2020 has arrived. And with it, a new wave of SEO updates has emerged. Last year, we saw a massive update to the industry, penalizing specific sites and sometimes giving others near-overnight fame. When Google releases an update, people watch out. Usually, they release one every so often, so who knows what the future holds for SEO experts and digital marketers?

To combat the constant Google updates, we need to keep up with new information. What may have worked for websites back in 2005 will get you penalized in 2020. If people don’t get with the times and learn the new practices that work, they will never see exponential growth in their websites.

If you are one of those people, don’t worry. There is always time to learn and grow. If you begin to implement these tactics into your site now, you should see a large growth in traffic. Make sure to do them correctly and, if need be, consult experts such as Neil Patel if you need help.

Tip 1: Use Google Search Console. An invaluable tool that every blogger should use, GSC can seriously increase your traffic. To get started, click on the link above and sign in under your Google account. When asked which site you would like to add, paste the link of your website into the box. You will then be asked for a verification. Click the “HTML tag” and copy the code it gives you. Next, go to your WordPress Stats, then on the left sidebar click “Tools”, “Marketing”, “Traffic”, and scroll down to the very bottom. Paste the tag into the Google box and save your changes. Go back to the Google Search Console and click “Verify”. After a few seconds, you should be in.

Immediately, there are a few things to do. The first is to submit a sitemap, which should be relatively easy. Go back to the WordPress tab you had up, and look just above where you pasted the HTML code. There should be two links, one to a sitemap.xml and the other to a news-sitemap.xml. Clicking the top option will open a new tab. Copy the link in that tab, then head over to your Google Search Console. On the left sidebar, click “Sitemaps” and, under “Add a new sitemap”, paste that link and click “Submit”. After a few seconds, your sitemap should be accepted, making it a lot easier for Google to index your site. Do this every time you release a new post.

Next, you need to request indexing for your most recent post. If you haven’t released a new blog post in the last week, skip this paragraph. If you have, then copy the full link to that post and go back to the Google Search Console. There, at the very top, there will be an option to “Inspect any URL in your site”. Paste that URL into the box and click enter. After a few seconds, it should pull up something that looks like this.

Click on “Request Indexing”, which is circled above, and wait a few minutes. Your post will be added to a Google Priority Queue, helping it to be indexed faster. Once again, you will need to do this every time you release a post.

Finally, you need to check for issues. While on the Google Search Console, click “Coverage”. It will pull up a new tab that displays all issues found within your site, if any. Your site shouldn’t have any errors, but if you do, be sure to check them out as Google will display detailed information. For more information about Google errors, click here.

Tip 2: Ping your posts. I cannot stress this enough. If you aren’t pinging your posts, you need to start doing this now. It’s an easy process, one that shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes. If you are already pinging your site, skip this tip. To begin, click here. That link will take you to a site called Ping-O-Matic. While there, all you need to do is give your blog name (so, for me, Africa Boy), blog home page (https://africaboy.home.blog/), and RSS feed. Your RSS feed is the place that all your posts appear. If your blog home page displays your posts, then paste your home page link into that box. If your blog is like mine and displays a static page (with text) as your homepage, paste the link to your blog page. For example, mine is simply https://africaboy.home.blog/blog-2/. This link is where my posts appear, so it is pasted into the RSS feed box. Finally, make sure all boxes below the RSS feed option are checked, then click “Send Pings”. This is an automated process so every time you release a new post, Ping-O-Matic will automatically ping it for you. It’s that simple.

Tip 3: Use a relevant photo in every single post. I know, I know, it’s difficult and time-consuming. But the end result is worth it. In today’s world, we are all ADHD to some degree. Sitting down and reading a massive wall of text without any relief to the eye can be very difficult, sometimes even impossible. Using a relevant, quality picture at the beginning of every post removes this difficulty. I use a free website called Canva, found here, which allows you to find and design hundreds of thousands of photos. Most of the time, a picture relevant to your blog can be found. For example- if you were doing a post on the benefits of cats, consider finding a nice picture of a kitten. Or, if you were doing a post on reading your Bible, find a nice picture of someone reading the Bible.

Use a relevant picture in every single blog post.

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Also, don’t forget to use page breakups, italics, and bolding where necessary. The eye can wander when reading a massive wall of text, so be sure to break it up if the paragraph is too long, use italics when emphasizing something, and bolding if giving several points (such as I am doing).

Tip 4: Use social media. Unfortunately, I am not the best example of this as Africa Boy only has, to date, a Facebook account (although an Instagram account may be in the works). However, if you have the ability, be sure to create an account for your blog on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and LinkedIn. All of these can be automated (except Twitter), instantly sharing them the second your blog post is released. For more information on social media blogging, click here.

Alright, that’s all for today. Hopefully, you have learned a lot about SEO with WordPress. Now, take the information you have learned and rock the world! Be sure to share this post with your friends if you believe they will find it helpful. Also, if you need to post something on your blog today, consider Reblogging this post.

Thanks so much for reading! Your support means a ton to me. If you haven’t already, be sure to click that Follow button below (or to the side), so as to not miss out on helpful posts like this. Thanks again, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

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