.jpg "15 SEO Techniques that Work Wonders for Optimization in Kenya")
There are many benefits of SEO and many small businesses in Kenya have started investing in Search Engine Optimization. Kenya SEOs have different techniques that they use to rank their websites. There are different SEO strategies that one can use to rank their website. This is article is not about the normal SEO techniques that you already know about.
SEO strategy is normally broken down into 2:
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
There are common practices that most SEO experts know that
can help with your ranking. However, when most websites competing for a keyword
implement the same strategies, ranking your website can be difficult. Standing
out from your competition will make you outrank your competitors even for the
most difficult keywords.
We will explore other search engine optimization techniques
that are not so common. However, the results after implementing these simple
optimization techniques can see your website improve in ranking. You will
definitely realize an increase in traffic and consequently leads.
There are different ranking signals that search engine
algorithms use to rank a website. If you improve the rank signals for your
website, you will experience an increase in traffic on your website and
definitely an increase in leads and conversions. There are different on-page
SEO techniques and off-page SEO techniques you can take advantage of.
SEO Techniques that work
Below is a combination of the latest SEO techniques that will improve ranking signals for your website and consequently improve the
traffic to your website. Try out as many as you can and let us know which one
works best for your niche.
#1 Write Articles Rich with Information
If you want to improve the ranking of your website, you need
to write informative content. Content that is unique, well researched and
well-written. Banklinko did a research on a million searches. Turns out,
the first page results average 1890 words.
Many other researches carried out have seemed to suggest
when it comes to ranking on the first page of Google, length matters. Apart
from the ranking, longer articles also seem to attract sharing on social media.
However, the length should come hand in hand with quality.
Otherwise, someone might write a shorter, better-quality blog post that will
outrank you. Therefore, don’t get lost in the length and forget that it is the
quality that will really drive your ranking on search engines like Google and Bing.
Write your article in a way that will entice the reader. You
can break it down into valuable sections which are equally important to the
reader. Make sure that your article is exhaustive and the reader will get all
the information that you promised in your captivating title and introduction
section.
SEO experts in Kenya normally get lost in the SEO world
writing articles specifically for Search Engine bots. Search Engines like
Google hate that. Put more focus on the human aspect of the article and Google
will “fall in love” with your post/website.
The longer your article, the more keywords it will contain.
While you are trying to rank for one particular keyword, your article will show
up for other relevant keywords. Therefore, you need to constantly write and
provide your readers with these lengthy articles. Strive to always write at
least 2000 words in your article to compete against other competing articles
for similar keywords.
#2 Spy your Competitor’s Link Game
One of the best ways to rank your website is to spy on your
competitor. For your competitor to rank for a particular keyword, there must be
something that they did to make Google fall in love with their content.
Well, Google is not that loyal.
You have a chance with google and thanks to your
competition, you work becomes a lot easier. You can start spying by being a fan
just to learn how they work on content. Subscribe to their newsletter and
monitor their content marketing strategy.
Pick 5 of your competitors and constantly spy on them. If
they have any particular content that seems to be driving traffic and social
shares, use the exact keywords that they seek to rank for and write something
better than they did.
There are different SEO tools that you can use to spy on
your competition. You can find your favorite SEO Spy tool and get the exact
keywords you’re your competitor is ranking for.
Apart from finding out what keywords your competitor is
using, it is also important to do a link audit to further spy on your
competitor. An in-depth link audit will unearth their entire content marketing
strategy.
A link audit will give you an insight on their target market
when generating content. Go through all their content and find out what it is
that their audience like to read and share. You need to incorporate this into
your strategy and do it better to outsmart them.
You will find out soon enough how this detective work will
pay off for your website. Just writing quality content will not cut it. You
need to put in this extra work to make sure that your website performs better
than your competitor in terms of search engine optimization.
#3 Your Competitor’s Broken Links
Broken links are a big headache for most websites. If you
own a website, you need to always keep tabs and repair any broken links you may
have or your competitor might just cash in on this.
On the flipside, this is what you need to take advantage of
from any of your competitors who may have broken links. You will have to track
down these links and find out which ones you can use. Create better content
than your competitor with the same relevance and get that link juice for your
website.
