SEO Archives - FableSquare

5 keyword and SEO essentials for blogs

by Harshitha K | Nov 12, 2019 | SEO, Blog optimisation

While searching for content on search engines, information seekers look for a variety of keywords. Marketers and bloggers need to understand the various audience types, nature of the content to be created while keeping in mind the key messages of the brand. It is also true that if your content is relevant and exceptional, being located by users on search engines is not a herculean task. But in some cases, a blog loaded with facts and figures might still not make the cut and reach the top of SERPs.

Now the challenge is, how to rank organically high in the SERPs?

While it isn’t rocket science, it also isn’t a piece of cake. SEO experts use a variety of strategies to get their blogs to rank well. Below are some essentials to attract organic traffic to your blogs –

Capitalize on most ranked keywords

At times, you might end up incorporating a few crucial keywords in your copy without a hint that they can get you traffic. Those alone will not suffice to help you get organic traffic. Many keyword research tools equip you with the most searched keywords relevant to your topic. It saves you much time if you can learn what type of keywords are being searched for by your audiences. All you have to do is incorporate those keywords effectively and appropriately in your copy.

Populate keywords consistently

If SEO was simple, your text could’ve been a winner with repetitive keywords throughout. But that is meaningless and lacks a message, and search engines generally ding such websites. Once you have recognised keywords that can potentially make way to organic traffic, use those keywords consistently in your copy but be careful not to overuse them. Meaningfully include long-tail and short-tail keywords by attaching factual and informational value to your copy. You can play with keywords in the title, paragraphs, anchor text, meta description. Please do not engage in keyword stuffing, as some policies by Google dictate that they be adequately used.

Make your blog design-heavy

Content alone will not appeal to your audiences. Imagery, videos and graphic elements bring colour to your blog. These elements can easily keep your viewers engaged. While uploading your images on the blog, be sure to include the keywords in the name of the file. Fill the alt text with a brief description of the image. This might seem like a minuscule effort towards SEO, but it adds immensely.

Link other relevant articles

To increase traffic to your blogs, identify other prevailing blogs that are related to the subject on your blog. By doing this, you might attract the attention of a fellow blogger who has a better online presence. If you’re fortunate enough, you might even receive backlinks. Some sites might link your blog in theirs, and this will be rewarding as it helps to climb up the SERP ladder.

Your older articles might come in handy

If you are a blogger who writes about diverse subjects, then you must also be one that writes multiple articles on the same topic, which would work to your advantage as you can link an article previously written by you to another blog on a similar subject. That way, you are generating more traffic within your blog by redirecting your audiences to other blogs on the same content bucket.

The idea behind optimizing blog content is to be discovered on leading search engines and possibly find a spot on the first page of the SERPs. Presence on second or third pages of the search results is neither visible to the audiences, or is it beneficial to you. Through keyword optimization, your blogs are likely to receive more traffic, given that SEO practices are diligently implemented.

How to Write a Great Meta Description?

by Mangal Karnad | Oct 3, 2019 | SEO

Meta Description FSQ

Shopping!!!

Who doesn’t love shopping!?

Imagine yourself in a busy shopping street. How do you decide which shop you should buy from?

In retrospect, you realize you make the decision sub-consciously by just looking at the clothes on display. The shop whose mannequins have worn eye-catching clothes, that’s where you are headed.

Find the prime spot of the street, pay rents for large spaces which cost an arm and a leg, hand-pick designer couture and top quality clothing. All this goes to no avail if you finally, disregard the clothes you choose to display in the display window or visual merchandising.

Quoting Linkin Park, “in the end, it doesn’t even matter!”

You have lost the interest of your potential customer and they are your rivals’ now!

If we are on the same page by now, my intent of selling the idea of a Meta Description will be an absolute breeze.

Oh, wait! Let me first tell you what a Meta Description is.

A Meta Description is a snippet of 155-160 characters which appear in the search engine results page [SERP] diligently crafted to convey the essence of the website, or a blog.

Meta Description is also called as Meta Tag as the description is placed at the websites’ header segment as an HTML tag instead of being on the page as shown below,

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”- Will Rogers

This quote sums up how imperative a meta description is. It can make or break a website!

There is no point in fighting tooth and nail to get to the top of SERP and not giving the audience a reason enough to check you out.

Doesn’t everything I rambled about shopping earlier make sense to you now??

An unappealing meta description directly affects the click-through rate [CTR]. CTR directly affects the search engine optimization [SEO] factors. Thus, a lousy meta description can indirectly make a website drop down in the SERP [Search Engine Results Page].

