With blogging being such a vast industry, it’s important that you stay ahead of the curve. This means to think about the future and start making the tweaks right now instead of later. This is how some of the MOST successful people in the world started because they visualized the world now and where they think it’s heading. With that said,
You have to explore and understand what direction blogging is going toward. For example, if many of us would have visualized mobile usage then we would have made mobile-friendly tweaks earlier on instead of waiting last minute…right? I’ve worked with many bloggers over the years, all with several different years of experience. Here’s what I noticed happening and what you can do to better equip yourself going forward. Let’s look at blogging and where it is heading…
Brand Awareness
Have you noticed many of the top bloggers are focusing more on brand, which is mainly their personal names? Here are some of the MOST popular blogs I can think of from the top of my head: JohnChow.com, ZacJohnson.com, NeilPatel.com and MatthewWoodward.co.uk. It’s not as valuable as to use a keyword as your domain like SEO.com, etc., because people still find it hard to identify with the author. However, by building your brand around your personal name, it means more when people throw around your name in forums, content, and other communities.
In the future, more focus will be given to your brand equalling your personal name because it’s this aspect that will build your credibility as someone valuable within your niche.
SEO
Over the years, we have seen enormous changes within Google and this has been catered toward the user experience. Search engines are all about the user experience and making sure people find what they are looking for. However, this is not enough because searchers have to find valuable content and one that provides a complete solution so it’s up to search engines to provide this. Google has already announced changes like LSI keywords, valuable content, freshness, “target” keywords, and mobile-optimized. What’s next?
Keep focusing on SEO and make sure you add a combination of different keywords within your content. For example, long-tail keywords, LSI keywords, and those that are highly targeted. Next, make sure you use a combination of different anchors to build links to cover all the different keywords you have within your content. This will help your page rank for different more “targeted” keywords, increasing the user experience.
Content = Value
It’s all about value because something has to separate the best from the mediocre…right? Google has invested a lot of resources into finding out which sites and content is providing the best value. For example, they look at things like activity, bounce rate, links, DA, and PA to establish some sort of value bar. Going forward, you should be focusing on writing the best content for your readers even if this means cutting down the frequency at which you’re posting. Nothing can replace value, no matter what niche you’re in, so follow these steps before you write:
- Research
- Outline
- Write
- Edit
- Share
- Tweak
This will allow you to have enough information to find out when you have created something special or simply mediocre.
Relevance
How do you stop websites from manipulative link building? You can give people control over links pointing to their website like the introduction of Disavow. You can also strategically make sure it’s difficult for them to build unnatural links by focusing on things that really matter. Google has put enormous value on relevance because this shows the right intent. For example, websites will only link to relevant websites when the value is there…right? Why else would anyone link unless they are trying to manipulate the search engines? Going forward, relevance matters and will continue to grow in importance, but there is a great way to make sure you find value in this. How? Write the best content because then people have no choice but to link to you.
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