The Table of Content below contains the topics we will be covering in this guide. You can click on a specific topic to directly jump to its details.

1. Do right keyword research

If you want to know how to rank in google for your blog, keyword research is the heart and soul of the process. Most of the blogs today do not get a good google search results ranking because of their lack in knowledge to find the best target keywords.

Among the most valuable keyword research tips is to target those keywords that can make your blog rank in the top 10 of a SERP. Just writing any content and not focusing on keywords is a waste of your efforts.

It also depends on the niche you are writing a blog for. A competitive niche may have many keywords to compete for. Or if your niche does not has much competition, your keyword research process may be quite easy.

There are many keyword suggestion tools available that you can use to get the best keywords for your niche. Some of them are:

• Google Analytics – This tool tells you exactly what the users are searching for so that you can serve them accordingly. It even allows you to check how many times a word was searched for someone so that you know what to target first.
• Google Trends –  It is a free Google product. Most of the tools show you past keywords that have been searched for the maximum times. But Google Trends shows you the latest trending keywords. It helps in keeping you updated about the needs of users and what they look for on Google.
• SEMrush – This tool helps in generating profitable keywords for your website. You can also know what keywords are you competitors paying for and what ads are they using for these keywords. This gives you an idea of what keywords should you focus more on.
• Moz Keyword Explorer – You just have to enter the keyword and you instantly get the details about the volume and competition of that keyword. This is a paid tool. This tool also considers the related keywords for similar searches.

2. Choose the right WordPress settings

A maximum number of bloggers today use WordPress for blogging. It comes with many settings that you can use to customize your site. WordPress is the best from SEO point of view. Go through the general WordPress settings to customize them according to your site.

3. Choosing the Best Plugin for WordPress SEO

There are many plugins and tools in WordPress such as Yoast. This tool lets you choose a focus keyword for the page content. The content and meta tags are then analyzed in the terms of this focus keyword. It also analyses alt tags, keyword density, use of the keyword in HTML tags and more.

There are many other options available as well to use as an SEO plugin. One of them being Rankmath. A good WordPress SEO plugin will help in managing your site on-page. Managing the site on-page manually can be very difficult, thus a good WordPress plugin like Yoast or Rankmath can help you do it effectively.

Here in this section, we will be taking up the most widely used WordPress plugin, Yoast SEO.

 

3.1 Setting up Yoast WordPress SEO plugin

If you have been using some other plugin till now, you can easily import the settings here. As soon as you install yoast plugin, open your WordPress admin panel and on the dashboard section you will see a new option “SEO”.

Go to features and enable the needed features.

In order to import the SEO settings from the previously used plugin, go to SEO⇒ tools⇒ import and export⇒ import from other SEO plugins. In this section, select the plugin from which you want to import your settings.

 

3.2 Getting Started

Now that the plugin is installed, you have to submit your site to Google, Bing, and Yandex. For this, you have to go the SEO⇒ Dashboard⇒ Webmaster tools.

3.3 Search appearance

3.3.1 General-

Title Separator- A separator is used to separate different words from on other in the SEO title of the post.

Homepage & front page- In this section, you can edit the SEO meta tags for your home page.

Knowledge Graph- Enter the details of the company your website is for or your name if it is a personal website.

3.3.2 Content Types-

Show post in search results- You can control what posts or pages will be shown in the search results.

Date in snippet preview- If you add a date on your articles, your content will look new and updated.

Yoast SEO meta box- This section gives recommendations to optimize your content. It can be beneficial for your pages, blogs, and posts.

3.3.3 Media-

WordPress will automatically create an url for any media file you upload. This is not something useful for the users, thus you can set this setting to “yes”.

3.3.4 Taxonomies-

This section consists of various types of content on your website. Content such as tags, portfolio categories, slideshows, format, and other non-useful stuff needs not be shown in the search results. Thus these can be disabled.

3.3.5 Archives-

To prevent any duplicate content, disable author archives and date archives.

3.3.6 Breadcrumbs-

These help in deciding the navigational structure of your website. It appears on the top of a webpage. Search engines can easily learn about your site structure by these breadcrumbs.

3.3.7 RSS-

RSS stands for Rich site summary. It gives the update to any online content in a standardized, computer-readable format.

3.4 Search Console

In order to know about any broken links or crawl error in your website, you should authenticate Yoast with Google search console. Once you know of the faulty pages, you can fix them or redirect them to the right page.