Get in touch with the webmaster and request them to replace
the broken links with the better content that you have provided. If you are
confident about the quality, you will get most website owners to replace the
links without much thought. You can use the Wayback Machine to access versions that were
earlier linked to match the quality that is expected.
#4 Long Tail Keywords and Semantic SEO
User on search engines are normally very specific on what
they want. This is where optimization for long tail keywords becomes very
important.
A long tail keyword is actually a phrase comprising more
than 3 words. Long tail keywords are highly targeted towards a particular niche
other than the wider demographics.
When writing articles or generating any type of content, you
should cast your net wider than the generic keywords. Find out different long
tail keywords and optimize your website or content for these keywords as well.
You have better chances of ranking higher on Google with
these diverse long tail keywords that capture a specific area of interest. The
effort put together will give your website a competitive advantage.
A couple of years ago, algorithms were not as elaborate as
they are today. Google mostly would look at the specific keyword in its ranking
analysis. Then in came the Hummingbird algorithm update which changed ranking
as we used to know it. With the update, Google now has a better understanding
of topics and the content and can match relevance. This is what is popularly
known as Semantic Search.
Semantic SEO therefore became very important and this where
long tail keywords and other related keywords become important to be
incorporated in your content.
You can use SEO tools such as the keywordtools.io to
help you generate LSI Keywords that you can incorporate in your article to
improve the quality of your posts. Use some of the LSI Keywords as subtopics as
you segment your article.
Once you do this well, you will find that any article you
write will rank for over 1000 keywords.
#5 Generate your Own Keywords
This probably sounds strange but is one of the best
techniques you can use. This is particularly important a strategy because it
will always have a positive result. You will always find it easy to rank number
1 for keywords that you come up with.
It sounds pretty useless considering it is traffic that you
are after.
However, some keywords you generate have a potential of
becoming popular in the future and guess what? You will be already ranking
number 1 on Google for that keyword and your website will enjoy a good share of
the traffic that comes.
If it is something new and original, like a unique workout
routine or anything else in your industry. Give it a name and the internet will
soon catch up. Other people in your industry will write about it and they will
use the keyword you named.
#6 Use Wikipedia to Get Keywords and Broken Links
Wikipedia
is one of the leading content resources on the internet. It is a source of
invaluable information in diverse fields. This also makes Wikipedia one of the
best places to do your keyword research and find keywords to target on your SEO
campaign.
Just typing into the Wikipedia search tool, you will get a
bunch of posts about your niche. Articles in Wikipedia are focused on providing
information and therefore they are as natural as can be. The story is different
when you are writing an article focusing on a particular keyword.
You can borrow a lot from the structure of articles written
in Wikipedia and understand all the subtopics you need to cover in your
articles.
As we already discussed the importance of finding your
competitors broken links, now imagine backlinks from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an
authority site and getting relevant broken links is actually a gold mine for
any SEO Expert.
Wikipedia actually has a page that can help you identify
broken links in their articles. Therefore, after you identify the dead links
that interest you, you need to write quality content that can be replaced. It
is not enough to just jot down a few words and post hoping to link. You need to
write your best quality and it can help to use the Wayback Machine to inspect
the quality of the earlier used link. Then, of course, write something way
better than that.
After submitting your link, this will be subject to approval
by the editors. So, if you are confident about the quality, you have a high
chance of getting your link approved on the Wikipedia article.
#7 Build Page Authority with Internal Linking
Many people often overlook this aspect which is a very
important SEO technique that can help improve your website’s ranking. The
architecture of your website matters a lot and linking help build a hierarchy
that search engines can understand.
Monitor all your website’s pages and performance. If you
notice a page that attracts quite a number of traffic and becomes popular over
time, it is important that you build links to these pages.
When linking, we often use anchor texts. Make sure that the
anchor text you use for internal linking are actually relevant. Do not try
tricks that might impact your website negatively. Be as natural as you can be
with your anchor texts when linking internally.
A common mistake
Kenya SEO experts do when linking internally is to always send links
to the homepage or landing page. This is understandable as you want the landing
page to rank better, right? However, deep linking will give you better results
when it comes to optimizing your website.
Linking your blog posts to other relevant articles on your
blog will show how in-depth your website is. Google actually loves this and you
will notice that it will index more pages on your website.
