Showing posts with label Advice for bloggers. Show all posts

Blogging: Off-Page SEO Checklist

Exploring Search Engine Ranking with Off-Page SEO Strategies

Search engines are a powerful source of traffic for blogs so optimising your blog for SEO is important.

Whilst On-Page SEO plays a significant role in search engine ranking Off-Page SEO is equally, if not more, important.

Disclosure: The FTC Disclosure Provision is a law that requires influencers to disclose when they are being paid to promote a product or service. So please know that if I'm not making money through affiliate links/sponsored content on the post you're currently reading, it's an oversight on my part and will be corrected soon. Read the full disclosure about all the legal stuff here.

A Guide to Off-Page SEO

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO is basically your site's reputation. It's the stuff outside of your website that tells Google and other search engines that your site is worth visiting. As such, it plays a huge part in your site's ability to rank.

What kind of tactics are part of Off-Page SEO?

These are just some of the tactics you can use as part of your Off-Page SEO strategy:

Link building
Guest posting
Social media
Brand mentions
Reviews/Testimonials
Quotes

Off-Page SEO Techniques

Link Building

Link building (also known as backlinks) is when other sites link to your site.

When it comes to backlinks there are two factors that get taken into consideration 1) Quantity - A site with a lot of backlinks is seen to have more authority by Google. 2) Quality - If the sites that are including a link to your site are themselves considered to be trusted and reliable site then the impact for your own site is greater.

Guest posting

Guest posting is when you create a post that is published on another site. You are a guest on their site.

Guest posting is a great way to get in front of a new audience and can offer a range of benefits including; quality backlinks to your own site, increasing traffic to your site, and a boost to your rank on search engines. It's also a great way to increase general brand awareness.

Semrush has covers a lot of information in their post How to Guest Post for SEO in 2024. Well worth reading as is explains the pro's and con's of guest posting so you can make sure you're doing it the right way.

You might also find reasons to collaborate with other bloggers useful reading.

Social media

Whilst it doesn't directly impact your search engine ranking social media can have an influence on the overall SEO of your site.

Social media can increase visibility for your site, drive more traffic, and even have an impact on engagement. It also gives a way for others to discover your content and include backlinks to your blog posts on their own sites. All of this can help increase the search engine ranking.

Brand mentions

Brand mentions is when someone else talks about your brand. This could be by mentioning you on social media or in a blog post.

Brand mentions help with SEO because Google considers them implied links even if there's no actual url included.

A simple way to find out who is mentioning you is to do a search for your brand name. You can also set up Google alerts to email you whenever a new mention is posted.

Reviews/Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials are important for SEO because they help build trust and credibility.

Testimonials are more powerful than ads as it's other people saying how great you are. If those testimonials also include keywords related to your brand and site even better! Not only will it help your search engine ranking but it could also help increase your DA Score.

Quotes

Being quoted in someone else's blog post, website or even social media is fantastic from an SEO point of view. It's showing that what you have to say has value and adds to the conversation. As such is can have a positive effect on traffic, reputation, and credibility.

Webma has a great blog post SEO Effects of Quoting? Explaining the Correct Quoting Methods in Blog Articles with loads of information about the correct way to use citations and effect they have on SEO.

What Off-Page SEO methods have been most effective for your blog?

If you're a book blogger and interested in SEO specific to book reviews, check out SEO for Book Bloggers: How to Improve SEO for Book Reviews

If you're interested in On-Page SEO strategies other posts you might find useful include; Want To Increase Your Blog Traffic? Ways To Upgrade Old Blog Posts and Things That Should Be In Every Blog Post

You might also be interested in the post E-A-T and Blogging in 2025: Why It Matters and How Bloggers Can Improve Their Content

Looking for more simple tips? Blogging is a journey, and you don’t have to do it alone. If you're ready to grow your site without the overwhelm, head over to my beginner-friendly blogging resource hub for more easy-to-follow advice and guides

Blogging

Things You Should Do AFTER You Publish a New Blog Post

You've just published a new blog post. Now what?

