It takes a little more than just publishing your posts to rise in the search engines. To show up from the first results, you must familiarize yourself with this critical acronym: SEO or search engine optimization. It means designing your website to be easily readable and accessible to search engine bots so that your pages appear in relevant searches. In addition, your content must be updated and contain unique, helpful information that readers can’t find elsewhere. Whether you’re producing a blog or adding a blog section to your website, below are the ultimate blog SEO suggestions.
What is blog site SEO, and why is it essential?
Search engines find audits and present blog posts to those who search for them. If your content is the best fit, informative and in-depth, your blog will likely appear on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
If you optimize your blogs for SEO, you can:
- Gain website authority
- Increase visibility
- Increase website traffic
- Generate more leads
- Blog SEO tips
- Find suitable topics.
- Choose SEO-friendly blog formats.
- Optimize your posts
- Structure your content
- Include rich media
- Add alt text to images.
- Internal linking
- Be mobile-friendly
- Post frequently
- Engage in social media
01. Finding the right topics
Unfortunate news: Many busy writers with established blog sites have already covered the topics in your industry. So how can you make your blog posts stand out in the search engines? Research and Intent.Determine the target audience for your blog
When starting a blog, focus on a few topics. Create posts that address your target audience’s needs, problems, and questions. This tailored experience will make your site perceived by search engines as an authority on those topics while providing value to your readers.
Conduct thorough keyword research
Your first research goal is to find niche keywords for your area of expertise to find the best topics to write about. Just a reminder, keywords are short phrases a person types into a search engine. Including these keywords in your content increases your chances of appearing in the results for that specific search query. Ideally, you should choose the most popular terms so that your posts get more exposure. However, these broad, popular terms are highly competitive and usually show different results.
For example, imagine someone types “cake” into a search engine: The intent is not so clear -and the results reflect that ambiguity. In this case, you would compete with strong sites like Wikipedia, well-established recipe blogs, and the 2014 movie “Cake.”
Regarding keyword selection, more is always better, as they tend to be more precise and less contested (e.g., “gluten-free orange cake recipe”). These “long-tail” keywords permit you to target a specific intent that directly answers your audience’s query.
Find these specific keywords that have a high search volume. The higher the search volume, the more competitive your ranking will be.
To find the correct keyword phrases, list all the general topics you want to write about (also known as “starting topics”). Then break them down into more specific topics. For a food blogger, the essential topics might be cakes, soups, salads, etc. The more specific topics might be winter mushroom soup, carrot ginger soup, etc
Utilize these helpful (and free) SEO tools to find good keywords for article topics and determine their search volume.
Some of our favorite tools for searching blog topics are:
- Semrush – commonly used for keyword research and online ranking data, including metrics like search volume and cost per click.
- Ahrefs – A tool that gives you various suggestions when you enter the area for keyword research. After the post is published, you can use Ahrefs to track how your blog performs in search rankings week by week.
- Answer the Public – A device that gives you a massive list of questions and related phrases on your chosen topic.
- Keywords almost Everywhere – A Chrome extension that shows search volume for various keywords. Excellent for combining with the previous extension.
Pay attention to intent
A usual mistake bloggers make when optimizing their content is writing content that doesn’t match intent in Google’s eyes. You might have found a keyword that you think is a perfect match for your article. However, if the article doesn’t address what Google thinks the searcher is looking for, then your article probably won’t rank. For example, if you cover the keyword “newsletter templates” in a blog post but the search results page focuses on product pages, your post will likely not appear on the first page. To prevent this, look at the live SERP of the search term and confirm the intent before writing.Conduct a competitive analysis
The best way to locate your competition? It’s simple: Google it. Your second research task is to determine how to improve your content beyond what’s already ranking. The people at Moz call this idea “10x content,” which means producing content ten times better than what ranks on the very first page of outcomes.
First, search for your selected keywords and look at the top five to 10 competitors to understand what kind of content users want when they search for that term. Also, pay attention to the average length of blog posts and stay within that range. You can take inspiration from these posts to write the most in-depth article possible.
Then think about what added value only you can provide in your post. Maybe you’ve tried several recipes for a flourless chocolate cake and discovered a magic ingredient. Maybe your images are much more appealing than the ones you saw in the initial results? Or do you create a video that includes all the recipe steps? These factors can take your content to the next level and help show Google your authority and expertise.
02. Choose SEO-friendly blog formats
As mentioned earlier, you need to write content that adds value to outrank the competition. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo often prefer comprehensive, research-based web content with original information.
When brainstorming potential blog ideas, consider the blog formats that convey helpful information:
- List articles
- Tutorials
- Detailed “how-to” guides
- Infographics
- Summary posts from experts
- Case studies
- Beginner “what’re what” articles
Write evergreen content
Choose keywords that people search for throughout the year and for years to come, also known as “evergreen” topics. Not only will these bring constant visitors to your site, but you won’t have to update them as often.
03. Optimize your articles
Once you’ve found your keywords and researched your competition, you should start looking at search engine optimization for your articles. By driving traffic to your website, SEO will assist you in growing your following and even start monetizing your blog.
- Your post title (H1).
