Keyword research is an essential component of current SEO. Whether you’re relaunching an existing blog or planning a new one, quality keywords are one of the most effective strategies to drive continuous, high-quality visitors to your site.

Building a website entails more than just making it appealing to visitors. You must also ensure that people can locate your website. According to research, less than 1% of Google searches get past the first page, and more than half never browse past the first three results on page one. So, what are your options? Make your articles and pages search engine friendly!

What is a Focus Keyword?

A focus keyword is a term or phrase that you select for your content with the goal of ranking for it in search engines. It’s the phrase you want to appear in search results for. The focus keyword ensures that anyone looking for that term on the internet will reach their post. The use of target keywords enhances SEO. This is a fundamental principle of digital marketing.

Throughout the blog, the main keyword is mentioned multiple times. This ensures that the website will appear at the top of the search engine results page when someone types in the word or phrase in Google. It is a terrific strategy to get your website to the top of Google searches, which will bring more traffic and maybe more consumers to your website.

Types of Keywords

Short-tail Keywords

A short-tail keyword, often known as a ‘head term,’ is a wide search phrase that generally comprises 1-3 words. Because short-tail keywords often have more search traffic than long-tail keywords, they draw more people to websites.

Using short-tail keywords can help you reach a larger audience and drive a lot of traffic to your website. This audience might not be prepared to make a purchase or motivated to take action on your website, though. There are a few things to consider while choosing short tail keywords for which we wish to rank:

The shorter the keyword, the more popular it is in terms of search volume. The more short-tail keywords you can rank for; the more traffic your website will receive. It’s hardly surprising that everyone is striving to rank for short-tail keywords given the massive search traffic. As a result, there is intense rivalry for short-tail keywords.

Long-tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords receive more searches than long-tail keywords, on average. They are, in other words, the “least popular” search phrases. However, they are more focused than short-tail keywords, giving search engines more information and blatantly indicating search intent.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the act of locating and evaluating search phrases that people type into search engines with the intention of utilizing that information for a specific purpose, most commonly search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing.

You must understand the keywords that your clients use while searching for you. That is why, before selecting keywords, you should always undertake keyword research. Using long-tail keywords increases your chances of ranking higher. These have more than one term and are frequently less looked for than apparent and popular keywords. Less popular, though, equals less competition. As a result, you have a higher chance of placing high.

Armed with keyword knowledge related to your area, you have the unique potential to develop highly relevant content that benefits your site visitors while also increasing your trustworthiness. After all, you’re speaking the audience’s language and meeting their wants.

Importance of Keyword Research

By providing a clear image of who they’re competing against, keyword research helps SEOs grasp the competitive environment. Google will rank your website for the keywords if you use them on several pages. Finding the right keywords to use in outreach and blogs will increase the number of people who visit your website.

When someone is looking for something, they use search words that are concise and straightforward. Search phrases will then be matched to articles that include the same search terms (keywords) all across the post by the search engine. If someone wanted to learn about SEO, for instance, they may put SEO into the search field.

Let’s imagine you have a concept for a piece of content that you’d want to create. By conducting thorough keyword research, you can determine which domains are already fighting for the relevant phrase (s). Keyword analysis reveals how tough or simple it will be to rank at the top of Google and other search engines

Money Saver

In order to deploy resources as efficiently as possible, keyword research comprises estimates of traffic and competition for each keyword in addition to a list of phrases or queries users enter into Google.

This is a better strategy than attempting to dominate the 300,000 other websites vying for the same keyword or phrase. Similar to how competitive bidding data might affect where and how much you pay on keyword advertising. Negative keywords can also be shown, which can help you save time, money, and effort on your advertising efforts.

Learn Important Rank Information

You may learn important information from keyword research, such as where you stand for particular phrases, which keywords are simple to rank for, and which keywords your rivals are ranking for. Success is the main driver behind starting an online business or website.

Keyword research will show if it is beneficial to pursue a given topic or not. Finding out how authoritative the other websites listed for the keywords you’re interested in can help you undertake competitive research. This may be carried out in a number of methods, including manually or more quickly with the use of a keyword research tool.

Find the best possible Keyword.

The ideal keywords to target may be found with keyword research, which also offers useful information about the Google searches your target market is making. You may use the knowledge you gain about these real search phrases to guide both your smaller-scale marketing plan and your content strategy.

When performing internet research, people utilize keywords to discover answers. Therefore, you stand to get more traffic if your content is successful in appearing in front of our audience while they do searches. As a result, you ought to concentrate on such searches.

Marketing Trends Insight

Effective keyword research may give you information about current marketing trends and assist you in focusing your content on the pertinent subjects and search terms that your audience is using. Keyword research might show you what people are actually looking for, not just what you think they are looking for.

