Search engine optimization can not only boost your website and page rankings, but can boost your blog posts too. It is important that your blogs are optimized to be discoverable on search engines, unless you are simply writing a digital journal and hoping no one will stumble upon it! Not only can having a strong blog SEO strategy improve that blog post, it can improve your website overall and these habits may improve your general digital writing efforts.
Blog SEO is similar to on-page SEO, but there are still a few varieties that make it distinct from what you will do for your website’s pages. However, just like pages, utilizing a SEO strategy when you are writing a blog can make it more visible to those on search engines, just like why you would conduct on-page SEO.
Blogging Search Engine Optimization Tips
Writing Habits
Whether you are writing for a blog, or page content, there are some similarities in terms of structure that will help you. The first is how your content is laid out. Think back to your schooling days and writing an essay. Titles are important because they cue the reader into what they will be reading. This keeps readers from being disappointed from thinking they were going to be reading one thing and its something else entirely. The next step you would do in your writing is laying out the structure: a beginning, middle, and end. They would all be connected, but all provide another layer of information. Jumping around from idea to idea can confuse your reader and keep it from being enjoyable.
Another normal process of writing is what happens before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Identify who you are writing for (your audience). This can be the same audience as who you are selling products/services to, or perhaps it is a specific niche within your overall brand’s target. For example, some blogs target people at different stages in their buying journey, from gathering information to ready to purchase.
Keywords
Keyword research is a vital requirement for all kinds of SEO; blogs are no different. Be careful about keyword stuffing your work—Google will sometimes view work that has a high keyword density as “stuffing” and negatively impact your ranking due to it. Keep your keywords specific and relevant to what you are writing. This will take some time to research what your audience is searching to make the words you choose useful.
Relevance
It’s been touched on before, but this is important enough to deserve its own section: relevance. In order for your writing to improve your ranking and not just take up space, make sure you align it with your overall brand and site. If your company is about kid’s shoes, don’t write about travel. Write about how shoes are important for children and how having the right shoes can help them; such as court shoes for when they start playing basketball. Even injury prevention, it can all work if you relate it back to your main point.
Internal Linking
Internal links have their place in blog SEO and that is to expand the amount of information you are sharing. It is unlikely that everything you write will stand alone. To optimize your writing, as well as your article lengths to keep readers engaged, utilizing internal links from one blog to another or even to a page, will help you do this. Linking to existing content can help you manage your content, help your readers and bots, and save you time from writing the same things over and over again (which benefits no one).
After Writing Your Blog
After writing your blog, there are still a few things you should do before publishing. One is to check the speed of your blog’s load time. If the page goes too slow, this can increase the probability of a visitor leaving your site, even if they were interested in what you had to say. Secondly, review the mobile-friendliness of the blog. How will it appear if someone were to pull it up on their phone? There are many who visit websites on their phones rather than desktops and you want to be optimized for both and don’t waste where you’ve been found.
Conclusion
We’ve touched on the key points of a strong SEO strategy, now let’s finish up with an explanation of who blogs are for. Blogs are not only for the typical “bloggers”: travel blogs, help sites, etc. Blogs can also improve a business’s conversion, with 56% of customers making a purchase after reading a company’s blog (Hubspot). The next time you sigh before you write, pause to organize your thoughts and realize that a blog could be the turning point for your brand. As discussed before, external help is relevant here as well; having other people read your work and give their opinions on if they understand what you are writing, can provide you objective views of the articles readability and effectiveness. Lastly, make sure to write regularly. As with everything else, consistency is key.
Resources
https://yoast.com/seo-friendly-blog-post/
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2019/12/17/tools-to-check-website-seo/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blog-search-engine-optimization
https://ahrefs.com/blog/blog-seo/
https://www.square2marketing.com/blog/why-blogging-is-important-for-seo