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5 SEO Tips for Your Freelance Blog to Rank on Google
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When you’re a freelancer, you should definitely have your own freelance website/blog. After you create your freelance site, you don’t want your email signature to be the only place people can find it. You want people to find you on Google searches. In order to do that, you need to have some search engine optimization (SEO) skills.
Don’t worry, it’s not hard to learn a bit of SEO. Keep reading and you’ll learn five SEO tips that will get your freelance blog seen on Google.
5 SEO Tips for Your Freelance Blog to Rank on Google
SEO Tip #1 – Use the Right Freelance Blog Platform
When you blog on a platform like Medium, your posts won’t rank as highly as they would if you used your own website. When you use platforms like Blogspot or WordPress, you’ll also can use your own domain (which is very affordable at around $10 a year).
There are tons of tutorials online, if you’re new to WordPress or Blogspot, to help you create your personalized site. WordPress is the most popular option, with so many opportunities to customize and easily add content to your site.
WordPress offers tons of options for layouts, add-ons, and so much more to make your freelance blog the best it can be. WordPress is one of the most popular site-building platforms. It’s free to use, and can be customized to suit your needs.
It’s also easier than its major competitors, Joomla and Drupal, for beginners with little to no technical know-how when it comes to coding or programming.
WordPress sites are also mobile-friendly. The mobile responsiveness can also affect how your site ranks in a Google search – just another box that WordPress checks!
SEO Tip #2 – Make Your URLs SEO-Friendly
Keeping your URLs short and to the point is key. A short four-to-five word, keyword-heavy URL is more likely to have a better rank in Google search than one that doesn’t tell the user anything about the link or lacks keywords.
Also, if it’s short and to the point, a search engine will rank higher than if it wasn’t. Leave out words such as a, the, of, and for. These are usually filtered out of a Google search query and only hinder your website’s SEO.
Examples of Good URLs:
www.example.com/seo-guide-beginner-freelancers
www.awesome.com/large-breed-puppy-toys
These URLs tell the reader what the link is about, are kept short at only 4 words, and contain keywords that readers are likely to search for on Google.
Examples of Bad URLs:
www.crazy.com/things-that-can-change-your-life-forever-in-a-split-second
www.grandmas.com/?p=111
The first URL is too long and contains words that will be filtered out by Google or aren’t necessary to describe the post (“in a split second”).
The second URL doesn’t tell the reader, or Google, what your link will take site visitors to.
SEO Tip #3 – Mention Targeted Keywords Naturally
If you have a blog or post about dog toys, you’ll want to mention the phrase ‘dog toys’ in the first 100 words of your blog or page.
The sooner you can get those keywords in there, the better you’ll rank in a Google search. You also want to mention your keywords and topics as much as you can. The more instances of a keyword, the better for your Google Ranking.
Visitors to your site will be able to tell when the keywords are organic as opposed to when they aren’t. Stuffing keywords where they don’t belong will automatically look forced and make your post choppy to read. Make it flow and appear like it was planned.
SEO Tip #4 – Backlink
The more websites that link back to your website, the better your site can rank on Google. There are two types of backlinks you can create.
1. Outbound links – Outbound links are exactly what they sound like. They’re links that goes from another website to your freelance website. The more authoritative the sites are that link to yours, the more those backlinks can help your site.
2. Internal links – Internal links are links to other posts or pages on your own site. If you have a post about the differences in two different breeds of dogs, add a link to a breed-specific article from your website within the new article.
Internal links keep people on your website and naturally increases your organic traffic, and in turn, your Google ranking. Having a page on your site that doesn’t include another internal link is like having a room without a door. Without a door, you’re trapped in the room.
SEO Tip #5 – Improve Your Site Speed
Site speed is very important. If a site takes longer than a few seconds to load, the majority of users won’t return. Consider it a first impression on a blind date.
There are free tools to check the speed of your site like GTMetrix or PageSpeed Insights.
The speed of your site is so important that Google has made it a factor in its ranking process.
Some ways you can improve your site speed are:
- Image compression
- Reduce server response time
- Choosing the right hosting option for your site
- Enable browser caching
- Reduce image sizes
Many of the ways you can improve the site speed can be done using add-ons if you’re using WordPress. There are many options out there for image compression.
Choosing the right hosting company is another big factor. Some hosting companies are really good and others not so good.
Shared hosting can run as little as $5 a month, but you’ll share a server with other sites. That means that spikes from other sites that you’re sharing with may affect the speed of your site. A dedicated server would eliminate some complications but will require much more work and a technical setup. It’s also more costly. Choosing a
In the end, deciding which one is right for you can make or break your site when it comes to achieving the website traffic you’re looking for.
Conclusion
All it takes is a bit of work and you’ll be on the first page of Google before you know it. Follow these five simple SEO tips and you can do it!
Want more freelance tips? Take my free mini-course to learn more about freelancing here.
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Image by John Schnobrich
Georgi Todorov
Georgi Todorov is the founder of ThriveMyWay, a place for online entrepreneurs, bloggers, SEO specialists, and freelancers to find success in their own way.
LinkedIn: Georgi Todorov
Twitter: @GeorgiTodorovBG
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Good list of tips, Georgi.
Content, together with links, are the most important SEO factors to rank. I’ve recently written an extensive list of +100 ways to build links. It’s interesting to see how many strategies are out there for link building!
Hi Erik,
I read your 100 ways post to build links. I’m a fan of Testimonial linking, but it’s too challenging to grab solid ones for newbies. As per my understanding, the reason is: Those websites also want to place solid social proof, and they only want to mention reputed names. No one will entertain lesser-known businesses/bloggers.
Once they become well-known in the industry, things get easier. Social shares; links; more mentions.
Solid tips, Georgi. Not only newbies but even experienced marketers make this mistake of stressing too much on inbound links instead of improving something that’s in total control of theirs – permalinks, navigational structure, internal links, and social proof. Don’t get me otherwise; I know incoming links from other domains are IMPORTANT, but first things first – build your topical authority and great user experience.