You must conduct some background research on your target market before conducting keyword research. This will allow you to discover a lot about your consumers. This will happen when you search Google for your problem or go to a forum about it. All of this customer information will be very helpful to you as you grow. You’ll be able to write more effectively and provide your consumers with what they want if you understand consumer trends and behaviour.

Elements of Keyword Research

Relevance

Content Relevance affects how Google ranks material. The idea of search intent enters the picture at this point. If your material satisfies the demands of the searchers, it will rank for that term. Additionally, the query’s greatest resource must be your content.

Authority

Sources that Google considers authoritative will be given greater weight. This means that you must use every effort to establish yourself as an authoritative source by enhancing your website with educational, helpful content and advertising it to get social signals and backlinks. Unless your blog is extraordinary, you have a decreased chance of ranking if you’re not regarded as an authority in the field or if a keyword’s SERPs are stacked with authoritative sites you can’t compete with.

Volume

The average monthly number of searches for a term or phrase is known as the search volume. You may check the global search volume for a term or choose a particular city, county, state, or nation. Even if you wind up on the top page of search results for a certain term, no one will ever visit your website as a consequence. similar to opening a business in a deserted location.

How to Do Keyword Research for Your Blog or Business?

Step 1: Create a list of Relevant Topics Relevant to your Niche or Business

Consider the generic categories for the subjects you wish to rank for. You’ll create five to ten subject buckets that you believe are crucial to your business, and you’ll utilize those topic buckets later on in the process to help you choose some precise keywords. These are presumably the subjects you blog about most frequently if you are a regular blogger. What themes would your target audience look for that you want your company to be found for? Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas.

Step 2: Fill each topic with phrases Potential readers/customers could use in search engines

It’s time to choose some phrases that fit within the topic buckets you’ve chosen to concentrate on. These are keyword phrases that you believe your potential readers or customers are searching for on those topics.

Look through your organic search traffic bucket to find terms users are already using to find your website if you already have data from website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Sources report.

This is an opportunity to generate ideas for data points that can help make your study more focused and successful, not as a final list of keywords. You just want to come up with a list of words and phrases that you imagine clients could use to look for material under that certain topic bucket. So that you don’t have something too cumbersome, we will subsequently refine the list. Repeat this exercise for as many topic buckets as you have.

Step 3: Find Related Search Terms

If you’re having trouble coming up with more phrases that people could use to search on a certain subject, look at the related search terms that show up when you enter a keyword into Google. You’ll get some search recommendations for your first term when you type it into Google and scroll to the bottom of the results.

These keywords might provide you with suggestions for additional keywords you might want to think about. Click on one of the related searches for further information, and then look at the list that Google provides at the bottom of the second page.

Step 4: Use Keyword tools to analyze the strength of the listed keywords

Based on the concepts you’ve already developed, keyword research and SEO tools can assist you in developing more keyword suggestions using exact match and phrase match keywords. The most well-liked ones include:

Step 5: Check and verify the search intent of the keywords listed

The word “search intent” refers to the goal of an internet search (also known as “user intent” or “audience intent”). It is the motivation behind a certain search. Everyone who conducts an internet search is, after all, looking for something.

Although you may believe that your keywords will drive traffic to your website, it’s possible that people who use those terms in their search may be seeking something else.

There are 4 primary types of search intent.

  • Informational (your prospects want to learn something): Prospects will inquire about the following: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
  • Navigational (they are looking for a specific company or website): Navigational searches frequently ask for the name of the company or specific information about them. For instance, “Kempinski Hotel” or “MKBHD iPhone review”
  • Transactional (they are comparing specific products and are almost ready to purchase): These customers are about to make a purchase and are weighing their alternatives to determine which good or service will work best for them. Examples of words in their search term may include “reviews,” “compare,” “best,” “vs.,” and “top 10.”
  • Commercial (they are prepared to buy now): Prospects who are prepared to purchase utilize commercial searches. Brand names, particular items (such as an Android phone or a FIFA 22 pc key), and product categories are among them.

You should think about the user’s goal behind various words when you conduct SEO keyword research to see if your content complies.

Consider a scenario in which you are looking for information on how to start a blog for an article you want to write. What a searcher is looking for when they use the term “blog”—which might refer to either a blog post or the blog website—will affect how your article is written. Are you looking for information on how to start a blog post individually? Or do they want to know how to start a domain for a website specifically to blog on? You should confirm the keyword’s purpose before using it if your content strategy solely targets those interested in the latter.

If you try to sell to a customer who is seeking information, you may gain a click, but the click will be short-lived, which may lower your rating. A customer will be pleased if you deliver a product page when they are prepared to buy.

Step 6: Check your competition

If you’re up against well-known brands that already dominate the first page of Google for the majority of the phrases you’ve chosen, you should adjust your approach to find less-competitive long-tail keywords.