In this post I'll be sharing a checklist of things to do after publishing a blog post.

Check the blog post

This might seem like an obvious thing to do but it's a step that is often overlooked. No matter how many times I check my posts before publishing, there's often a little error that makes it through. You can never proof read a post enough!

You might also like: Things You Can Do To Grow Your Blog This Weekend

Share your blog post

Share on social media

This is quick and easy to do if you have social share buttons on your blog. Just click and post to your various social media profiles like a reader would do.

It is a good idea to create platform specific posts to your individual social media profiles though as these will probably get better results in the sites algorithms. It also looks more professional.

Share on Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the best sites for pulling in traffic long term. Pins have a much longer lifespan than standard social media sites. That means that your pins will keep pushing traffic to your blog post weeks, months and even year later.

I personally create multiple pins for every blog post and pin them to different boards over time. It has proved to be one of my best strategies for growing my blog.

Share to Facebook groups

There are still a huge number of Facebook groups for promoting blog content. Don't spam random groups though. You should be an active member of the groups you share to and give support to others in the group too.

Also make sure you follow the rules for each group. Some have specific threads for sharing blog posts on. Others let you post directly to the group wall.

Join Link ups

Find regular link ups that match your content topic. Again follow the rules and try to show support to the other bloggers taking part.

Submit to round ups

Another way to share your content, potentially with a new audience, is to submit your blog post url to round ups. Again, follow the rules, show support, and make sure your content is on topic for that particular round up.

I run a monthly round up for book bloggers via my Twitter profile. There are 3 very simple rules in order to take part and all book bloggers are welcome to join in. Posts must, of course, be related to books and book blogging.

You might also like: How To Get Over 1000 Views To Your Blog Every Day

Create internal links

Internal links are a great way to keep readers on your blog and reduce bounce rate. They make it easy for visitors to jump from one post to another when on site. They also do wonders for SEO.

When you publish a new blog post go through older blog posts and see which would be good to connect with your new content. For example, if you do a new blog post about a book written by an author and you've already done a review for another of that authors books in the past link up the posts.

Answer comments

Having an engaged comments section is not easy. Getting readers to comment on posts is something that the majority of bloggers struggle with. When you do get comments it's even more important therefore that you reply to them.

Look for Backlinks

Backlinks is when other blogs link to yours and they are SEO gold! Search engines like Google take quality backlinks into account as part of their algorithm when ranking content. The more quality backlinks you have the better.

Having quality backlinks to your site will also increase your overall DA score.

When you publish a new blog post do a search for other people's blog posts connected to your topic. Contact them to see if they would be willing to include a link to your content in their blog post.

You might also like: Ways To Improve Your Blog DA Score

Check analytics

I love viewing my the stats for my blog. I find it really interesting to see what is working and what isn't. By checking your analytics you get a better feel for the sort of content your readers are looking for and can better understand your audience.

You might also like: Things That Should Be In Every Blog Post

Can you think of others things you should do after you publish a new blog post? What do you do for your own content? Join in the conversation in the comments section below.

If you'd like to support me, donating goes a long way to helping with the running of this blog. Thanks for your support 💗

Donate now

Blogging

8 Ways To Grow Your Blog Readership

Growing your blog readership is an essential goal for any blogger looking to expand their online presence, engage with a wider audience, and turn their passion into a thriving community. Whether you're just starting out or seeking new strategies to increase your reach, there are several effective ways to grow your blog's readership. From optimizing your content for search engines to building connections with other bloggers and using social media to your advantage, the possibilities are endless.

We all want to grow our blog readership. Today I'm going to take you through a few strategies to help increase your blog traffic and gain more readers. Whether you're looking to increase your daily views or turn random visitors into followers this is the post for you.

You might also like: How To Get Over 1000 Views To Your Blog Every Day

How to get more readers for your blog posts

1. High Quality Posts

Quality content is a must. When writing a blog post keep in mind that your content is for your readers and as such should offer them some kind of value, whether it's giving them specific information, tips, or solving a problem.