There is an article given just below the authenticate button. You can refer it for any assistance.

 

3.5 Social

In this section, you can set open graph meta tags for your content. You can decide what part of your page is shown when a user shares your page on social media. You can even upload custom graphics to set it as a thumbnail when someone shares your page.

You have to first link the url of your respective social media account to the website. You can later add the content or image you want to set as the thumbnail for the respective page.

 

3.6 Tools

There are some additional tools in this section that Yoast provides you. This included-

• Import and Export – Import or export any Yoast SEO setting or from any other plugin
• Bulk editor – Edit the meta tags for all your pages without having to open them separately one by one.
• File editor – make quick changes to your important files like robots.txt

4. Off-Page SEO Optimization

Our article till now covered the steps for on-page optimization for your blog. We will now be discussing off-page SEO optimization in details. On-page optimization covers the technical issues of your site. But that is not enough. You should also focus on enhancing the visibility of your blog to get more traffic.

Plugins like RankMath and Yoast SEO can help a great deal with it. Off-Page SEO for your site will make sure that your site develops a good web authority. Links can be submitted in a variety of ways such as documents, PPT, Video, Image, bookmark and more. Always use good authority sites for submissions and choose the appropriate anchor text for linking.

 

4.1 Content is everything

Good content describes or business, goals, and services, people need to read, not just see pictures. Your content should attract the maximum users and fulfill their requirements. Then only you may get the rank you wish for in SERPs. This is now important because of Rankmath.

Rank Brain is an important part of Google algorithms. This algorithm considers two things-

• User interaction with search engines
• The intention of the search

It analyses how accurately a site can answer to the search query put up by the user. If a user does not like your site content, he might push the back button and go to some different site. Google takes this negatively for your site. But if your website has good informative content, your web authority will automatically increase gradually.

To know more about the importance of good content, read this blog.

 

4.2 Guest posts

Writing guest posts is an effective way to link outreach. According to Google’s guidelines, guest blogging is an effective way of link building. Do not post just any random content just for the sake of it. There’s no point just using any crap content and posting it on blogging sites.

Write high quality and keyword rich content. Make proper use of anchor text and keywords. Keep in mind the Google guidelines regarding content word limit. Use a catchy and relatable title for your content. Good content all over the web based on your website is an effective way of getting site traffic. More the site traffic, better the site ranking.

Guest blogging is simply putting your posts on someone else’s blog site with a link to your site. Guest posting is usually done on the sites from the same niche. If you want to find the best target sites for your industry, just type the given below queries on the search engine:

1. industry + “write for us” (for example, Blogspot “write for us”)
2. “Keyword” + “write for us”
3. Industry/keyword + “guest post”
4. Industry/keyword “this is a guest post by”

Another way for finding some good sites for guest posts is to analyze the backlinks of your competitor. Post your articles on the same sites. Ask the site authority politely to allow you to add your article.

 

4.3 Fix broken links

Find the links that have expired on your site. Websites usually keep changing or shifting the content on them. This way, the links which are given on such pages get broken. So when a user clicks on such a link, it redirects to a page that says “404 Page not found”. Such links are called broken links.

When you remove an old content, remember to remove the broken link as well. There might be some page that you linked your content to. That page may have been removed or some other problem might be there. Replace that link with some new link, or remove that link if needed.

How can you fix broken links:

• Search for some of the best blogs in your niche
• Go to site explorer section in Ahref and search for the blog sites you found one at a time. Click on the Best by links option under Pages and filter the links by selecting HTTP 404 errors from the drop-down menu
• Click on the RD to sort the broken links with the most number of backlinks at the top
• Choose the most-liked page (that is now expired), and enter it into the Wayback Machine to find its previous condition.
• Rewrite this type of similar content for your site.
• Now take the dead links and put them into Ahref’s search explorer, to find the exact backlinks linking to them.
• Reach out to the admins of those sites, and inform them about the dead link on their site. In the place of that, offer them your newly created (similar) post as a replacement.

 

 

4.4 Use your competitor backlinks profile

The best way to find great sites for link building is to analyze your competitor backlinks. See what sites are they placing their links on. Utilize these opportunities.

