Want to write a SEO-Friendly blog post? Here’s our guide to making sure your posts impress Google and are relevant to your readers.
There are no set solutions for successfully search engine optimizing your blog, and there is a large amount of complex information to make sense of. Emphasis is often placed on the quality of the post’s content versus the writing. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to write well, it means that you should also focus on a number of other things as well as your writing in order to obtain an SEO-friendly post.
Update: Read our new post 4 Quick DIY Wins to Improve your Website’s SEO
Here are our ten top tips:
Writing an SEO-Friendly Blog Post
1. Define your message before you start writing
What questions are you answering? What’s the purpose of your post? What do you want your readers to do, and how do you want them to feel?
2. Select your keywords
Keywords and keyphrases are often stressed for an SEO-friendly blog. Therefore, you should do a little keyword research to figure out what people type when they use search engines.
You could either have a guess at it, or try using a free keyword tool, like Wordtracker, or Google AdWords: Keyword Planner. You’ll want to focus on low-competition key phrases that return less than 75,000 results, because the larger the return results, the less likely you are to be seen.
3. Structure your post
Every post should have an introduction (the setup), a body (the main message), and a conclusion (the takeaways). Keep them brief, but make sure all parts are included.
4. Use your keywords or keyphrases
Once you’ve chosen your keyword or phrase, write or revise your article’s content so that it includes and is centered around your keyword/keyphrase without “keyword stuffing” (including your keywords over and over, more than would be appropriate in normal conversation).
5. Use headings
Search engines love headings, and headings help readability. When writing an SEO-friendly blog post, use headings and subheadings to organize your post into readable “chunks.” You should also add your keywords to headings, to help Google understand the main topics of your post.
6. Optimize your post length and search term ratio
Make sure your post has between 300 and 700 words. Longer is fine for search engines, but it could be too much for busy readers. Also, try to put search terms (terms that your intended audience might use to find your post) in about 1% to 2% of your text. For example, in a 300 word post, try to mention search terms three to six times.
7. Link to existing content
If you’ve written on a topic before, link to that other post. Link structure is important to search engines and strengthens your authority on the subject. Internal links will not only help retain visitors to your website, but it also shows search engines the validity and relevance of your content.
8. Post regularly
Search engines love websites that are “alive,” and regular blog posting attracts their crawlers. The more often you’re crawled, the higher you can rise in the rankings.
9. Use SEO tools to improve your posts
We are big fans of the Yoast SEO plugin, which we highly recommend and include on all the sites that we build. Plugins like Yoast identify ways to strengthen the SEO-friendliness of your posts, including adding meta descriptions, testing readability, and calculating keyword density.
10. Cornerstone content
Identify and highlight cornerstone content for good site structure. The premium version of Yoast can make this task very easy.
Summary
SEO-friendliness these days is less about “gaming the system” and more about writing regular, relevant content that readers enjoy and can share easily. To create an SEO-friendly blog post, start with a message that your readers want, write it clearly, and enhance it with the tips suggested above.
Need help with SEO? Check out our SEO Services!
You may also like to read our new post The Pros and Cons of Using an AI to Write Blog Posts – it’s more impressive than you might think!
