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Improving your chances of ranking on SERPs
Welcome to today’s issue of Efikó, a weekly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, with a focus on content marketing, writing, social strategy, and living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.
Hello beautiful people 👋
How’s your week been?
Our (UserGems 💎) funding round was announced this week. And it’s been thrilling to watch its effect on brand awareness, demo requests, and the number of emails I receive from service providers in my inbox.
It’s also felt good…really good, folks.
But back to business.
How to improve your contents’ chances of ranking on SERPs
Sometime this week, during my downtime, I discovered that an article I had written for SmartBlogger back in April was ranking #2 on the Google SERPs.
Twas a proud moment for me, fam.
And it got me thinking about ranking and how some websites can do it effortlessly—especially seeing that I am in the process of building out the rank juice of the UserGems website.
So, I set about researching a process that would guide our content creation from now on. Here’s what I found out:
Your content needs to be valuable
Your blog posts must provide obvious value to the reader
Use images, video, and other multimedia options that are unique and help increase the value your audience gets out of your content
Your content must answer the searcher's intent and provide high-quality answers ( For the life of me, I don’t know how those spiders decide which is high-quality. Dwell time, maybe?)
SEO ready
Write your article around a sole (not multiple) searcher intent and all the secondary keywords
Your primary keyword shows up in the introduction (Some experts argue for the primary keyword being in the first sentence. But please don’t force-fit the keyword into the first sentence)
Use the related searches, and people also ask section to cover most of the searcher’s queries in a logical flow
Inter-link with relevant articles on your website
Highlight some of the keyword phrases (I have never tried this. But I will, who knows.)
Use the keyword phrase in the URL and meta description (or Facebook description 🤷🏿)
Page UX
Use your H2s and H3s to guide your reader and provide a flow for skimmers and highlight essential sections
Use easy-to-understand navigational elements (such as arrows) to guide the reader through the page
Use bullet points to break up large walls of text
Your design doesn’t have to be high-end. But make sure it’s clean and contributes to the overall content value.
I’ll be starting with these three factors. There are other factors such as microdata, schema, page rendering, and meta robots. However, these are technical SEO elements, and I am still a super greenhorn here.
Thoughts? Tried any of these before? Mind sharing your results?
If you read one thing
Jolaade Philips article on why childlike curiosity is a crucial skill to succeed as a marketer.
Content tools
A content tool I discovered this week
Content Row helps you check/optimize your headlines or copy.
Not Enough Writers
This weekend, we have Syreeta Akinyede on our internal knowledge-sharing sessions.
Join us!
Know someone who might find Not Enough Writers beneficial? Please get them to sign up here!
Content writing jobs (Remote/Freelance)
And here’s a Google Docs link that also includes high-paying pitching opportunities
All the best, folks. Would you please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this helpful? 🙏🏾
My biggest takeaway this week 🚀
What I’m thinking about
“Everything is an oversimplification. Reality is messy and complex. The question is whether it’s a useful simplification. Know the limitations of an idea and you can apply it to great effect—despite the messiness of reality.”
James Clear
Gratitude corner
Thank you so much, Temitayo, for this brilliant summary and PR blast of my newsletter.
Thankful to Maple Dappa for sharing Not Enough Writers on Facebook earlier this week.
What’s your most significant content marketing challenge?
Reply to this email. Let me know what you’d like me to cover next.
I read every reply.
Plus, if you would love me to review your writing and give you feedback, you can book a time here. Or just hit the reply button.
Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!
Be good out there. If you can’t be good, be careful.
I’ll be back on 11/05.
Dozie
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