Your ideal search keywords should appear on the search engine results page (SERP). Refine your list with long-tail keywords if it’s full of reputable brands with greater impact and market share than your business now enjoys.

 

Keyword Research Review

You now have a list of keywords that will direct your attention to the appropriate business-related issues and help you achieve both short- and long-term success. Make sure to review these keywords every few months; once every three months is a reasonable standard, but some companies prefer to do it even more frequently.

Keyword research is really essential to your growth as a business or blogger. If you liked this content, turn on our notification to get prompted when we post.

If you have any questions, let us know in the comments!

The basics of the algorithms used by search engines like Google and YouTube to rank websites and videos are the same. The goal is to give users the greatest experience possible, thus Google search results and YouTube video search results have been integrated to make searching easier. We have a comprehensive article on improving general SEO for websites and blogs. You can check it out here.

You might be familiar with the fundamentals of YouTube SEO, such as using keywords in the channel name, meta description, and tags. But there’s more you can do for YouTube SEO by making videos more accessible. Since search engine bots are unable to view videos, they must be properly indexed using the accompanying text information.

In this article, I’ll show you step-by-step how to use some basic YouTube SEO techniques to promote your YouTube videos.

Pick the Right Keywords

You must choose the appropriate phrase or keyword for your video. Keywords frequently occur in video titles, metadata, captions, and transcripts when they are stated in the audio. That’s advantageous for YouTube SEO. The words and phrases you choose for your keywords and keyword phrases should appropriately describe your video, and be similar to what people type into search engines to find material like yours.

Every month, SERP (Search Engine Result Page) competition increases. New rivals, new goods, and new services are all vying for the top rankings. Therefore, it’s critical to find ways to vary both your offering and yourself. Do your keyword research and choose phrases that can bring you traffic but are less competitive, unless you can compete with highly competitive ones.

You can use the same keyword research tools you’d use for PPC or SEO, like

  • WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool
  • Google Keyword Planner.
  • Moz or Semrush.
  • YouTube search—search suggest, people also ask, related searches, and more!

In the YouTube Studio’s Traffic Sources > YouTube search section, you can also retrieve terms from your YouTube search report.

Look at how many “About results” your keyword produces when you search for it on YouTube to see if it’s a good one. In order to stand out from the crowd, you should look for keyword variations with a high search volume yet low competition.

Include Keyword in the Title

The first step is to comprehend your audience’s search intent. We are aware that informational, commercial, navigational, and transactional search intents are the most prevalent. Therefore, it will be crucial for your video to match what it is about with the goal of your audience if you want it to appear in search results.

The title fits 100 characters, however, it truncates after 70, therefore your most crucial information and keyword should be near the top. To get them to click, use persuasive language. Examples include “how-to,” “advice,” “tips,” or numbered lists. “How to Grow Your YouTube Channel,” for instance.

Although it seems easy, many YouTube channels skip this step, which causes their videos to rank poorly in Google and YouTube search results.

Use Closed Captions and Subtitles

Closed captions and subtitles can improve YouTube SEO by emphasizing crucial words. Closed captions are intended for viewers who cannot hear the audio, whereas video subtitles are used to translate video speech for viewers who cannot understand the video language.

The text of what is stated in the video is included in both closed-caption files and subtitles, much like a transcript. Additionally, the file will include timing information for when each passage of text should be shown in the movie so that it can correspond with speech or another visual component. See the list of file types that YouTube accepts here.

Another advantage of having a transcript for your video is that, like a blog, it may be found by major search engines.

Optimized Description

Having a strong, optimized video description is one of the most crucial ranking elements for YouTube SEO. YouTube will reassess the video if you modify or update any element of the movie, including the video description, closed captions, and thumbnails.

YouTube Creator Academy lists the following tips for writing searchable descriptions:

  • Give an overview of your video using natural language, not just a stream of keywords.
  • Put the most important keywords toward the beginning of your description. Only the first two or three lines of text, or roughly 100 characters, are displayed on YouTube. Viewers must then click “show more” to view the full description after that.
  • Choose one or two key terms that best characterize your video, and be sure to emphasize them in both the description and title.
  • Use Google Trends and Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify popular keywords and their synonyms. Including these terms can help you maximize traffic from search.
  • Avoid irrelevant words in your description, which can create a poor viewing experience and may violate YouTube policies.

Use Eye-Catching thumbnails

The click-through rate is significantly affected by the selection of the video thumbnail image. They are the first thing that grabs people’s attention when they look at YouTube search results. Use photographs with a 16:9 aspect ratio that are of good quality and contrast. The greatest shots are those with close-ups of the face.

YouTubers can pick which frame appears as the thumbnail for their video. You can choose from 3 screenshots that YouTube will provide, but you can also pick a different frame from the video or submit your own photo.

Create something that grabs people’s attention and stands out from the crowd so that your video gets noticed. Use websites like Canva, which has designs specifically for YouTube video thumbnails, if you need inspiration for photos.

