by Jude Love
09 October 2015
Want bigger, better clients? Editors to notice you? Get re-energised about your great talents and improve the reach of your online portfolio by pimping it with these ten tips.
1. Blog regularly and relevantly.
Refreshed content is imperative for getting search engines to index your site. Make sure recent posts are on your home page and get disciplined about blogging regularly. There isn’t a magic number here, but establish your own rhythm and aim for at least once / week. This gives you a chance to respond spontaneously if things in your industry come up. An important adjunct here is relevance: Google rewards it. If people are coming to your site but aren’t finding what they’re seeking, they will ‘bounce’. Work out your services, make your blog posts and site content relevant to your audience and keep them on your site with an interesting, rewarding experience.
2. Get some yoast.
If your site is WordPress (and it should be – it’s easy to install, build, update and has an infinity of well supported plugins for displaying content in any way you can imagine), install the Yoast SEO plugin. The free version is functional enough for a personal site and it will step you through uploading data to identify you to the major search engines. It sets you up with a great ‘nanny’ dashboard that keeps you writing to your keywords.
3. Cosy up with Webmaster.
Yoast also steps you through Google Webmaster Tools, which serve up analysis of which search terms and social platforms are driving people to your site, and the content that’s resonating. Keep delivering more of what works for a while and watch the traffic rise.
4. Alt your tags.
Alt tagging is an important access element as they are what gives an image a spoken description for screen readers. Accessibility is not only necessary, it’s rewarded by google who place user experience high in their ranking. When you upload an image, don’t ignore the alt tag area. Give the pic a good description and sprinkle in some relevant keywording.
5. Keyword your content.
Now you’ve nailed your service description, work out relevant key word search terms and write blogs around these keywords. This is a good content strategy to start with: find your inner (or outer) sub and use keywords in great headlines (yes, otherwise known as clickbait). Write numerous times around keywords, but make it relevant and readable. Once you start the process, you’ll notice what’s working, so broaden from there, building an audience.
6. Love your links.
You’ve probably heard about backlinks and may even have been tempted by offers for millions of them in a click, but wise to the backlink white shoe brigade, Google now says they will only reward relevant back-linking. Get entities to link back to you – size matters (see tip #8), so getting linkbacks from large companies is great. Make it a habit to always ask if this can happen. Link out as well. Share the love. Be vigilant, also, for internal linking. Link between your blogs and between your pages and while you’re scouring your old content for new links, repost some gems from a while ago.
7. Get shared.
Put social sharing links on your posts so your audience can share your content, and always share your own content out to your own social networks. Social media accounts all offer scheduling, or use Hootsuite or Buffer to post extracts from blogs and links back to site one time to numerous locations. Then post spontaneously in between times, always with links back to your own site.
8. Bookmarks aren’t just kindy craft.
Get social bookmark accounts: Reddit, Stumbleupon, del.icious. Get your mum, your friends, your aunties and your dog to get accounts as well and upload to build an appetite for your content. Make sure there are sharing buttons on your posts for these sites as well as the usual socials: FB, Twitter, Instagram. See #6 – size does matter, so if you can crack shares on here with content that gets traction, you can be well rewarded in Google rankings.
9. Make it mobile.
If you’ve not done so already, ensure your site is optimised for mobile. On a cms (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal), this may mean changing to a new theme, but that gives you a chance to really do a good clear-out. As well as mobile-friendliness, speed and efficiency of information delivery is rewarded by Google. While you’re tinkering under the hood, ensure your images are optimised for web and install compression tools that will reduce site size for better delivery.
10. Build your tribe.
Collaborate with friends on content: you’ll reduce the work and multiply your reach. Building presence is really just using word-of-mouth marketing online. Two three and four mouths are a chorus!
Over to you, List members… feeling inspired to pimp your online profile? Let us know if you’ve watched traffic rise by using some of these strategies!