Internal linking will generally boost your page authority.
#8 Try Outreach Strategy for Link Building
Outreach is one of the most popular SEO strategy that
experts have been using for a while now. Writing good outreach emails have been
the main challenge and that is why many Search Engine Optimization experts in
Kenya have had little or no success with emails.
When writing outreach emails, it is important that you are
relevant, use a creative approach and you get personal with the intended
recipient. You do not want to be just another spammy email that the recipient
reads the subject and dismisses it without much of a thought.
With your email outreach program, you can try and reach out
to various influencers in your niche. However, your email needs to be natural
and convincing. You can imagine how many people are trying to reach them with
the same idea. Make your email stand out. You email should answer important
questions that the reader would want to know at first glance.
Who you are and what it is that you want should come out
clearly. The faster they get answers to these questions, the more they will be
willing to find out the content of your email and how they are going to benefit
from you as well.
If you are smart about this, you will definitely see your
email response rate improve.
#9 Use Influencers to Build your Brand
Influencer
marketing is one of the best ways to build links and improve your SEO.
You need to involve different influencers in Kenya and you will get a lot of
value back to your website.
In your content marketing strategy, you need to be smart
about how you can involve influencer in your niche. Directly involving them for
your SEO campaign can be a bit costly depending on how much influencer will
charge you.
However, influencers are often experts in the field. You can
take advantage of this and cite them in your articles. You can later share with
them the content and ask them to join in the conversation.
For instance, if you are in the beauty industry, you can
write an article about “40 most influential makeup artists in Kenya”. In your
article, you can mention these makeup artists and quote them. You can share the
article with them and definitely most of them will join the conversation and
even share it with their followers.
Remember, how creative you get with your outreach will
determine your response rate. It is not easy getting through with influencers
in Kenya, but you can make them fall in love with your story. Storytelling is
the backbone of content marketing and influencer marketing can be used as a
great avenue to tell your brand’s story.
#10 Comment on Related Blogs to Market your Website
Have you ever heard about comment marketing? You probably
know the value that comments and conversations have on your articles. Comment
marketing works the same. You can comment on relevant blog posts in your
industry.
However, comment marketing works the same as content
marketing. You should fight off the urge to directly market your business.
Provide the audience with answers or technical views as you are an expert in
your field.
You should plan out a strategy around comment marketing and
avoid the simple random responses you give out to articles online.
For most experts trying to improve their traffic, you will
want to get clicks from the comments. How do you get people curious about who
you are or what you are all about?
Do not be vague in your comments or simply agree or disagree
with an opinion and leave it at that. Instead, as an expert in your niche, you
need to write a detailed opinion that will give readers a deeper understanding
and spark the curiosity.
Another point you need to consider in your comment marketing
strategy is that not all blogs are worth your time/comment. You need to choose
influential and market leaders. These should be authority blogs or websites in
your industry.
The blogs you comment on should be frequent with posting
articles and information. You should be aware of their content strategy and
they should have a number of readers and good traffic coming to their articles
any time they post something new.
If you are not sure about a subject, it is best not to
comment on it. Engage the readers with the information you have knowledge in
and always stay relevant.
I love brands like BrighterMonday who are consistent in
their posting. You are sure that every Monday, you will get a new post in their
blog section. They will also mail it out to users on their mailing list. If
such an authority is in your industry, you need to include them in your comment
marketing strategy.
#11 Video SEO
You have probably heard the craze around video SEO. This is
basically the optimization of your videos for search. Video marketing has been
an important aspect of content marketing and it has directly influenced search
engine optimization.
Videos are much like articles and before generating content,
you need to do a good research. Find out what keywords you will be targeting
and make the video as natural as it can be. Just like articles, avoid keyword stuffing
your videos.
When you search for most terms on Google, you will find that
there are several video results that come up on SERPs. Google owns Youtube and
this is an arrangement that is not about to change any time soon. Videos have
become important and optimizing your videos will improve your ranking and drive
traffic to your website.
The basics of video SEO still stand. Use keywords in your
title, name of the video file and description of the video.
To spice up your video SEO, make sure you write short blogs
for the videos. Instead of writing a 1-line sentence to describe your video.
Write 200 words and more. Mostly bots will be interested in the text info
available around the video and your description can really boost your video
SEO.