Make sure nothing crucial in your thumbnail is obscured by YouTube’s overlay of the video time in the lower corner of the thumbnail. Also keep in mind that Google utilizes image recognition to remove specific graphics, like the YouTube logo, automatically.

Include Keyword in the Video File Name

Once you’ve chosen a strong keyword, make sure YouTube is aware of it by including it in the file name of your video. Your file name might be “website-building-for-beginners” followed by the type of video file, for instance.

Very straightforward, but YouTube might take this into account when determining how high up the search results to display your film. Your video will be considerably more likely to be rated if the file name you are submitting contains the desired keyword.

You can see the file name when you upload a new video. Ensure you update the file name before uploading your video.

Use Hashtags

Users may now use hashtags (#) on social media to search for information that responds to their queries across social media sites. To make it easier for viewers to find your video when they search for a particular hashtag, you can add hashtags to the descriptions and titles of your YouTube videos. This will greatly improve your YouTube SEO.,

Particularly, tags aid in advancing search since they highlight important trends. When you include a hashtag in the video description, it will first appear above the video’s title before turning into a hyperlink.

I hope this YouTube SEO article helped you to streamline your YouTube videos for success and views. If you have any questions concerning YouTube SEO, leave them in the comments!

To share your posts on your social media pages is a great way to drive traffic to your website and increase the post’s reach. Facebook boasts of more than 2 billion active users and Twitter, has about 330 million active users. These stats are buttressing the point that sharing your posts on either of these platforms is a great way to send eyes to your articles.

Social networking websites provide you with a lot of exposure, regardless of your perspective. You may get in on the activity and increase traffic to your website if you play your cards well. In this article, we’ll look at how to share your posts automatically on your social media pages from your WordPress posts.

Why Automatic?

Tiring

It can be a tedious task to continually create new social media posts every time you publish a post. And not for just one social media channel, but you may have to create for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, you can share directly from Facebook to Instagram, provided you have linked both pages.

Forgetfulness

Because of the million other things on your schedule, you may forget to share great posts on your social media pages that could drive traffic to your blog site. It’s human to be forgetful, but it doesn’t make you feel any less regret knowing you had a potential post on your hands and didn’t remember to share them.

Benefits of Sharing on Social Media

Drive traffic

One of the most popular platforms worldwide is social media. This implies that social media can help you generate a lot of traffic for your website. People will click on your link and end up on your site if you publish fantastic content that is helpful to them. Right, you want more people to discover your stuff. If so, you must divulge it.

There’s a chance that thousands of people will view an article or photograph you publish. Simply share your posts and include a call to action urging potential clients to contact your business if they want to learn more.

Improve Brand Awareness

If you want to establish your brand, share your posts on social media platforms. Your goal is to increase the number of your “people” who discover your material because as they do, they will learn more about your brand.

Increased business recognition and accessibility for new clients are two benefits of increased social media presence. Additionally, it enables you to be open with readers, fostering relationships and enhancing your reputation.

Search Engine Optimization

Posting on social media is one of the best SEO practices to help you rank higher in organic search results. Your search engine results will improve when you share your posts on social networking websites. How? Sharing essentially results in the creation of connections to your website from social media sites. These platforms often have strong domain authority, and the link profile will aid search engines in finding more of your material.

Second, social signals like likes, comments, shares, and retweets are taken into account by search engines when determining how to rank your page. Your search rankings go better as you gather more social signals. The more visitors you attract to your website, the higher your search ranks will be.

More Opportunities to Convert

Every time you make a post on a social media network, you give potential consumers the chance to convert. You build a loyal and active following on social media sites, make sure to update frequently. Every image, article, or post you publish gives readers the chance to respond, which may result in site conversion. Social media posting is a powerful tool for connecting with new clients and business partners, creating linkages, and expanding the reach of your brand.

How to Automatically Share Your Posts on Social Media Posts Using JetPack

You can automatically share your posts to social media sites using WordPress plugins. The best available and free plugin to do this is JetPack. This comes with multiple features and you can post on the three most popular social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) automatically.

How to Install

  • Log in to your WordPress site’s Dashboard.
  • In the left panel, click on “Plugins” and click “Add New”.
  • Search for “Jetpack”. Click on the link “Install Now”.
  • On the top right, click on “Connect to WordPress.com”. Log in with your WordPress.com account
  • Click “Authorise Jetpack”.
  • After connecting Jetpack with an account of your choice, you’ll be redirected to the Jetpack pricing page. Scroll to the bottom and click Start for free, as shown below.

