It is well-known how important the quality of content is to the ranking that Google gives to the respective website. This aspect is related to the company’s policy that puts readers’ interests first. As such, the question arises of what Affiliates can do to reach as many customers as possible.
To answer this question, it is necessary to take into account that websites, or blogs, that are exclusively focused on promoting an offer are not well regarded by Google. This happens because Google interprets these sites as being uninformative and limited in terms of content.
The only way to get around this rule is by creating a blog that has a lot of content and that, at the same time, shares the product you want.
We must never forget that content is the key to everything, so the more you publish, with more information, better images, and better quality, the more results you will get. Product promotion should always be something that comes second and not first. Of course, through Google or Facebook Ads, we can directly share the product we are promoting, however, we must bear in mind that this will have a lot of financial costs.
If you want to focus solely and exclusively on the world of Affiliate Marketing, another option is to focus your blog on that topic. As? A solution that is widely used is to create posts that review other products and programs related to the topic. One might think that in this case, Google would harm this content because it is not new, but that thought is wrong. Google values these reviews because this is how readers have more information about the product, more details, and more different opinions to be able to make a more consistent evaluation.
For you to be more successful on this topic, it is important that the content is as current as possible, so a good way is to get in touch with people who have purchased that product, ask their opinion, what they liked, and what they didn’t like and talk about it in your posts. Google values information that is as current as possible, so if you choose this strategy you will always be at an advantage.
Another aspect that has been said several times is the frequency with which it is published. Of course, it is not mandatory to do this every day, but it should be done regularly. You should always publish at least once a week and it should be a post that has a good amount of information, but be careful, no exaggerations!
A good trick for this topic, and one that almost no one talks about, is the issue of titles. It is widely known that titles containing numbers have higher reading rates, things like “The 10 best sites for…”, or “20 Perfect Plugins for…”, or even “5 essential tools for those who….”, however, there is one detail that is important to take into account, and that detail is the use of dates.
When you write a title like “Best Blogs of 2024” it is true that it creates curiosity among the public because they feel that they are reading something important at the moment, however, when a year passes that post will automatically be devalued by Google, and by readers, because it becomes outdated, even if the content is not. As such, it is extremely important to update the titles and content of posts if they make references to dates. This way, not only are you not wasting published content, but you are also telling Google that you care about updating your website, in other words, these are just benefits.
One last piece of information that you need to take into account is that currently, the internet is extremely competitive, as such, there are always, whatever the topic, lots of content on offer for any topic. To stand out you have to give readers something that other websites and blogs don’t offer, which means that simply rewriting a post you found on another blog is not a good idea at all.
Information Structure
The information must be properly organized, and this applies both to the content of a post and to the entire blog. The most used scheme is the famous “Pyramid”, that is, having a central theme that will structure the entire blog, then two or three variants that will organize the various posts, and so on. The great advantage of this structure is that in addition to helping the reader know exactly what they can count on your blog, it will also help them know which topics they need to write about and how often.
In this theme of the organization, there is one thing that is essential so that it has due credit for the creation of content, that is, the name so that we know who is the author of the post we are reading. A method that was previously widely used is placing a vertical bar in the title, such as “100 Best Plugins I Ricardo D’almeida”, however, it is currently known that this method not only does not help with SEO but also harms it. If you want your name to appear in the titles, and yes this brings advantages in terms of CTR, the best solution is to use “by”, that is, the title would be “100 Best Plugins by Ricardo D’almeida”.
Another small detail that could help get more readers is using question marks at the end of the title, this increases people’s curiosity. The exclamation mark can also be a good alternative, however you need to be careful with its excessive use.
The use of capital letters is something to take into account, you should avoid putting titles in all capital letters as this may give the impression of something forced. The best solution is to always use the first letter in capital letters and the remaining letters in lowercase, such as “Digital Marketing: What it is, Advantages, Categories.”
Don’t forget that the keyword used in the subject of the post must be the same as the one that appears in the title and meta description.
Title Tag
This term refers to the HTML code that represents the title of a page, this means that it is the best way to transmit the content of the title to the search engine, such as Google.
The big challenge with Title Tag is when you try to create something that pleases both readers and search engines. An excellent way to achieve this balance is to use keywords that are relevant and that are in high demand at a given time.
A small detail that makes all the difference is placing the keyword as far to the left as possible in the title, that is, preferably being the first words. Several studies prove that these titles have a much higher CTR than those where the keyword is at the end of the title.
Never forget that a title must be as descriptive as possible, it must be captivating, preferably short, and must always include the most important keywords.
Meta Description
By Google’s definition, the description of a publication is the first word that appears, however, this is not always the best option. This is what Meta Description exists for, that is, it is an HTML meta tag that allows the creator to best describe their publication.
To make this description there is some information that should be taken into account, namely the fact that this description will be available to readers, so it should be as captivating as possible. It must contain the keywords used in the publication, be very captivating, have friendly language, and preferably contain a Call to Action. This CTA should not be something that encourages the purchase of a product, but rather the discovery of the publication’s content, expressions such as “Discover more”, or “Enter now” are better choices.
It is important to carry out A/B tests and evaluate the results using tools such as Google Search Console to assess the public’s reaction and choose the best options.
Site Map
An element that is often ignored, and some are even unaware of it at all, is the so-called “site map”. This is a page where there is a complete list of content from your blog/site in which the user can understand the structure and know how to navigate to find exactly what they are looking for.
The truth is that this is not a resource that is frequently used by readers, however, Google likes its existence and, for this reason, has already assumed that it gives a higher SEO ranking to blogs that contain the map.
Google’s preference for this resource is not only due to its concern for readers but also because of the ease it now has in indexing blog content, allowing it to better understand what is being published.
It’s something that takes a little work to do, but it’s quite advantageous.
Accessibility
This topic is directly related to the previous one, I’m sure it has happened to you several times when you enter a website and become confused about its structure and how it works. It has also happened to you several times that you go looking for certain content and cannot find it no matter how hard you look. The solution in these cases is always the same, leave the website and go look for the information elsewhere.
This is where the importance of accessibility comes in, a blog must be simple, direct, and easy to use. It must be organized in such a way that anyone can enter and find what they are looking for in a short time. Resources such as the Site Map, Internal Search, Index, or content galleries are important factors in making the reader’s experience as pleasant as possible.
Do you have all these tricks in practice on your blog? If not, which ones are you missing? Comment below.
Ricardo D’almeida