Try to make your blog posts are the highest possible quality, not just in terms of what you write but also in how you present it.

2. Regularly Share New Content

Search engines pay attention to fresh content but readers also want new content. Make sure you post new content regularly to your blog to keep readers coming back for more.

3. Write great titles

The right title can make a huge difference in capturing the interest of readers. What is really comes down to is giving the reader a reason why they should want to read your blog post. What will they gain from reading your content?

There are lots of different types of titles you can use to grab a readers attention;

Numbered- Titles including numbers tend to do really well. A number of tips, a number of steps it takes to solve a problem, or a top selection e.g. Top 10 are all examples of numbered titles you could try.
How To- Readers are often looking for solutions to their problems. How to guides and tutorials are a great way to identify their problem and give them answers.
Triggers curiosity- Pull the reader in enough to make them want to click and find out more about the content.
Question- When readers are looking for answers they often search by typing in the question they want answered. Use that to your advantage. By using the question as your title you've created the perfect hook to make them want to discover what information you have that could benefit them.

4. SEO!

If you've been here before you know I'm a bit obsessed with SEO. When it comes to proven ways to get more traffic to your blog Search Engine Optimization is always high on any list, and with good reason. Good SEO will have Google and other search engines sending more traffic to your blog posts long term making it one of the best strategies in terms of return on invest for blog traffic.

Use internal SEO to optimize your blog posts so they include keywords, meta descriptions, internal and external links, and image optimization.

Also pay attention to technical SEO by checking things like page loading speed, making sure your blog is mobile friendly, etc...

You might also like: Ultimate Guide to SEO for Book Bloggers

5. Be active on Social Media

It's not enough to just publish new content. You have to let people know about too. Social media is one of the easiest ways to reach a large audience quickly.

Social media gives your readers an opportunity to interact with your brand that fits with their regular activity e.g. scrolling social media feeds. Over time, social media can therefore help you build a relationship with your audience and increase general awareness about your blog.

Also make sure you're optimizing your social media profiles to drive more traffic to your blog e.g. by completing your about information and linking to your blog.

6. Make sure it's easy to share your content

When readers come across a great article they are likely to want to share it with others that might also find it interesting. Make it quick and easy for them to do so by adding social share buttons on all your blog posts. This way your readers will help you gain more readers... and we all know that word of mouth is the best kind of publicity out there!

7. Use Calls To Action

Calls-To-Action or CTAs as they are often called, as a great tool for directing your reader to their next step. The type of CTA you use will depend on what action you want them to take. Hubspot has a great post that breaks down different types of CTAs that I recommend checking out.

For the purpose of this blog post, ways to grow your readership, the goal is;

to get visitors to your blog to read more of your content
to get visitors to become return visitors
to get visitors to tell other people to visit your blog

Keeping this in mind, you'll want to use CTAs that serve that purpose e.g. "if you liked this you might also like this other post I did" or "Share this post now using the social share buttons below".

8. Have a user friendly blog design

Make sure your blog design is user friendly. That means that it should be easy to read and navigate.

The more easy and enjoyable their visit, the more likely readers are to come back.

A few things to consider include; keep it simple, break up text with images and white space, avoid clutter, and use the right colours to aid readability.

Additionally, if you have some blog posts that regularly bring in big traffic to your blog you might want to consider highlighting them in the side bar as they have already proved popular with visitors to your blog.

Conclusion

I hope these strategies will help you boost traffic, engage readers, and grow your blog’s following.

A wonderful thing about blogging is that if a post isn't getting the traffic you hoped for you can always rewrite it and republish it. I'm always going through older posts and updating them. This can be as simple as adding new graphics or a more detailed rewrite of the entire post.

You might also like: Want To Increase Your Blog Traffic? Ways To Upgrade Old Blog Posts

You might also like: Things You Can Do To Grow Your Blog This Weekend

If you'd like to support me, donating goes a long way to helping with the running of this blog. Thanks for your support 💗

Donate now

Blog Audit Challenge 2020

Welcome back for the final month of challenges for the Blog Audit Challenge 2020!