How to Use JetPack

  • Next, click the Settings button
  • Click the Sharing option
  • Toggle Automatically share your posts to social networks, then click Connect your social media accounts.
  • On the page that opens in a new tab, connect your social media accounts. With JetPack, you can automatically share your posts to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn. You can also connect your Mailchimp account so that users that have signed up to your mailing list will receive posts directly in their mail.
  • Return to your WordPress admin dashboard after integrating your social network accounts, and create a new test post. (This is to make sure everything is working accordingly. We’ll delete this post afterward)
  • You can now see your Jetpack Publicize under the Publish button. Once you publish, the post will automatically be uploaded to all social media accounts connected to JetPack.

It’s a terrific strategy to establish your brand and increase traffic to your WordPress website to share your posts on social media. We advise utilizing plugins like Jetpack as manual post sharing is a time-consuming and laborious process. If you faced any challenges or have any questions, let us know in the comments.

There are several WordPress SEO plugins available. Most of us are aware of Yoast. The most widely used SEO plugin for WordPress at the moment, it is present on more than 5 million websites. There are, however, less well-known options that perform just as well and include a variety of capabilities to control your page’s SEO.

Rank Math was founded in 2018 and is based in New Delhi, India. In less than two years since its release, Rank Math has experienced an enormous surge in popularity. It doesn’t rank 1st as WordPress’s most popular SEO plugin, however, given its recent surge in popularity, it is unquestionably the second-most successful SEO plugin of 2020.

Why has it achieved such success? Other SEO plugins can’t compare to the remarkable collection of free features offered by Rank Math. Although a Premium edition is offered, many people just require the free version.

How Rank Math Works?

Each page on your website receives a score from the plugin that indicates how effective it is at SEO. You receive pointers and practical guidance for raising that score, which ought to boost your SEO ranks. In all, Rank Math rates your material on more than 100 variables, which is very thorough for a free plugin.

You may use Rank Math’s free version to optimize each page’s content for up to five emphasis keywords. Most other free WordPress SEO tools, in contrast, only allow you to use one keyword per page. Based on those keywords, Rank Math will analyze your content, headings, and post structure, and make recommendations on how to improve your SEO score. You get real-time score changes as you make changes to your post based on those recommendations.

You may also get site-wide optimization tools from Rank Math. If there are any issues, such as missing alt attributes for photos, 404 errors, pages without titles, and more, the plugin can conduct full-site audits for you and notify you of them.

How to Install Rank Math SEO

  • Navigate to Plugin > Add New
  • Search Rank Math and click on install.
  • Click on Activate

How to Set up Rank Math SEO

  • The setup procedure is automatically started when you click on Activate. However, you have the choice to stop the setup procedure and make the necessary changes manually or to resume it later.
    If the setup wizard was not used when you initially installed Rank Math, you may navigate to the WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math > Dashboard > Setup Wizard option to rerun it.
  • You must create a free account on Rank Math’s site. This step is essential if you want to have access to all of the plugin’s tools. Click on Connect Account and proceed to create a new account. You can now connect your newly created account to your website.
  • On the Getting Started tab, select Advanced Mode.
    You can choose from any of the 3 options; Easy, Advanced, and Custom. However, only Rank Math PRO users are presently able to utilize the Custom mode. The Easy and Advanced Modes are similar to one another. There are more stages in the advanced mode with more complex parameters to customize.  This will give you full control over optimizing your website to rank well in search engines. You also get all free features available, which you wouldn’t find in easy mode.
  • Fill in the details of your website; the nature of your website (whether it’s a personal blog or business website), and upload your site logo. By selecting the right choice, Rank Math will be able to add the proper information, which will aid Google in determining whether this website represents an individual or a business and enable its usage in Knowledge Graph. You will be able to select your precise company category from our comprehensive range of business kinds if it is not displayed here.
  • The Import tab allows you to import your settings from Yoast SEO. It shows all the input data available on your website from other SEO plugins, which you can import to Rank Math.
  • Rank Math ensures that you don’t lose anything while migrating to Rank Math by importing the other plugins’ data.
  • During the next step, you’ll be able to connect your website with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. If you’re not using both services yet, we recommend setting up accounts since they can provide you with invaluable information.

There are a lot of plugins that you can use to integrate these services with WordPress.

  • When you choose Connect Google Services, Rank Math will request your consent to access your account information. To complete this step of the procedure, click Allow.
  • Now, we get to the Rank Math XML sitemap. Rank Math will ask you if you want the plugin to generate a sitemap for your website, whether to include images, and what content it should map. According to Google Developers, a sitemap is “a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site and the relationships between them.” With this file, search engines can crawl your website easily, taking note of the important pages.
    You can omit any custom pages and posts from the sitemap of your website if you don’t want to include them.
  • Before returning you to the dashboard, Rank Math will walk you through a few last optimizations. The plugin will let you choose whether to apply the “nofollow” attribute to external links and “noindex” categories and tags without any content.