You can find your top competitors very easily. Search for the keywords on the search engines you want to rank for. Note the top competitors that rank for your keywords. Put those sites in the Semrush. If a particular site ranks for almost all your keywords, then that is a great site as a competition. You can find many good backlinks opportunities from it.

Now put the competitor site url in the site explorer section of Ahref. This will give you a list of all its backlinks. You now have to create backlinks on all these sites that is making your competitor rank good.

 

4.5 Use Forums and Q&A Sites

Online forums are a great way to know what your target audience expects from you or your market. You can post links to your website on forums. Give answers to the questions regarding your industry put up by users. Do not overdo promotion or do not spam. Use forums in a wise manner. Answer the queries from your niche. Interact with users.
Forums are a great source for referral traffic. It contributes to one of the best ranking factors.

 

4.6 The Skyscraper Technique

Skyscraper technique for backlinks is a proven technique to give you good site traffic. It may require some efforts but the result is always in your favor.

All you have to do is create a better content than your competitor who has got a lot of links. Try to get those linking sites to link to your content. Try to put up a better content than other competitor sites.

You just have to follow the below given steps:

• Develop a content that is related to your niche and has strong potential for getting links.
• Search for related keywords, find the sites ranking for them. Use the search explorer in Ahref to find the links to these sites.
• Write a better content than all those sites and request the sites linking to them to link to your content. Convince them that your site is a better content than others.

You have to keep in mind that not everybody you reach out to will reply. And not everybody will give you links. Remember to link your site homepage from these articles to get more site traffic.

4.7 Interviewing the experts

Find the most reputed sites in your niche that are not your direct competitors. Contact their owners and request them for an interview for your blog.

Convince them that they are experts from their field and their interview on your blog will be your privilege. No one can deny such an offer. This will be beneficial for you.

Ask these experts questions from your niche that are not usually answered. Create a post from all these answers. Send the link of this post to all the experts you have interviewed. And request them to share it on their site too.

When those experts will share your blog, that will give you some good backlinks for your blog. If not everybody but even if some of them link out to you, you may get some pretty good backlinks.

5. Black Hat SEO Technique

The article till now covers all the white hat techniques for your blog SEO. The post till here contains the best possible answers to your question “how to rank in Google”.  

There are many people who want quick results and believe that white hat SEO techniques are limited. Black hat SEO tricks give better control to the webmasters and their Off page practices.

Google keeps updating its algorithm to deal with such tricks. The updates instantly wash away all the sites that have come to the top of the SERPs by false means. It is up to you to decide that whether you want to go slow with fruitful long-lasting results or want quick results with the threat of Google penalties for black hat SEO.

Since this article discusses the best possible ways to rank in Google, we will be covering black hat SEO techniques as well. Now it is up to the readers to decide the best for them.  You can go through our blog to know about black hat SEO in detail.

 

5.1 PBNs (Private Blogging Networks)-

PBN comprises of a network of websites that are used to build links to a particular website with the motive of altering the search engine rankings of the website. Talking in the terms of SEO, PBN is similar to link wheeling where different websites link to a single website. The websites from a private network where these are not necessarily interlinked, but link to one central site.
This way, the web authority of the central site increases and positive effects can be seen on the site’s search engine rankings.

PBN is an effective way of getting quick results in search engine organic results. The main advantage of getting better ranking is that you get more site traffic and thus increased sales. PBNs are an effective way of enhancing your link building strategy. You can put the link to your website on any website thus enhancing your web authority.

On doing proper competitor research, you will find that most of your competitors have PBNs that are boosting their search engine ranking. It is a cost-effective method because such sites do not charge anything for linking your website. You can decide what will be the anchor text that you will be using to link your site. This way you can include your keywords as an anchor text.

5.2 Spammy Blog Comments-

Blog commenting is not entirely unethical. It is, in fact, a good way of knowing and interaction with your potential clients. But that does not mean that you will comment on any and every unrelated blog just to gather web authority. This is spam blog commenting. In the search of “how to rank in Google” do not invite poor quality backlinks.

This method is a poor SEO practice and affects your online reputation badly. If you own a blog you can prevent others from spamming your blog with comments in two ways. You can either directly delete them or keep their approval pending.

 

 

5.3 Automated Software-

Automated software was widely used in earlier times to get instant benefit in site ranking. But the practice is now getting extinct slowly. In today’s time, this technique will rather attract a Google penalty.

This is because using auto-generated backlinks is against Google guidelines.