With the advance of Digital Technology, SEO has become a common phrase. Anyone involved in commercial or professional activity is aware of SEO. Blogs have existed for quite some time, and viewers have developed a taste for their favorite niche.
A blog is one of the best tools to showcase your ideas, thoughts, and information to your targetted audience. Blogs demonstrate their magic only if search engines accept them. While acceptance is primary, ranking on search engines is equally essential.
Now, how do I rank my blog on search engines?
Look no further; this blog is the answer.Back to the Basics
What is SEO?
The term SEO means Search Engine Optimization.
SEO implementation is a set of best practices and strategies that help your blog, website, or content rank high on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Proper SEO strategies optimize your content to display it at the beginning of the page. When someone shoots a query in the form of text, phrase, or keyword, the search engine returns the result in the form of Search Engine Result Pages or SERP for short. When your blog or website is optimized using SEO techniques, it is displayed at the beginning of SERP. The first 10 results on the 1st page of Google are important. If your content doesn’t hit that mark, your prospect is lost.
In major cases, a search journey begins with Google.
The Benefits of SEO
What benefits do I get by investing in SEO?
Check out the benefits of investing your time, money, and effort in getting SEO done for your website or blog.
- Reward your digital marketing efforts with SEO.
- Improve your brand awareness and credibility. Build a clientele that trusts you.
- Expect to receive quality and qualified traffic on your website.
- Promote your products, services, and company with SEO.
- Proven SEO strategies generate qualified business leads and improve market visibility and share.
- SEO complements the success of your PPC campaigns.
- Keeps your business ahead of your competition.
- Engage your target audience to the maximum.
- SEO gets you traffic organically, lowering your advertising costs.
- SEO helps you operate effectively in your local market.
- Helps your business achieve success and recurring revenue over a period.
What does it take to Write an SEO-Friendly Blog Post?
Let’s discuss key points that will help you understand the essence of writing an SEO-Friendly Blog Post.
Keyword Research
A keyword is a word, phrase, or term people use while searching on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Based on the user’s intent, keywords are classified into commercial, transactional, informational, and navigational categories.
Keyword Research is a user’s process or strategy to find and analyze a searched term. People type keywords into search spaces of search engines to get (desired) search results that nearly match or are close to their search intention. These keywords make an important part of the database used to conduct Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of a website or a marketing activity.
Keyword research is done for
- Product/service promotion
- Content Creation
- Improving the search rank of your digital copy
- Generating and enhancing your website traffic
- Used in link-building activity.
Go for Long-Tail Keywords
Search terms comprising 1 or 2 words are generally short and highly competitive. Hence, experts advise using search terms that have 4 or more words. These are called Long-Tail Keywords.
This illustration shows the concept of long-tail keywords: a more specific topic (or keyphrase) means less competition Courtesy: Yoast.com
In your initial stages of business, you should target long-tail keywords with less competition and be more specific. You can use keywords with higher competition as your business progresses and gains popularity.
One of the studies revealed that 70% of the searches on the web account for long-tail keywords. The best strategy for choosing between short-tail and long-tail keywords is to go for long-tail keywords, as short-tail keywords make up only 30% of search results while being very high on competition.
Add Your Primary Keyword in the Title
The title gives your content an identity. So it is mandatory to make your primary keyword a part of this title. It is this keyword that’s going to grab the attention of search engines to rank in their search results.
A reader would always try to evaluate your blog based on your title. You can create trendy and catchy titles using your primary keyword. Your blog title, along with your main keyword, decides whether the visitor will read the blog further.
Include your keyword in the URL
It is recommended to add your keyword to the URL of your content. You always have the option to customize the URL to make it look short and sweet yet impressive. Perform customization before publishing your content. Your visitors must be able to have a gist of your content.
As a caution, you must never add the date to the URL. The reader might not consider your content up-to-date and ignore it. Having a date as part of your URL also indicates that your digital copy is irrelevant to the present times. This could decrease your click-through rates and cause a steep fall in your content’s popularity, acceptance, and ranking.
Optimize Your Headings
When talking about headings, we refer to the 3 important types of Heading Tags – H1, H2, and H3. (Honestly there are 6 Heading Tags) Heading tags are search engines’ best friends. They help search engines to identify what your content is about.
Your blog title should contain the H1 tag, while the sub-topics should carry H2 tags. You can use the H3 tag for sub-items or a miscellaneous list that is part of the sub-topics carrying H2 tags.
The H3 tags are optional; you don’t always need them. You might have a few cases where your main title has the H1 tag, and the sub-topics take the H2 tag.