Did you know that most of the social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter use meta descriptions of the website as the description of the post when the website is shared on their sites?

You could choose between capitalizing on these sites by penning down an enticing meta description and letting the sites pick haphazard text which could hamper the user experience.

Now that you’ve learnt how paramount meta descriptions are, let me describe how to craft a great meta description.

Have the right length.

160 characters and not 1 more. Characters following the 160^th get chopped off, leaving your audience bewildered. Not so nice, is it?

Genuinely summerise the content of the website, a blog or a webpage.

A fake meta description can annoy your user making him leave the website. This will adversely affect the bounce rate and in turn SEO ranking. Let me give you a heads-up that Google will not display the meta description of websites which do not match its content.

Brownie points if you manage to include the keywords in your meta description.

The keywords get bolded in the SERP which will catch your audiences’ eye. That does not imply that you fill it with keywords. Such meta descriptions will come off spammy which is just not what we want. It should be written for humans and not search engines.

Use your words wisely.

A meta description can be anything but ordinary and should have visit-my-website written all over it. An emotionally appealing meta description can drive traffic like there is no tomorrow.

Contain call to action [CTA].

Phrases, like find out more, learn more, try for free, download now, will persuade the user to give your website a chance.

Don’t you mess with Google by copying somebody else’s meta description.

Google will replace it with random text from your website to make it look unique and to offer what it is best-known for, unmatched user experience.

Richen your meta description.

You could lure your audience by including special offers, product specifications, customer ratings, calling out popular brands, showcasing yourself and more.

Don’t use double quotation marks.

Google cuts off that meta description at double quotes. You could play safe by steering clear of all non-alphanumeric characters. In case the double quotes are unavoidable, you could use the HTML entity.

It is sometimes okay to skip meta descriptions.

Yes, you read it right. If your website is a search result for more than 3 keywords, your best bet is to let the search engines naturally populate its meta description as they display the keywords and its surrounding phrases without detracting the relevance.

When all’s said and done, you can be certain that a conscientiously written meta description is an instrument you could use to rule the marketing world by transforming your website into a clickbait.

WHICH IS BETTER – SEO OR CONTENT MARKETING?

by Mangal Karnad | Aug 5, 2019 | Content Marketing, SEO

SEO vs. Content Marketing

I think you would agree with me when I say:

You want your website to be a High ranking Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website with loads of traffic coming in.

Let me tell you what SEO and Content Marketing are

SEO is short for search engine optimisation. It is the process of improving the Content on a website to make sure people can easily find it via search. The fact is, an SEO friendly website is at the top of the page (high ranking) of the search result (SERP) unless there is a promoted result (which is an ad) at the top.

Content Marketing is the creation of relevant content and making it available to the target audience, so as to inform and engage them.

How are SEO and Content Marketing interlinked?
Create value for the reader:

There are some misconceptions about SEO. SEO is no more about keyword stuffing. Ranking a website was relatively easy in the past; the practice was to look for keywords which had the highest search volume and use them in the website content liberally. While stuffing keywords tricked the search engines, the content became unnatural and less enjoyable to read.

Now, the focus has shifted to creating informative and meaningful content around the keyword.

Establish Subject Matter Expertise with Content Marketing:

Moreover, this is where content marketing comes into play. Content Marketing – is the creation and sharing of information (Content) in the form of blogs, infographics, case studies, infographics and videos that educate the prospects. The Content is placed on the website and strategically shared on various platforms as people consume content from different platforms.

Content marketing not only helps you build your brand’s awareness but also helps in establishing your subject matter expertise.

Leverage content for better SEO:

Creating useful, informative Content consistently will help improve SEO. Using relevant keywords in the right context will also enhance user experience and make them visit the website directly and often. Direct website visits are one of the critical aspects of Search Engine Optimisation.

Create relevant and informative Content:

Write interesting Content and internally link your website. Internal links are links that provide more information on the topic form another page in the same site. When visitors dwell, spending more time reading and browsing multiple pages, the bounce rate is bound to reduce. If enough people spend time reading, Google will make it easier to find by up ranking that piece of content.

Backlinks establish authority:

Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage. When your content is authoritative, and readers benefit from it, they refer to your site with a backlink.

Make your Business Discoverable:

While Good SEO practices help your content to be found by consumers who search for it, great content helps improve your SEO results. These two are a marketer’s compelling tools.

SEO is all about ranking high on search indexes. Creating fresh and valuable content frequently will help improve SEO ranking. SEO and content marketing work hand and glove, and are both essential to make your website (and hence the business) discoverable.