Hi everyone!
TLDR: On my way to achieving my goal of full-time editor, I am considering the possibility of starting up my own website!
So here's the question I want to pose to you:
What kind of content would you like to see on a website?
It would be majority written content, with visuals as needed. Think in terms of The Odyssey Online, a somewhat toned-down Buzzfeed, the Babylon Bee, etc, as far as style.
What kind of content would you want to see? Do you think there's a big gap in the current content you're getting online that you wish someone would fill? Resources that you wish you had access to but nobody seems to be offering it?
Please tell me, and help me get one step closer to my dream!
Click on me for a 1-paragraph backstory on this!
So, my goal in life is to one day be a full-time stay-at-home editor, publishing my own books on the side. However, getting experience in the editing field is tough, and I imagine that it's going to take a long time before I can get to that kind of position that I want. So I had the vague idea of maybe starting my OWN thing that I would be editing, instead of trying desperately to get into another company and move up the ranks. Hence, my quesiton below!
TLDR: On my way to achieving my goal of full-time editor, I am considering the possibility of starting up my own website!
So here's the question I want to pose to you:
What kind of content would you like to see on a website?
It would be majority written content, with visuals as needed. Think in terms of The Odyssey Online, a somewhat toned-down Buzzfeed, the Babylon Bee, etc, as far as style.
What kind of content would you want to see? Do you think there's a big gap in the current content you're getting online that you wish someone would fill? Resources that you wish you had access to but nobody seems to be offering it?
Please tell me, and help me get one step closer to my dream!
Oh, this would be awesome! I run a blog myself and have contributed to websites like this, mostly lifestyle blogs.
What about a creative lifestyle one? With categories like creative writing, music, art, dancing...? And roleplaying could even be a sub category of creative writing! So there would be articles like people telling funny roleplay experiences, the 5 things you need to know if you want to master watercolors, how the life of a belly dancer looks like (Totally inspired by Kim
) Just a hub for everything creative.
With dedication I could totally see this becoming something like BookRiot is for bookworms.
Anyway, it might be overwhelming trying to cover too many things though, but it’s an idea. Maybe you could start with just one area and then slowly expand the content There’s so many possibilities! I’m actually looking forward to reading other people’s ideas about this!
Good luck!
What about a creative lifestyle one? With categories like creative writing, music, art, dancing...? And roleplaying could even be a sub category of creative writing! So there would be articles like people telling funny roleplay experiences, the 5 things you need to know if you want to master watercolors, how the life of a belly dancer looks like (Totally inspired by Kim
) Just a hub for everything creative.With dedication I could totally see this becoming something like BookRiot is for bookworms.
Anyway, it might be overwhelming trying to cover too many things though, but it’s an idea. Maybe you could start with just one area and then slowly expand the content
There’s so many possibilities! I’m actually looking forward to reading other people’s ideas about this!Good luck!
Sooooo writing web content and SEO is my day job. Here's my advice:
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
- Page stuffed with ads
- Content <600 words
- Obvious affiliate-heavy websites with amazon links pushed into their post content
- Unfocused sites with huge varieties of content
- Low comment / social engagement
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
@Ben:
That's AMAZING, thank you so much!! That is seriously a huge help! I will definitely look into what you're talking about, I really appreciate the assistance!!
That's AMAZING, thank you so much!! That is seriously a huge help! I will definitely look into what you're talking about, I really appreciate the assistance!!
It's my pleasure! Shoot me a PM if you need any help at all. This stuff can get confusing quickly -- I'm still learning myself.
Ben wrote:
Sooooo writing web content and SEO is my day job. Here's my advice:
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
- Page stuffed with ads
- Content <600 words
- Obvious affiliate-heavy websites with amazon links pushed into their post content
- Unfocused sites with huge varieties of content
- Low comment / social engagement
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
no problem at all!BTW, Celestina, I've been thinking about taking on a live project to test out my SEO savvy. So if you end up needing someone to do those kinds of tasks for you, I'd be happy to volunteer my time and go in on this project with you. If you'd rather take it alone, however, I would not be offended.
@Ben:
That's very kind of you! I decided that I would actually make my own editing business/website, instead of trying to find a 'niche' to write about. However, I'm not entirely sure how to get my site to show up on any Google searches or anything like that. Is that the kind of thing you're looking for, or were you more intending for my original search idea? If you're not interested that is completely fine
That's very kind of you! I decided that I would actually make my own editing business/website, instead of trying to find a 'niche' to write about. However, I'm not entirely sure how to get my site to show up on any Google searches or anything like that. Is that the kind of thing you're looking for, or were you more intending for my original search idea? If you're not interested that is completely fine
What sort of editing are you looking to try and do? Developmental? Line? Are you hoping to do full-length novels or open to whatever?
One place to get started if you haven't already is on Upwork. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of crap to find something good, but it's been fantastic for me in getting great repeat clients for ghostwriting. Also, if you're wanting to do editing for indie self-publishers, Facebook of all places is huge for that community. (It's seriously the only reason I haven't deleted my account, as much as I'd like to!)