Optimize your images
Like any other content, optimizing images will help rank them on Google. This is possible because Google has segregated content categories to simplify the search process. Optimized images can attract more relevant traffic compared to simple text content. If your blog has an optimized image and ranks on Google, think about the popularity it will earn in Cyberspace, and your readers are sure to follow your trail. Isn’t that amazing?
Special tips for image optimization
- Your image name must have a keyword used in your blog.
- Adding an Alt attribute works well.
- Keep your images light and smart. Smart images are great storytellers. –
- Decrease the image size to help the web pages load easily.
- Google loves fast-loading pages and media. Quick (webpage) loading is one of the important Google ranking factors.
- Use free tools available on the internet to ensure that your web pages and images are optimized, and load faster. It is important to give your visitor a superb experience while browsing your blog or website. Keep him happy because satisfied and happy users easily convert to loyal customers.
Link to Previous Posts
Old is Gold.
If this proverb is true, then your previously published posts are precious. Why not encash them? Set hyperlinks to your previous blogs on the keywords, phrases, and sentences in your current blogs.
Create a decent network of accurate internal link structure. Doing this will help the overall ranking of your previous and present blogs. Wouldn’t you love to see all your blogs ace the Google Search results?
Increase CTR with Meta Descriptions
Meta Title and Meta Description do not directly impact your ranking on Google. But they play a significant role in attracting and engaging your visitors.
Every time a person searches using keywords, the search results display the relevant Meta descriptions for each search result. The Meta description informs the user about the crux of the blog’s content.
Meta descriptions may carry actionable words or CTA, which lure the user into clicking the link to the webpage or your blog. The click-through rate increases if the link is clicked multiple times from different locations. This indicates to Google that the blog’s content is coherent and relevant and keywords match the user’s search intent. This directly improves the blog’s ranking on Google.
What should the length of my blog post be?
Length is a substantial parameter for a blog to rank on search engines.
In most cases, blogs with 2000 plus words are more likely to rank on Google. So the length (with unique and informative content) brightens your chances to rank. This is not all. When you create a detailed writeup, you have room to explain every aspect which adds value to your blog.
Readers will be more than happy to read a piece of content that discusses their issue at length, discusses probable outcomes, and summarizes the solutions most simply. Such content offers a sense of satisfaction and builds trust for the product or the company.
A detailed blog describing the nitty-gritty of your product, service, or concept helps generate quality backlinks. People who understand the quality and quantity of long-form content are likely to associate with such content rather than some short, slender blog that falls below 500-odd words. They will have better scope to generate business.
Link to Authority Websites in Your Industry
There are websites in every business domain to which people look upto for genuine and verified information. These are considered authoritative websites which display information on multiple (searched) topics in their blogs or web pages.
To make your blog look more authentic with a few facts and figures, you can place links in your content from these authoritative websites.
Doing so will help in multiple ways. Users visiting your blog would get a better experience. It also suggests that your research on the topic or concept is accurate and that you know the subject well. This will improve the popularity and acceptance of your content and positively boost your brand asset. Placing such links in your blog will help search engines identify the relevance of the topic(s) discussed within the blog post.
Update Old Blog Posts
It is important to ensure that your content remains relevant in current times. There is no such rule that restricts you from reposting your old blogs. The only bottom line is that it should have an element of freshness and relevance to the current trends.
With appropriate and in-depth research, the content will always retain its shine. You have already invested your precious time, energy, and efforts in creating your old blogs; why not encash on them?
It is advisable to sharpen your existing blade than to forge a new sword. The same is true for your old blogs. The search engines have already crawled them, and the content is in their database. They have already ranked in the past, generated leads, and built users’ trust. Allow them to rank again on the first page with fewer efforts. When you consider creating new content, it is imperative to understand that it would take months before it starts ranking on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
The best strategy is to update your old content while creating fresh ones simultaneously.
Special tips on updating the content within your old blogs –
- Modify or add new content
- Replace old/outdated images with new relevant ones
- Republish the edited blog on social media
- Check if there are missing or broken links – Fix them.
- Let the infographic show its magic.
- Replace old Pinterest Pins with new ones.
- Improve internal linking structure with stronger and better links.
- Shoot a new video and add it with essential details.
- Research if your blog topic refers to some current long-tail keywords that rank on Google – Add them.
- Revamp the content to make it sound fresh and current. Add CTA or use action-triggering phrases. Maintain a high level of audience engagement throughout the blog post.
Verdict:
The phrase “What does it take” is significant and essential when you want to understand “What does it take to Write an SEO-Friendly Blog Post?” We have explained every parameter that you should consider while creating a blog. Follow every norm as described, and your blog will rank on Google. If it doesn’t, keep aside your worries and book a call with Jay. We would be happy to assist you in your journey to creating marvelous content.
