The Basics
- Have a clear and readable site structure. Organized content libraries are rewarded.
- Be strategic about content creation. Clarify your intent in every post.
- Use a combination of content. Include images and videos, and avoid bulky text.
- Optimize for mobile. Content that shows on mobile takes precedence.
- Have an attractive UX. You are in the business of style after all!
- Leverage cross-channel promotion. Social media can broaden the reach of your posts.
- Have quality backlinks. Sites linking to your blog should have a high Google Page Rank.
- Have a fast-loading site. The Google ranking system takes into account site speed.
Keywords
- What keywords would people use to search for your content? Include those in your text and very importantly, your headlines.
- Use keywords in your introductory paragraph. This will help the search engine know what your post is addressing and ensure your snippet is relevant.
- Keep your audience in mind! Do research and find keywords that are both competitive and popular. There are tools to help with this, like Google Keyword Planner.
- Hyperlinks to products should always be keywords, never numbers.
Site Structure & Metadata
- Make sure title tags and meta description tags contain keywords relevant to your topic.
- Make the URL for each post descriptive (Instead of “/post_2” use “/how_to_wear_red_skirts”)
- Ensure your XML sitemap is easily discoverable. This enables search engine crawlers to stumble upon your site and crawl everything they need to.
- Add an HTML sitemap. This is a bulleted outline text version of your site navigation and ensures visitors can easily navigate your website.
Interlinking
- Adding the right internal links on your site ensures Google understands the relevance of pages, relationship between pages, and value of pages.
- Embed links in your blog posts to other relevant and related posts on your blog.
- Have a link strip at the bottom of each post with links to new or popular blog posts. This will let users know the breadth of your content.
- Good interlinking is also an alternative to sitemaps. Breadcrumbs and related article links can be equally effective and are part of most standard blog authoring tools.
Image Filenames
- Use very descriptive image filenames that relate to the image subject matter. Including keywords in image filenames helps with image search rankings.
Article Titles
- Leverage Google searches to create optimized titles for your articles. Use the auto-complete in the Google search bar for inspiration or to find related searches.