Blogging With SEO in Mind: How To Blog for Better SEO

We all already understand the point of writing SEO copy for your website, but the same value should be applied to writing for your blog. The benefit of blogging with SEO in mind is that you’re not only creating useful content that your customers value, but also ensuring prospective customers can find you through a web search when they have a problem in need of a solution. So how does one blog for SEO? Follow these simple steps:

1) Choose right keywords

Starting out, it’s best to focus on one keyword to get the hang of it. In addition to making sure it’s relevant to your ideal customer, use a “long tail” keyword phrase. This means instead of writing “consulting,” write “Small business website design services” or “custom website design” The more specific to your business (without getting too adjective heavy) allows your website to rank higher for specific searchers who are more likely to convert to customers.

If you need to find relevant keywords for your blog, check out our free marketing tools you can use to help you find keywords that will improve your blog seo.

2) Keep it relevant

It should seem obvious to not start writing irrelevant broad keywords like “cars,” “apparel” or “cat memes.” And if it doesn’t seem obvious, then we can make it clearer: Don’t do that. Don’t.

3) Include variations of the keyword

With Google’s Hummingbird update, the algorithm now picks up on conversations more so than traditional keywords. For example, if you’re an accounting firm, writing “bookkeeping services” and “accounting services” helps you describe your business in multiple ways.

4) Avoid keyword stuffing

This is why we often suggest sticking to one or two keywords per blog post, because sometimes businesses are too eager to include every hopeful keyword on their list. Also, distribute the keyword evenly throughout the blog post. Mentioning it once in each paragraph is a little overkill depending on content length. Ultimately, your natural voice and what is most comfortable to read will outline a keyword’s placement. Which leads us to…

5) Don’t be a slave to the keyword

The point of a blog post is to attract visitors, not the search engine bots. Your copy should be actually pleasant to read and, most importantly, be a valuable resource for readers. While we want to play nice with the bots-they’re not your customers.

Now that you’ve written your blog post with SEO in mind, it’s time to load it into your WordPress or other content management system. Here are areas in your blog backend that need your keywords:

6) SEO Meta Tag Elements

If you using content management system such as WordPress, you can plugin such as Yoras or All In One SEO to have simple fields to fill in with keywords. These fields include:

• Title: this is different from the blog title you’re using and should include your keyword. Implementing a title tag is helpful for when your blog post may have a clever title, but visitors may not actually be searching for that exact phrase. With optimizing the title with a more searchable phrase you can have your cake and eat it too-a great headline AND web traffic.
• Description: this is a 165 character max field where you can quickly summarize the content on your blog post. It appears under each linked result of a search term (see photo below). While it’s important to get keywords in, it’s even more vital to make that sentence interesting enough that when a user reads it they’re inclined to click.
• Keywords: this field is arguably the least important of the three. It’s rarely used by search engines but can still serve as a reminder for what your target keyword(s) are in that particular post.

7) Headers & Special Fonts

The primary heading (the h1 tag) should definitely include your main keyword. When applicable, include the keyword in subtitles, that use smaller <h> tags (h2, h3, h4 ). Also use emphasize important keywords using bolded text.

8) On-Page Links

When hyperlinking a phrase or piece of text in a blog post, instead of linking “Click here” for your contact request, try to use a more specific term, for example, “Click Here for Small Business Web Design Services”

9) Image Alt Tags

Don’t forget to assign alt tags to every image on the page with the proper SEO keyword. In addition to adding improving your seo for the blog post, Google will also be able to use your image in their image search results which can bring an addition traffic to your website.

Visit Bop Blog for more insights on SEO and content marketing.

Photo Credit: Owen W Brown via Flickr