There are still plenty of opportunities for a quick win with SEO. As some of you may already know, Barnacle SEO is the name given when you leverage the trust and authority of a site to expedite the ranking process for your page. Barnacle SEO can work great, but only if you choose the correct platforms. Some are great and while others are very difficult to rank. Today we are going to talk about three properties that still rank very well.
YouTube is the second most used search engine in the world. Uploading and ranking a video on YouTube would be a smart move for your business, ranking the same video in Google, even smarter. Here is what it takes to rank a YouTube video.
-Your title should contain your primary keyword and for even faster results, a long-tail keyword.
- The description of your video should be 150 words or more of unique and descriptive content that includes your primary keyword and LSI keywords.
- Shares of your video will create links to the video and the shares themselves are viewed as a favorable ranking factor.
-Views of the video. Not only does your video need views but, the viewers watching over 50 percent of the video is also beneficial. When making videos, save something big for the end.
-Comments show Google that your video is interesting enough for people to engage with it.
-Links to the video and channel. The URL of the actual video and your YouTube channel are both able to gain authority. Link building will help to rapidly increase this authority. If you are not sure where to start, check out this post on securing your first 44 backlinks.
Surprisingly another of Google's properties is still ranking very well. Blogger is a free blogging platform very similar to WordPress. Like YouTube, when you create a blog on Blogger, you are taking advantage of the root domain authority to help your new site. Since your site is hosted at a subdomain of blogspot.com, the page authority on your new site is still going to be zero. Unlike a self-hosted domain though, you can immediately start building links to your Blogger blog to increase the authority. Here is how you should setup your account for best results.
- Choosing the URL. Unlike a self-hosted domain, you can still benefit from an exact match or near exact match subdomain on Blogger. If you have a long-tail version of your primary keyword, that is a great choice for the subdomain.
- Adding Content. Posts that are 400 words or greater in length have the best chance of ranking. Your content should be original and informative. You should also add videos and images when possible.
- Optimizing Pages. Once you add content and media to the page you want to makes sure you optimize it properly. The content should be optimized as you would for any website. Images should include your keyword. Hover an image in the editor and click "properties". Add a keyword rich title and alt text. Tags are also helpful. You should add 7-10 tags to every post you add. Be sure that tags are displayed on the site as well.
- Links and Shares. Once you have the basics in place, you need to build links to the property and strive for social sharing as well. Since the blog is on an authority domain, you can build lower quality links in high volume and you will still see a noticeable increase in authority and ranking power of your blog. Social shares will reinforce the legitimacy of your blog in the eyes of Google, which can translate into ranking for longer.
Facebook is a mega player is the social realm and with a few tweaks, it can also serve as a hub for generating search traffic as well. As with the first two properties, a Facebook page also benefits from residing on a high authority root domain. Here is how to optimize your page for search traffic.
-Choosing a Page Name. While your inner black hat SEO desires may be telling you to create a keyword-stuffed page name, you would do more harm than good. Part of the success of your page will depend upon people engaging with it, so write your title like a brand.
-Custom URL. This is one of the most important things to get right. Once you have over 25 likes, you can select a custom URL for your site. This needs to include your primary keyword.
- Short & Long Descriptions and Mission. These are the areas where you can add the most content to your website. As you would with your website, include keywords in each of these descriptions, just do so in a natural manner.
- Products. List your products since they should be representative of what you do. Use the full area to describe your products as well.
-Links and Engagement. Having people actively engage with your page will help social growth and can benefit your optimization efforts by creating natural links to your page. As with the first two properties, link building to a Facebook page is nearly a free for all. You can start with quick wins like linking to it from guest posts, other social profiles, and your own website.
There you have it, three easy ways to generate additional search traffic without PPC. Have you had any success using these three properties? Tell us about it below!