In subsequent articles, we’ll go more into detail about everyday use and how it stacks up against the current number one SEO plugin, Yoast. For now, you should have installed it by now. Explore the settings and tips the plugin provides. While SEO plugins are great at streamlining your content for high ranks in search engines, it is important to adopt certain practices that will ensure you have the maximum chance of improving your position on search engines. We discussed these practices in this article. What do you think of Rank Math? Have you used it before and how was your experience? Let us know in the comments!

All websites collect information about their visitors in different ways. You could be required by law to offer a Privacy Policy that complies with various privacy regulations for websites that gather personal data through contact forms and technologies like Google Analytics. Your typical WordPress website collects a lot of data through forms, advertising programs, analytics, and social network integration.

In this article, we’ll look at the most hassle-free way to create one for any WordPress website

What is a Privacy Policy?

A Privacy Policy is a legally necessary document that details the data you gather about website users. Regardless of whether you are a blogger, independent contractor, or business owner, it is advised to have a privacy policy page on your website.

The issue is that the majority of newcomers don’t know how to draft a reliable privacy policy and then post it on their website.

Fortunately, there are methods for reducing the pressure associated with writing this significant legal document. Utilizing a thorough Privacy Policy generator can help you lower your chance of being penalized or sued while also proving to your users that you value their privacy.

What Information do Websites Gather

  • Name and email address in comment forms
  • Comment form cookie which remembers a user’s name or email address
  • Name and email addresses submitted by user by using a contact form
  • Name and email address submitted to sign up for the email list
  • Information collected when users register on a website
  • Google Analytics tracking
  • Facebook page plugin and like button cookies
  • Other social media platform widgets that track users
  • Advertising programs like Google Adsense that track users.

Reasons to Add Privacy Policy Pages to Your Website

There are privacy laws to safeguard the personal data of inhabitants (or citizens) of specific states, nations, and continents. You must provide a Privacy Policy with specified disclosures if you collect personal information from website visitors; failing to do so might result in fines starting at $2,500 per violation (meaning per website visitor).

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law that grants European Union (EU) individuals authority over their personal data. Even if you are not from an EU country, this rule applies to all businesses (including WordPress sites).

You may market your website as reliable by outlining exactly what information you gather and how you utilize it. This might facilitate the development of a solid rapport with your audience. Additionally, it might set you apart from rivals who might not be as forthright.

What to Include in your Privacy Policy

Each privacy law that is applicable to your company must be disclosed in your privacy policy. This makes it challenging to specify precisely what you must offer because it might differ amongst websites. Some notable things to include are:-

  • Information you collect about users visiting your website.
  • Methods used to collect information, e.g. cookies and web beacons, sign up, registration, comments, contact forms, analytics technologies, etc.
  • The effective date of your Privacy Policy
  • Mention all third-party advertisers collecting user information on your website like Google Adsense.
  • Links to the privacy policy of each advertising program you participate in.
  • Methods to protect the personal information you collect
  • Links to your policies, procedures, standards, and codes
  • Your contact information so that users can reach out if they have questions.

 

How to Create a Privacy Policy Page

WordPress has an in-built Privacy Policy template that allows you to edit and customize them to your website. To create a Privacy Policy directly in WordPress and use this template;

  • Navigate to Settings > Privacyin your dashboard.
  • You can then select the page where you want to display your Privacy Policy or allow WordPress to create an entirely new Privacy Policy Page.

By default, the WordPress template provides the following sections:

  • Who we are
  • What personal data we collect and why we collect it
  • Who we share your data with
  • How long we retain your data
  • What rights you have over your data
  • Where we send your data
  • Contact information
  • Additional information

All these sections come with suggested texts that WordPress makes available for you to use. As mentioned earlier, you can customize each of these sections to make your Privacy Policy unique.

After you’ve made your Privacy Policy public, we suggest including a link to it in a visible place on your WordPress website, preferably, the footer.

Adding Privacy Policy Link to Your Footer

  • First, create a new custom navigation menu, if you already have one skip this step. Navigate to Appearance > Menus page to create a new custom menu by clicking on the ‘Create a new menu’ link on the top.
  • Enter the name of the menu. You can name it the Footer menu.
  • Next, you need to select pages from the left column to add to your menu. Make sure to include the Privacy Policy page.
  • After selecting them, simply click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
  • You should see your chosen pages show up beneath the menu you just made. Menu items may now be moved up or down by clicking and dragging them.
  • Don’t forget to click the “Save Menu” button to save your changes when you’re finished.
  • Now go to Appearance > Widgets
  • Click the ‘+’ button to add a ‘Navigation Menu’ widget block.
  • If you want to add a title to this footer menu, you can do that at this point.
  • Click on the drop-down menu and select the newly created “Footer menu”

It should show on your website once you click on Save. This may vary from one theme to another so check your theme documentation on how to set up the footer. You can also use website builders to create Footers (like Elementor Header and Footer plugin) if you built your website without a theme.

