3 Simple SEO Steps To Rank Fast

About five weeks ago I wrote a series of blog posts detailing my attempts to rank for an SEO related phrase. It took 72 hours to get on page one and then by doing nothing it went to the no.2 spot and stayed there.

Step 1. Write some good content

The era of getting a bunch of backlinks to a target page is over. Sure there are still some instances where it still works for but for the most part good content will win out. How do you define “Good” content though? For me I use these criteria.

Good SEO content

• Write something that someone else will want to read! Not some keyword bloated useless piece of nonsense.
• Use your keywords in your title, URL and use headings where appropriate.
• Use images if appropriate to the content and use your keywords to describe them. The image below has keywords in its filename, alt tag and caption. If someone couldn’t see the image how would you tell them what it is? Describe it.

  

• Make sure you are using Google authorship on all the content you publish. Just look at the above screenshot if you had any doubt.

Step 2. Write some more content

Write more than a single article on a subject. In my case I wrote follow up articles detailing my experience and linked back to the original article. How many products or services do you have? How many case studies can you cite? Once you’ve written this content, how can you link it together to give the user a more in depth understanding on the topic?

Step 3. Write for the reader

We’ve been saying this for years. Create content for your audience not the bot. Google says that too right? They leave out one piece of crucial information though. Don’t ignore the bot. Create great content and make sure you use your keywords where appropriate and link to resources that are useful to your readers. If you are having trouble understanding this you may want to download my free presentation on SEO 101 that I delivered at a conference earlier this year. (See what I did there?)

Jim

Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.