- The first paragraph of your post
- The first part of your SEO title
- Your SEO description
- The URL of the blog post page
A few times in the post itself, or variations of it
Remember: you’re writing for people, not search engines. The rules of good writing still apply. Don’t use keywords: you will naturally use these terms when writing about a particular topic. And don’t worry – search engines are now better at understanding synonyms and variations of your keywords, so you can use them to avoid repeating yourself.
04. Structure your content
This point may seem pretty obvious, but imagine a world where articles don’t have paragraphs, subheadings, or titles, and a message appears in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. A blog post without any framework is not a pretty sight – and the search engines see it the same way.
If you use different formats for your text, give them a specific tag in the code. This way, search engines distinguish between different text types and their hierarchy within a page. Therefore, to give your readers (and the search engine) the best possible experience, you should use some simple formatting.
HTML parts are called H headings and range from H1 to H6 in descending importance. Think of it as reading a newspaper where you have the main heading, subheadings, and paragraph text. H1 is the most crucial heading (your article title), H2 is one level below that (headline), and so on.Opt for the Featured Snippet
Featured snippets are an excerpt from an article that usually answers a question and appears above the first organic result. A research study by Search Engine Land found that when a Featured Snippet appears on the SERP, the click-through rate (CTR) for the initial natural result falls below 20%, and the Featured Snippet achieves a CTR of 8.6%. That means you can have the edge over your competitors if you reach this position.
To increase your chances of getting the Featured Snippet, you should design your H2 titles with clear subheadings. That will make it easy for the search engine bots to combine them into a “Featured Snippet” and place you in that coveted spot.
05. Integrate rich media
Since Google’s algorithm determines rankings based on user behavior, bloggers should try to keep their readers engaged for as long as possible. Including a video or podcast episode to your post, for example, can help readers stay on your page longer, reducing bounce rates. Also, a study by Search Engine Journal found that videos that rank in the SERP have a higher CTR than other kinds of content.
6. Add alt text to images
The well-known saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds for most people, but unfortunately, it’s a change story for search engines. Google, Bing, and others can’t see images how we can, so you need to add context (in the form of the message) to help them analyze your photos and graphics. Including alt text to your images helps search engines understand them better and thus index them efficiently.
Adding these short text descriptions will also allow your images to be found in Google Image Search, bringing more visitors to your site and ultimately leading to better blog SEO.
To include alt text to images on your blog, double-click on the image you want to edit and fill in the “Describe this image” section under “Alt Text.” A good tip for writing good alt text is to imagine that you are describing the image to a friend who can’t see it.
Alt-text is also an essential part of web accessibility. It allows those accessing your content through a screen reader to understand your accompanying images better.
07. Internal link
Have you ever wondered how a Googlebot gets from one page to another? Probably not. But we’ll let you in on the secret:
Links: Links are, in fact, like a spider web behind the scenes of your site’s pages. When you connect from one blog post to another page within the same domain (sitename.com), search engine bots (also called “spiders”) can more easily discover all the pages on your site and crawl the content from head to toe. This process is called “crawling.” Once crawled, web pages are stored in an extensive library called “indexed.”
Websites with blog sites have 434% more indexed pages than websites without blogs. The more posts in your library, the more likely your pages will appear in search results for a relevant query. When you include more internal links, your visitors are free to browse your site, which facilitates clicks to more pages. That signals to search engines that your site’s content satisfies its audience, and you get a good blog SEO boost.
Pro-tip: Instead of “click here” or “read this,” use descriptive anchor text when linking to an internal blog post. It gives more context and makes it easier for the search engine to understand what’s on the next page.
08. Be mobile-friendly
Since mobile device usage is ubiquitous, even Google has started indexing your website’s mobile version and using it to rank websites. That means that mobile-optimized blogs get an extra SEO boost.
9. Post frequently
Starting a blog takes some work. You can’t expect to write a blog post and wait for the visitors to roll in. We’re not saying you must write a 3,000-word post every day, but you can start publishing weekly or bi-weekly. Blogging is like going to the gym: exercising is hard, but the benefits are enormous.
In our experience, blogging more frequently can significantly impact blog SEO. If you keep the hungry Google bots returning with fresh and updated content, they’ll keep returning for more. You also give the search engine more opportunities to rank your pages.
The key to more frequent posts is simple: be organized. A publishing schedule can help you put your blog plan into action. In an Excel spreadsheet, create a table that includes the publication date, deadline, some references, and your target keywords for each blog post. A good outline will make you feel in control and encourage you to stick to your schedule.
To take some of the work off your plate, you can invite other experts in the field to compose guest posts or hire freelancers to outsource some of the heavy liftings.
10. Get involved in social media
While not necessarily known for their SEO power, social media can help get your name (and links) out there. By sharing your essential, original, and well-written blog posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms, you increase the likelihood that someone will share your content.
Search engines perceive this extra amount of traffic from social networks as a signal that others value your blog, which can do wonders for your blog’s search engine optimization.
The easiest method is to include a “Share” button and a Twitter Tweet button in your blog posts so that your readers can easily share. Also, do not forget to share your published blog posts on your social channels.
If you want to create your blog posts or require the services of professional company blog writers to produce regular, quality web content for your site, MyBlogPoster.com has you covered.