One place to get started if you haven't already is on Upwork. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of crap to find something good, but it's been fantastic for me in getting great repeat clients for ghostwriting. Also, if you're wanting to do editing for indie self-publishers, Facebook of all places is huge for that community. (It's seriously the only reason I haven't deleted my account, as much as I'd like to!)
@pltjess
All of that seems like fantastic advice!
@Celestina
So a business website is a ton harder to do, and if you want to show up on Google even your business website needs a blog where you talk about things related to editing and writing (it's a tough niche, but not impossible). I'll give it some thought. I was perfectly happy to dive in to a blog project but for a "business" website I'm not sure I can justify volunteering my time, and I would also have to check the non-compete contract I signed.
Either way, I'm still very happy to provide advice and guidance, I just don't know if I can dive in and perform the SEO work on a business site.
All of that seems like fantastic advice!
@Celestina
So a business website is a ton harder to do, and if you want to show up on Google even your business website needs a blog where you talk about things related to editing and writing (it's a tough niche, but not impossible). I'll give it some thought. I was perfectly happy to dive in to a blog project but for a "business" website I'm not sure I can justify volunteering my time, and I would also have to check the non-compete contract I signed.
Either way, I'm still very happy to provide advice and guidance, I just don't know if I can dive in and perform the SEO work on a business site.
@pltjess: Ooo that's very helpful, thank you! I'm willing to edit anything from business documents (even able to sign non-disclosure agreements) to novels, to poems, etc.
@Ben: No problem! Editing is kind of my dream goal, so I decided that if I started up a website and stuff now, it might eventually come to something!
Maybe I'll do a blog on the side, but I'm not sure; in my past experience of having my own blog, I usually got two or three articles in before I got bored or busy xD
@Ben: No problem! Editing is kind of my dream goal, so I decided that if I started up a website and stuff now, it might eventually come to something!
Maybe I'll do a blog on the side, but I'm not sure; in my past experience of having my own blog, I usually got two or three articles in before I got bored or busy xD
@Celestina
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
And even doing all that, it will likely be months before you see any traction on search engines, so you'll need to solicit work personally anyway. FUN TIMES. :S
EDIT: So my advice is to do the Facebook and personal lead generation thing, but to have a blog and post on it say, once a month. That's sustainable. Take some time to get to know the community of websites in the editing niche, and do some guest posting (post for someone else's blog). When you guest post, most folks are fine with you linking back to your own website. That way you slowly build authority outside of your own site, widen your audience, and gradually generate links all at the same time. A year or so down the line, your site should be in pretty good standing.
EDIT: So my advice is to do the Facebook and personal lead generation thing, but to have a blog and post on it say, once a month. That's sustainable. Take some time to get to know the community of websites in the editing niche, and do some guest posting (post for someone else's blog). When you guest post, most folks are fine with you linking back to your own website. That way you slowly build authority outside of your own site, widen your audience, and gradually generate links all at the same time. A year or so down the line, your site should be in pretty good standing.
Ben wrote:
@Celestina
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
Just wanted to jump in and add some tidbits of useful info to this already enormous wealth of useful info: SEO is also heavily dependent on proper coding within the site that the content is present. Content is a huge, huge factor, but without the solid SEO specific programming on the website to structure the data itself, content doesn't get indexed properly and you still won't rank well on SERPs. Google will rank your content lower than similar content from someone else if their base coding is better than yours.
I don't really have a comprehensive list of free website hosts that do this automatically, but installing plugins like Yoast SEO on Wordpress for example, already helps a ton! Yoast SEO does a lot of the structured data for you, all you have to do is fill in some blanks and optimize your content in those specific fields. Do make use of this where possible, it makes a dramatic difference if you want the exposure.
@Ben:
....whoah. That is actually SUPER helpful knowledge! A lot of knowledge, but super helpful! I will definitely take your advice into consideration as I flesh things out! I'm not an 'official business' yet, still trying to work on the legal side of that, but this is all very important for me to know as I move forward! Thank you!
....whoah. That is actually SUPER helpful knowledge! A lot of knowledge, but super helpful! I will definitely take your advice into consideration as I flesh things out! I'm not an 'official business' yet, still trying to work on the legal side of that, but this is all very important for me to know as I move forward! Thank you!
@Sanne: Ohhh, got it! Thank you for the information! My website is currently through Joomla, which has been a learning curve in itself! xD
Sanne wrote:
Ben wrote:
@Celestina
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
Here's the thing. If you're going to have a website that goes on your business card, and people can visit it for more info about you, or if you get leads on work in other ways like Facebook etc as pltjess suggested, it's absolutely fine to not worry so much about having a blog.
But if you want to rank on Google and wish to rely on organic traffic to your website in order to generate work, you need a blog, it needs useful content, and it needs to be regularly updated. "Regular" means just that -- on a regular schedule. It doesn't need to be frequent. Research suggests that Google doesn't prioritize a site that posts once a day over a site that posts once every two weeks as long as the content is good, and it happens on a predictable schedule.