No matter if you own a small business, non-profit, are a freelancer, or write as a hobby, you can be compelled to post a Privacy Policy on your website that complies with various privacy regulations. It might be intimidating to draft such a crucial legal document. But with the correct tools, implementing a transparent, detailed Privacy Policy on your WordPress website shouldn’t be a problem.

 

Check out this article: How to Add Google Reviews to your WordPress Website.

 

Google AdSense: Configure Ads on Your Website the Right Way and Get Paid -2022.

In a previous article, we looked at how to get started with a Google AdSense account and how to set it up on your website. In this post, I’ll be taking you through how to set up ads and the best tips to ensure you make the most money you can from Google AdSense.

Configuring Ads:

After Google has approved your website to display ads, it’s time to configure what type of ads Google should serve and how they are displayed on the site. There are two ways to configure ads: Auto Ads and Ad Units.

Auto Ads:

With auto ads, Google will automatically set up the type of ads to display and where to place them based on machine learning. It is the faster way to set up ads on your site since you are leaving the work to Google. With just a few clicks, you’ll be ready to serve ads. Here’s how to set up Auto ads:

⦁ Click Ads, and then Overview.
⦁ Turn on Auto ads under Ads Settings.
⦁ Uncheck Optimize your Unit Ads? if you don’t want Google to combine the optimization of your current ad units and Auto advertising, and to position advertisements in the top-performing ad locations.
⦁ Click Ad load and use the slider to determine the number of ads you show on a given page of your website.
⦁ In the “Page exclusions” section, click Manage select pages that you want to exclude from showing Auto ads. This is helpful if you have a premium membership feature on your website where paid members don’t want to see ads.
⦁ Click on Apply to Site
⦁ It’s time to choose your save option. You can select Apply Now, then Save to save your settings directly on your site. Or choose Run Experiment to test your new settings. This experiment lasts run on 50% of your traffic and will end when Google has collected sufficient data.

Create Ad Units:

With Ad Units, you have full control of how the ad will look, its size and where it’ll be displayed on the web page. That means you’re doing all the work yourself. To create Ad units:

⦁ Go to the Overview page of the Ads section
⦁ Click on By Ad Unit
⦁ Click Display Ads
⦁ Give your Ad unit a unique name and description to make it easy to find
⦁ In the Ad size sections, there are two options to choose from: Responsive and Fixed.

Responsive ads automatically adapt their size to fit your page layout and your users’ devices. This is best for beginners who are still trying to find their feet in AdSense. However, with Fixed, you have full control of the size of the ads. When you select Fixed, enter the width and height of the ads. All ads displayed on the site will be in this size. This will limit the number of ads that can show on your website, no matter how likely the visitor may click on them.

⦁ Click Save and Get Code
⦁ Copy and paste the ad unit code in between the <body><body/> tags of your pages where you want ads to appear.
⦁ Click Done. Wait for a while, at most an hour and Google will start serving ads on your page.

Here are some tips to have a successful AdSense campaign on your website.

⦁ Never click on your ads. It is seen as fraudulent and a breach of Google AdSense’s Terms and Conditions. Make sure no one in your household clicks on your ads. That will mean you’re trying to get money on fraudulent clicks. Google can terminate your AdSense account entirely if they catch wind of that.

⦁ Find the best placement for Ads. You want visitors of your site to be able to see the ads to get paid. So try to be creative and display ads where they’re most likely to be seen. Make sure the ad doesn’t intrude on content on your website. This may drive visitors away.

⦁ Continue to create unique and engaging content to keep visitors coming. If you lose relevance, you lose traffic. And if you’re not getting traffic anymore, then you won’t make a lot of money from AdSense.

⦁ It’s best not to set up ads on e-commerce sites. Google serves ads on websites with similar topics or themes. Thus, if you serve ads on your e-commerce site, your website visitors may be shown ads from competitor sites and that could drive your potential customers away.

Google AdSense is a good way to earn money online. To get the best out of it, use these tips as a guide and watch your AdSense account soar. We’d love to know what you think in the comments!

SEO Optimisation 101- Best SEO Practices for your Blog/Website

 

The fastest way to improve your organic rank on search engines and drive traffic to your website is through SEO. SEO (stands for Search Engine Optimisation) is a collection of processes that drive traffic from free and organic search results on search engines. Popular search engines include Google, Bing and Yahoo. Improving the SEO on your website means organically improving your positions on these search engines. People rarely go past the first results page since that page will most likely have what they are searching for. While you may want to try Google Ads, organic rank is free, and therefore it’s worth it to improve your position. So for businesses and blogs trying to gain traction on their websites, this article will explore the best SEO practices to yield great results.

