SEO Tricks to Increase Organic Traffic

I started my website, Wordsopedia, in January 2021. I had been writing short stories, poems, and articles for a year before that, and the desire to collate them all under one roof inspired me to have a site of my own.  As a newbie to the world of blogs and websites, there was so much I did not know, but thankfully, I learned and grew as part of the journey.

One of the biggest lessons has been in terms of how to bring more traffic to my site. In the first year of my blogging journey, I had 2k visitors to my site.

Whereas I have already had 3.4k visitors this year, despite a lack of active engagement on the site from June to August. We still have 3.5 months remaining this year, and I hope to achieve much higher traffic by the end of the year.

So, what made this change happen? Well, I took the help of a magical tool called SEO.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization involves indexing and fine-tuning the contents of a website so that it gets more organic traffic and ranks higher in search results. There are various ranking factors involved in this process, like domain age, keywords appearing in the top domain, domain registration length, page factors, site-level factors, etc.

Of course, SEO is an ocean and only when one digs deeper they would be able to find all the SEO tricks and tips to increase traffic to their site.

As a beginner, these are the few SEO tricks I have implemented on my site.

Content Matters

• Anyone visiting the site is searching for good quality content. Hence, my focus is on content creation and keeping it clear, fresh, relevant, and updated at all times.
• Since search engines prioritize the most recent and relevant content for the users. I understood the importance of updating not just the content, but the images, too.
• Avoiding plagiarism and keeping the content of my blog original is something I adhere to at all times.

Keyword Search

Anytime a search is initiated on Google, it is through keywords. And these keywords are important not for the end user alone, but for the content creator too.

• What are people searching for? I find the relevant keyword by finding the answer to this question.
• Long-tailed keywords work more efficiently in driving organic traffic.
• The keyword must be relevant to the article, and not forcefully fed into it for the sake of traffic.
• I understood the benefit of aligning the keyword with the search intent. Knowing whether the article is informational, commercial, transactional, or navigational helps me to arrive at the best keyword.
• It is also important to ensure the keyword is placed in the SEO title as a heading or subheading.

Getting rid of irrelevant stuff

When I started blogging, I used to pay attention to every minor aspect of it. Only when I started exploring SEO, I realised many of the activities were irrelevant. Now, have done away with these steps-

• Getting the green light on Yoast is not mandatory always.
• The length of the content does not matter.
• Content format plays an important role. If the format aligns with what searchers want, the article would rank higher.

Content Audit

Running a content audit is the simplest way of decluttering or removing the pages that are not performing as originally intended. It helps in refreshing the site. I use Google Search Console to spot the declining content by running a Gap Analysis.

Using the data, I either delete those posts, consolidate them, or give them a new lease on life.

Internal and External Links

Internal links are basically like pathways connecting the different rooms of your home. Whereas external links are the door connecting your home to the world outside.

Both internal and external links play an important role.

• Internal links not only help in leading the visitors to different pages but also ensure they spend more time on the site.

E.g., here is the screenshot of a book review that is a series of 4 parts. I have included the links to the reviews of the other parts so that readers can conveniently find them.

You can also check out my reviews of Volume Two, Three and Four.

Wordsopedia Rating 5/5

Title: Heartstopper: Volume One	Author: Alice Oseman
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books	Publication date: February 7th, 2019
Genre: Fiction—Graphic Novel	Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781527225336	No. of Pages: 288

Buy your copy here on Amazon

• I also create an external link to an outside source. Creating an external link enhances connectivity and networking. It also lends more authenticity to the website by building links with other websites.

e.g., in the screenshot above, I have linked my post externally to the Publisher’s site and to Amazon.

Description

Earlier, a meta description was an indicator of a ranking signal. It was thought that including keywords helps with ranking higher. But not anymore!

And yet, a meta description plays an important role in influencing the customers. The meta description shows up in search engine page results and helps readers form an opinion.

• Writing a catchy title helps in attracting the reader and drive traffic to the site.
• I avoid duplication in meta descriptions as it helps save characters.
• Boring descriptions are sure to drive away customers.

Optimizing for Image Search

Visual search is equally important. I always use images clicked by me for the Book reviews and customize them with my logo.

These are the few steps I follow for gaining fully from image search.

• Alt tag–an alt tag provides a description of the image. In all my blog posts, I fill in the relevant details, especially the keywords in the alt-tag section.
• File size–reducing file size and resizing them to proper dimensions has helped my site immensely. First of all, it has increased the site loading speed, and secondly, it has given a proper form and structure to the site.

Also, I smush the images regularly.

I have found these SEO tricks to be quite easy to implement and have benefitted from them.

This post is a part of Blogchatter Blog Hop.