If you place your keywords well in the video description and
include LSI keywords, you will find your video ranking high on Youtube and even
showing up in results on SERPs.
#12 Make use of your Old Blog posts
You probably have awesome content that you have written
before. While the content you write may be timeless, most posts are usually
overtaken by events. We often forget them, but if rejuvenated, they can improve
your SEO and drive more traffic to your website.
If you have any new information, instead of writing a new
article, you can find these articles and bring them back to life. Try adding
the valuable information or change parts or info that might have been outdated.
You can also try and update the images and breathe new life to the article.
You can then republish these articles and market them as if
they were fresh articles.
After republishing make sure you include it in your
email/newsletter campaign and send it out to your subscribers. Share the
article in your social media pages and create a fresh buzz around the content.
#13 Improve the Quality of your Social Media Posts
There is normally a disconnect when it comes to SEO and Social
Media for very many SEO experts in Kenya. However, social media is a
very powerful avenue for building authority for your website and ultimately
improving your website ranking.
Both domain authority and page authority are influenced by
social media. The higher a page authority is, the more it is likely to rank on
search engines. Domain authority is the much like page authority, but this
covers the entire website/domain.
When people hear about social media, attention is always
turned to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other mainstream social media
platforms in Kenya. However, there are other social media platforms with much
higher consideration when it comes to the quality of content.
Such social
media marketing sites include Quora, Scribd and Slideshare. However,
life will be somewhat difficult for you if you are not about quality in these
social sites. This is why they can positively help build your website’s
authority and search engine ranking.
Do your research on each of the websites individually to
learn about the best practices for your content. You will drive a lot of
traffic to your website just by generating content for these social media
platforms.
#14 Expert Roundup Posts
Roundup posts are also a very good way
for improving your SEO. Creating a roundup post is easy. The only catch
will be the response rate and commitment of your experts.
This normally involves getting in touch with different
experts in your industry and asking them questions. You then roundup all their
responses and make an article from their responses.
For instance, you are in the safari and tour business. You
can get in touch with several industry leaders with a similar question. In this
case, you may ask, “What do you think about the Wildebeest Migration in Kenya?”
After getting their responses, you can compile them in an article like “What 10
Safari Experts had to say about the Wildebeest Migration in Kenya”.
Free, great quality content if you ask me.
After publishing this post, you will share it with your
audience. You will also share with the excited experts that provided the
information. They will be very excited to share this with their audiences as
well. This will increase your reach the more it is shared around, the better it
will be for your website optimization efforts.
#15 Improve Content Ranking on Page 2 and 3
The only page that really matters when it comes to appearing
in SERPs is page one. If you do not rank on page 1 on Google for your keyword,
you might as well be on page 10.
Very few people have been seen to look for results past the
first page of Google. If the results that come up do not satisfy them, they
usually refine their search terms. Articles may get stuck in the other pages
even if they are of good quality. The main reason why we always insist on
optimizing your content, no matter how good it is.
With all this said, if you have your website appearing on
page 2 or 3 for a keyword, you can certainly not get any traffic to your
website. However, it is still a good sign. You should not leave it at that.
Pick up these pages and try to constantly improve them so that you can bring
them to page 1 of Google.
One of the ways you can do this is by sending link juice to
these pages. Deep linking your article internally can help improve its ranking
on search engines.
The Google Console will come in handy in identifying these
pages with a good potential sitting on the second or third page of Google. From
these pages, pick the ones that get some clicks, even sitting on page 2 or 3.
If they are getting any clicks, this shows that the keyword has a decent
traffic.
From pages with high authority within your website, you can
send link juice to these pages. This will boost their ranking and possibly take
them to page 1. You can also improve the quality of the content on these pages
and build backlinks to the pages to boost them.
What Search Engine Optimization Techniques are you going to Use?
There are many more search engine optimization techniques
you can use to boost your ranking. Blogs have remained to be one of the most powerful optimization techniques this year.
Not only does it improve your ranking, but they also
influence purchase decisions from users. If you always focus on quality and
optimization for your blogs, you will find the authority of your website
improving over time.
What SEO techniques are you planning on using to improve your website ranking? Share with us in the comments to see what works best, especially for SEO in Kenya.