 

Have a Focus Keyword

When you publish an article for your blog, it usually has a general idea you’re trying to pitch, just like this article. I’m writing about SEO, which has been clear to this point because human beings can deduce intent without sufficient data. However, this is different for AI and machine learning. Without enough data, you won’t get a conclusive inference. A focus keyword is a word people are likely to use to search for particular topic areas. When someone is searching for something, they type in search terms directly and straight to the point. The search engine will then match search terms to articles with the same search terms (keywords) littered throughout the post. For instance, if someone was trying to learn about SEO, they may type SEO in the search bar. So having SEO as your focus keyword is vital if you want your website to be displayed. Other keyword tips are;

  • Include the focus keyword in the title
  • Make sure to add it to the meta description of the page or post.
  • Make it a point to mention it throughout the post. For the best results, you should have a 1-2% keyword density. That means the keyword should appear 1-2 times per 100-word copy.
  • The keyword should be included in the permalink of the post or page.

 

Good User Experience

A website with a bad UI/UX structure is painful to visit. If you want to learn how to create a free blog site, click here
The website you’re trying to drive traffic to must be easy to navigate, and there must be a clear path if you want users to take action. If you want users to book a service, there should be a “Book” button on the home page, while also detailing everything about your business on the same page. If visitors have to click more to find details like pricing or location, they may leave your website without converting. Update your website to remove dead links and error pages from the website.

Not only does this help visitors to your site, but it also allows Google to properly crawl and index your website. A poorly indexed website means that important pages or posts may not display in search results even though they’re relevant to the searcher.

 

Link Your Socials

In my experience, businesses with both a website and social media accounts notice that their Social media (whether Instagram or Facebook) perform higher on Search Results at the beginning of their operation. That is because Facebook and Instagram are being crawled daily by Google. So anyone searching for your company will see your Social media accounts first. That is not a bad thing, except you want traction on your website. The next course of action is to link your website on your Instagram bio or under every one of your Facebook posts. That way, when people see your social media account pages in the search results, they can go to your website off of that page.

 

Connect Your Website to the Google Search Console

Another tip to have your website crawled and indexed by Google is to connect your website to the Google Search Console. The Search Console provides analytical tools about your rank on Google Search, search terms that trigger your website, and details about users on your website. Submitting your website to the Search Console is not a shortcut to speed the crawling process but it will help greatly.

There are dozens of other tips for you to improve your website rank on search engines. Stay tuned as we’ll publish more articles on other best SEO practices you should undertake for your website.

Check out this article: Best Practices For a Successful Google Ads Campaign-2022

How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel in 2022.

YouTube Partners program is one way to make money online in 2022. We have an article on the different means of making money online in 2022. You can check it out here. The YouTube Partners Program is accessible in many countries, including Ghana. This program pays creators for having ads in their videos. These ads are from their Google Ads Program, where businesses pay Google to advertise on their websites, including YouTube. So money made from ads shown on your video is split into 55-45 percent, with the creator receiving 45% and Google 55%. Growing your channel and gaining more views on your channel means more money for you as a creator.

To be eligible for the YouTube Partners Program, the creator must:

  • Be a citizen of supported countries (Ghana included),
  • Have original content,
  • Have 1000 channel subscribers,
  • Have videos with 4000 hours of video watch-time over the last 365 days. NB: This is not the same as 4000 hours of lifetime views,
  • Make their videos public.
  • Protect their account with 2-step authentication,
  • Have no community guidelines strikes on their channel. If you do, wait until they expire before applying.
  • Comply with all YouTube monetization policies and Terms and Conditions.

 

To check your monetization eligibility

Open YouTube Studio, and in the menu options, click on Monetization. Two different screens depending on your eligibility status.

 

If you’re not yet eligible: 

Your screen will help you track the goals you need to reach before being eligible. You’ll be able to see a summary of your current subscribers, watch-time, number of community guidelines strikes, and 2-step verification activation on your channel.

Click on “Notify me when I’m Eligible”, and Google will send you an email when your eligibility status changes.

 

If you’re eligible:

You’ll see three steps you have to follow to apply for monetization:

Step 1: Review Partner Program Terms

To complete this step, you need to read and accept all of the Partners Program’s Terms and Conditions. You won’t be able to progress if you don’t do this.

 

Step 2: Sign up for Google AdSense: This is where you connect an existing AdSense account or create a new AdSense account. This AdSense account is the avenue Google will use to pay you for showing ads on your channel.

 

Step 3: Get Reviewed: Google will review your application and channel in full detail. This review should usually take a month or less, and you’ll receive an email of approval or rejection. Google will tell you the reasons why if disapproved. You can still re-apply after 30 days when you’ve fixed the issues in detail.

 

If you are approved, you’ll receive an email that will allow you to set up your channel to start the monetization of your channel.

YouTube content creation may be daunting for you in the beginning. All I’ll say is ride it out, make your videos better, be willing to learn, and you’ll see your channel grow as you get better.