Already got a perfect article on a popular topic but still no traffic?
What can be the reason? The problem may be is that you have not done high-quality search engine optimization and that's why your article doesn't get all the attention it is worth.
To put it right we'll be using information about your competitors and a couple of time-tested advice.
Start with meta tags
Pick up an article which brings pitiful traffic or no traffic at all and checks meta tags using free plugin SEO META in 1 CLICK.
In the example above, Description tag is missing which is bad for the page. Google will have to generate snippet itself from the content itself. Always keep in mind that description is for people in the first place, not for search engines.
Tell what is special about your article, don't just summarize it. You can also add a call to action and appeal to emotions. Brian Dean advises looking for inspiration in Adwords ads. It makes sense because a good snippet should work as an advertisement and increase your click-through rates.
That is what's written on Google Webmaster Central blog about this:
"We use a number of strategies for selecting snippets, and you can control one of them by writing an informative meta description for each URL.
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="informative description here">"
Don't neglect Title and Description because they are considered to be the most important SEO elements.
The title is a ranking factor, and it is one of the first things on your site that search engine spiders crawl. And it is the first information user gets about a page as well. As Neil Patel wrote, "when it comes to low effort/big results, title tags take the cake. It's such a small element but has such a massive impact!".
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Unusual article headings are great, but when it comes to the title tag, first of all, we need to show that the page is relevant to the query. There better be keywords included in these tags, but avoid keyword stuffing. The closer you put a keyword to the beginning of the tag the more clickable the snippet gets.
How do I know which keywords my article ranks for?
Sometimes the search engine cannot figure out what the article is about, and it appears in search results for unexpectedly irrelevant requests. Our task is to give a search engine a helping hand by making optimization.
Firstly, let's find out what key phrases are bringing visitors to the article at this point and your site's ranking.
Go to Google Search Console "Search traffic" and select Search Analytics. Set it up to show impressions and position and you'll get a list of keywords you rank for, their search volumes and your position for each keyword.
Or alternatively, you could use online research tool Serpstat and paste your article`s URL into a window. Then you simply move from "Overview" to "Keywords" and explore the results.
How do I know which key phrases from the top 10 I missed in my article?
No need in looking through all the semantics of competitors to find key phrases you didn't include in your article. Just go to the Missing keywords tool and get the report. The tool shows the semantics of sites from the top 10, which competitors use, but which is not found in your article.
For each phrase, we see the frequency, and the graph "Contain other URLs" indicates if there are the same keywords on other pages of the site.
How do I know competitors to my article?
Let's see how the things are with rankings and keywords in competitors' articles on the same topic. Simply click Competitors and choose top 3.
Click on the URL with the mouse wheel to open reports on these sites in new tabs without leaving Serpstat. Skim through competitors' semantics to find queries that are not found in our article but are relevant and answer your readers' question. It can be useful to check competitors' meta tags as well just to get some examples.
List of URLs with the similar content
By analyzing competitors' keywords you can find new keywords for your own site. Moreover, if you click on URL you can see the URL's positions for different queries.
As seen in the screenshot, domain's position for the most popular keyword "best hybrid bikes under 500" is 10. Our site has only one keyword for which it ranks top 3.
The top three competitors have a higher percentage of keywords in the top 3 and top 10 than our article. It is also necessary to understand what the reason is aside from SEO but looking at the content and content delivery.
What else can I do?
- Check spelling and readability.
Hemingway App will tell you which sentences are too long or too complex.
- Check how catchy your title is.
I recommend Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer. This online tool will analyze your headline to determine the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score. Reaching your customers in an deep and emotional way is a key to successful copywriting.
3. Optimize pictures by adding alt attribute on an image tag.
That`s the only way search engine can tell one picture from another. Writing a proper alt attribute helps to define how relevant the article is to a certain request. Plus the picture will be displayed in Google Images.
- Do internal linking with at least a couple of anchor links.
- Share your article on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Google +. (shares - ranking factor)
After you make corrections, wait for SE to react. And remember search engine optimization is not something you do at one dash and then put off forever. It`s more of building a house which can have as many floors as you are able to build and needs repair. You can improve a page endlessly, and there is always a potential to make a ranking better.
To find things that can be added or improved analyze competitors regularly and check your site's potential to make a ranking better