That's the easy part. Next comes finding people willing to link back to your blog posts on their own websites. That's why it's so much harder to rank a business on Google than a straight up blog, because people will generally link back to blogs with useful information on their own if they like it, and it's a lot easier to convince other site owners to link back to you if you represent "just a blog." If you represent a business, everyone is going to want money from you in order to link back to your website.
Getting links from other websites is the bread and butter of SEO, without it you're very unlikely to rank on Google. That's why you need a blog, because you need content that people will be willing to link to, and that a wide audience will read for informational purposes, which maintains volume of traffic.
So, like I said above, it depends on your goal. SEO is hard. Businesses frequently pay $500-$1000 for ONE link because they are just that difficult to generate. Links are only one strategy, but they're kind of the most effective one due to how the Google crawlers interact with websites. Websites pass authority between each other.
If your goal is to have a website so that you can direct already interested people to it, and plan to find work personally, then you don't need any of the above.
If you want to rank on Google, welcome to the wonderful world of SEO and linkbuilding. It's an entirely different form of marketing and it's hard as heck.
Just wanted to jump in and add some tidbits of useful info to this already enormous wealth of useful info: SEO is also heavily dependent on proper coding within the site that the content is present. Content is a huge, huge factor, but without the solid SEO specific programming on the website to structure the data itself, content doesn't get indexed properly and you still won't rank well on SERPs. Google will rank your content lower than similar content from someone else if their base coding is better than yours.
I don't really have a comprehensive list of free website hosts that do this automatically, but installing plugins like Yoast SEO on Wordpress for example, already helps a ton! Yoast SEO does a lot of the structured data for you, all you have to do is fill in some blanks and optimize your content in those specific fields. Do make use of this where possible, it makes a dramatic difference if you want the exposure.
This is true, but it's not as vital as people think. It's absolutely a good idea to make sure your coding is clean, and websites can get super weird technical issues that impact SEO.... However, Google is getting better and better at crawling sites, and as long as you don't have any glaring code issues, which would be problems anyway, this isn't a huge priority. If you have a sitemap, a robots.txt that's clean (which most services do for you), and you internally link between pages, you don't need to worry much about code. (Apart from making sure you're using HTML tags to flag your titles and headers, which a ton of services automate).
In fact technical SEO is less about the code on a page and more about if your site is "crawlable" in terms of things like:
Are any links broken?
Is the site easy to use (UX)?
Is there enough content on a page?
Is there duplicate content?
You can get Google to do this check for you on the Google search console! It will tell you if there are any issues.
To be completely honest I would make the opposite argument. If your content is better and users like it more, you'll rank better than sites who have worse content but better code.
https://moz.com/blog/launching-new-website-seo-checklist-whiteboard-friday
Yoast and tools like it are fantastic for making optimization easy in terms of keywords, meta descriptions, etc, but don't trust them for technical SEO. They are usually way behind the search engines' tech.
EDIT: This DOES apply to things like how you build your actual content when you're writing it by using HTML title tags etc. That's what the tools are good for, making title tags, headers, etc, easy to do.
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development
@Celestina
This is a HUGE information dump. Don't worry if it's a lot to deal with right now. I'm always here
Ben wrote:
Sooooo writing web content and SEO is my day job. Here's my advice:
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
Don't try to be a catch-all site. Pick a VERY specific niche (deciding that is probably why you started this thread, kudos!) and know who your audience is. Look at other sites within that niche and see if you can find a gap in their content.
Next, learn some basic SEO, enough to find your way through a few keyword analysis tools and look at what questions people are asking in Google. Google tracks ALL SORTS of info, and so do tools like https://www.semrush.com/
The information tracked isn't just single words, it tracks entire sentences and questions that people put into search engines. My advice is rather than base your decisions on a small sample size like this, pick a niche that you're passionate about, then do the keyword research. Bigger sample size, and you'll get a sense for the kinds of questions those audiences are asking. You can absolutely use responses to this thread for brainstorming, and to determine what real people like in a website, but for best results you need a greater volume of data.
If this makes your head spin, I'll set you up with some reading and help you do some analysis.
Once you've got your niche, I pretty much guarantee you it will be saturated with WAY too much content already. That's just how things are these days. So based on your research, put a unique spin on it. You don't need to limit yourself to one core audience, feel free to have two, three, six, or nine target audiences but make sure they're under the same general niche, and know who those people are, what questions they ask, what fears they have, what they need most. You can absolutely do this with small surveys like this post, but you will be well served by... You guessed it, keyword research! You can tell a lot about an audience by what they type into search engines.
When you're researching keywords within a niche, look for these telltale signs that an audience is not being served well:
- Page stuffed with ads
- Content <600 words
- Obvious affiliate-heavy websites with amazon links pushed into their post content
- Unfocused sites with huge varieties of content
- Low comment / social engagement
If you see a lot of this stuff on the first search engine results page (SERP), you've likely found an audience that is being under-served, and an opportunity to get some traffic.
I could go on all night, but um, that's a start.
Ben's on the money here.
I would take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk's material to understand the online landscape and digital marketing a little better.
Also give Google Digital Garage a google for a free online introductory course to marketing yourself online and getting your content visible.
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