higher income level.
All plus' for us.
In a past interview with Hayden Miyamoto from No Hat Digital, he talks about a scaled outreach approach of using Flickr to get multiple links back to his sites from releasing "creative commons" images for free.
So long as they provide a link back their site.
It's very similar to the infographic approach. Where lots of people are now using infographics to promote their content.
And if you want to step into a little grey hat SEO, you can even embed other people's infographics into your own content (while providing a link of course) - but using other people's graphics to promote your content.
Tell Influencers How Much You Love Their Work by Creating Top Lists
What are top lists?
Simply, they're roundup posts of the "best people to follow in.." your niche.
It's a fairly simple concept but you can go a step further and introduce a reward as well.
The reward can be as simple as a badge for the influencers to use on their own site to prove they're top of class.
People have even been known to create scholarships as a link building strategy. Hoping to increase the amount of ".edu" sites pointing to them.
Link building should be a creative process that turns into a standard procedure once it's nailed down.
Syndicate Your Content Through Medium, LinkedIn, or Facebook.
If you are worried about having content out there that's all the same, don't worry too much.
Google isn't going to penalize you for having the same great article in multiple places.
But it's a good rule of thumb would be to only syndicate your content to 3 different sites. Including the original site.
Syndicating content is a very normal and used by huge businesses like Forbes and Time Magazine.
Just be mindful that:
This really only works if you aren't using a persona. So if you are the face of your site, then go ahead and pop up your best content into LinkedIn.
The authority that comes with these social networks will be applied to your content and not only will it show up in front of audiences there - it will also get a bump in search engines too.
I would try and only syndicate content in places where you have control.
Simply because Google isn't going to let you know which of the versions they'll show. So instead of promoting someone else's site, at least place your content in a place that is essentially your own profile - just on a social network.
Because at any point, if your post is ranking but it's on LinkedIn - you can switch out some links as well and spread the traffic.
People have also been known to pump up their syndicated posts by using tiered linking strategies. This lays more into the black hat SEO so we won't go down that hole.
The main point is that your articles can rank in Google on other people's platforms too.
Download our Optimization Checklist for SEO
As I mentioned earlier, link building is creative so take these 5 strategies and expand on them further.
Google and other site owners will always reward white hat creativity.
Knock out each strategy one by one and I guarantee you will come up with a few more to test out.
If you haven't yet started your niche site, I encourage you to take a look at the training that comes with each of our "done-for-you" affiliate sites.
The post What is “Extra Mile SEO” and Why Do You Need It? appeared first on Human Proof Designs.