I hope you did well with the November challenges. Remember to link up your progress reports in the Link Up on the 5th December.

Each month we'll concentrate on a different area of our blogs.

Life is strange for most of us this year with Coronavirus, Lock-downs, etc... If you fall behind with the monthly tasks don't worry. Just catch up when you can. This challenge lasts the whole year.

The Challenges:

January- Plan of action

February- Information pages

March- The trimmings

April- Design

May- SEO

June- Links

July- Quality content

August- Content gaps

September- Developing readership

October- Get social

November- Press and collaborations

December- Know your stats

Monthly link ups

In order to keep us all on track, and give us a way to see each others progress, I'll be hosting link ups on the first Saturday of every month where participants can share their links and discuss their progress.

#BlogAuditChallenge2020

December Challenges

We did it! We're now in the home stretch. Thank you to those of you that have joined me in this adventure over the course of this year. This month we'll be taking a closer look at how we've progressed during the Blog Audit Challenge 2020.

You guessed it, our focus for December is on know your stats.

The December challenges:

1. Check your analytics

Whilst most blogging platforms have their own built in stats section where you can view pageviews etc... taking a more in-depth look at the analytics of your site can work wonders. Google Analytics is free to use and offers some great insight into the workings of your site. Check your stats with them here: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/

Yes pageviews are important. Increasing the traffic to your site should be one of your top priorities as a blogger. Having good traffic to your blog can be a great way to secure sponsorship and other benefits too so the higher the better.

Pageviews aren't the only stat you should be looking at though. Another important stat you should consider is the session duration of your visitors. How long are people staying on your site when they visit? Again, the higher the better. You want to keep your bounce rate to a minimum, and ideally have visitors clicking from one blog post to another... to another.

If you remember we discussed this back in the June challenges when our topic for the month was targeted to links. A good place to check to see what internal links are working on your blog is the "user flow" which will show you the post that brought the visitor to your blog and which posts they then clicked on from there up until they left your site. Once you do this you will then know which older posts you can improve to increase session duration for your site.

You might also like: Want To Increase Your Blog Traffic? Ways To Upgrade Old Blog Posts

With analytics you can go further into demographics of your visitors, interests, location, the technology they use to view your site, and more. All of which is information you can use to improve your blog.

If you're new to analytics, or even if you've used it before, I suggest taking at least the beginners course offered by Google at Analytics Academy. It's completely free, doesn't take much time to do, and teaches quite a lot about the different elements of the analytics dashboard, why they are important and how to use them. You can even earn yourself a free certificate of completion to add to your CV. Here's mine:

Google Analytics for Beginners certificate of completion for Jo Linsdell

2. Use your stats to plan for the new year

Where is your traffic coming from?

Which are your most popular blog posts?

Which are your least popular posts?

How can you improve your bounce rate and user flow?

Is your blog mobile friendly?

What worked? What didn't?

Use what you've learnt during the Blog Audit Challenge 2020 and from studying your blog statistics to build a solid plan for your blog for 2021.

3. Plan your content calendar for January

Map out the blog posts you intend to create for publishing to your blog in January so you can start the new year with a bang. You can of course, plan further months too if you wish.

Take into consideration information like "which days get the most traffic" when scheduling posts for publication.

Also consider how you promote your blog posts and use social media to build your blog brand. Think about what changes you could make, new sites you could try out, etc...

You might also like: 108 Book Blogs To Follow

Free downloads: You can grab copies of all the extra materials for the Blog Audit Challenge 2020 for free here.

Save the Date!

The monthly link up post for sharing your December progress will be on January 2021.

You might also like: Exploring CTA's: Different Types of Calls To Action To Use in Your Blog Posts

Don't forget to promote your participation in the Blog Audit Challenge 2020 by using the following graphic in any blog posts you do connected with the challenge along with a link back to this site.