036 - SEO for Blogs

Blogging is a popular way for businesses to capture prospective clients' attention. Most of them, though, are unaware they are losing traction and getting less traffic to their websites because of the recent Google algorithm update. In order to drive traffic to your website, you must stay on top of your game and start leveraging SEO for your blogs. By doing this, you ensure your content is consumed through a variety of funnels, such as your email list or downloads.

Podcast Highlights:

00:00 Prologue

00:36 Introduction of the topic

01:24 Is it too late to start a blog?

03:00 The importance of SEO for blogs. 

05:28 Tools that can help you to produce excellent content.

11:22 End

Resources:

All-in-one SEO tool, Ahrefs - https://ahrefs.com/

Content marketing tool, Semrush - https://www.semrush.com/

Content Optimization tool, inLinks - https://inlinks.net/

Content Optimization, Surfer SEO - https://surferseo.com/

SEO for Blogs

For many SEOs, providing content that best meets the demands of users is a major priority. To engage with your audience, create a distinct content perspective that uncovers connections between your brand’s expertise and your audience’s pain points. It requires taking a wider topic and twisting it in your way.

If you’ve ever tried to write a blog article, you’re aware of how time-consuming it can be. So, how can you come up with excellent content that keeps your audience interested and wanting more? Do you want to create your content strategy?

You’ve come to the right spot! We’ll show you how to write SEO-friendly blog entries and strategies to get your website on the Google search rankings page.

How SEO and content marketing achieve online success

The world of digital marketing has changed as a result of SEO and content marketing. Without content marketing, SEO is like having a body without a soul. Both must work together to be successful in the Google search ranking. 

Starting a blog is among the nicest options you can do to boost your ranking prospects in the search engines. Find out why right here! 

Many individuals turn to the world’s most popular search engine first when it comes to finding information. You can rely on Google to answer almost any inquiry or meet any demand. That would be to say, irrespective of the nature of the website you have, it must show in a search engine if you want people to find it.

Is that easy to do? Well, even the best-written articles are useless if no one ever discovers your page. And if ever you have not implemented the SEO-friendly blog that Google wants.

So, what does it mean to be SEO-friendly? 

SEO-friendly content is written in a method that makes it easier for search engines to rank it highly. Needless to say, if you want your company to succeed, you must provide SEO-friendly content.

While some advertisers mistakenly believe this implies stuffing it with keywords, it’s actually supposed to aid search engines in finding, understanding, and connecting your content to the topic you’re trying to cover. Writing effective SEO content needs a great deal of thought and planning. Making your content SEO-friendly requires much more than merely sprinkling keywords across your blogs, videos, and other types of content, as you’ll see some strategies in this article. 

SEO tips on optimizing your blog content for search engines

There are several strategies you can do to improve the on-page SEO of your blog content. Here are some tried and true search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to help you be on the search rankings and generate more traffic to your site.

Focus on keyword research

Keyword research is the first and most significant aspect of SEO that you must not overlook. Most SEO starters write about topics they think their audience will be interested in based on their best assumptions. You don’t have to make blind guesses to conduct keyword research to learn and discover topics that your consumers are interested in.

It’s also not about stuffing as many keywords as possible into your blog content regarding keyword optimization. It actually harms your SEO nowadays because search engines regard keyword stuffing to be spam. In most cases, you’ll encounter the terms short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords while researching SEO. 

Long-tail keywords

These keywords are made up of three to five words, or possibly more. To acquire more relevant results, website visitors prefer to type a lengthier query into Google or the other search engine when looking for more particular outcomes. To put it another way, they’ll assist you in attracting the appropriate kind of traffic – visitors who will convert. 

Long-tail keyword searches are more likely to read the entire content and then contact you for more information. The use of long-tail keywords per blog is a solid rule of thumb.

Short-tail keywords

Short-tail keywords are one- or two-word two-word search queries that are significantly more generic. For example, if they are merely looking for a broad topic, they are much more likely to input a one- or two-word query.

When looking for keyword ideas, beginner marketers may be tempted to focus primarily on short-tail keywords, which frequently have the highest traffic volume. It’s vital to note, too, that despite the high volume of searches, short-tail keywords are incredibly competitive. 

Content writers and SEO specialists utilize keyword research as a tool. Look for keywords that have a lot of traffic and are simple to rank for.

Utilize related keywords on parts of your blog post

After conducting keyword research and topic, you must apply the relevant keywords to every part of your blog. Basically, as a marketer, SEO keyword research should be a continuous and ever-changing element of your job. This is best to practice updating your content and keywords from time to time.

Title Tag

On a search engine results page, a title tag shows above the URL. Search engines use title tags to understand the content that shows. In addition, it is one of the aspects that determines a user’s decision to click on a website. You should utilize title tags as a kind of persuasion tool to get people to click on your link.

Write your blog post title tag based on the following tips.

• Use keywords that capture your page’s value or put a high-ranking keyword in your title tag. It is important to note that your keyword must be within the first 50 - 60 characters, as this is where Google cuts it off on the SERP.
• Create a tag that catches people’s attention and engages them right away.
• Build a unique tag for each page to avoid duplicate content issues.
• Always double-check your blog post title tags once you’ve finished writing them to make sure they’re still relevant.

Meta Description

The meta description is a 160-character snippet that summarizes the content of a web page. Search engines occasionally use these snippets in search results to inform users about the content of a page before they click on it. As a result, you should use keywords in your meta description in a natural and unforced manner.

In today’s on-page optimization, the quality and relevance of the meta descriptions are far more significant. Because a relevant snippet will urge the visitor to click on the search result,  high-quality meta descriptions can enhance traffic and CTR (click-through rate) if done correctly. A keyword that is click-worthy is essential on this part.

Headers & Body

You’ll probably think about how to include your keywords into your content before you start creating a new blog post. As an idea, headers aid Google’s web crawlers in comprehending your blog content and its divisions. Apply your keywords in the body of your blog and the headings at a consistent level. 

Your H1 should provide them an idea of what your article will discuss. Then your H2s, H3s, and H4s break down the piece’s subtopics. Subheaders should therefore mirror the substance of the body and contain high-intent keywords. 

You have a lot better chance of ranking on the search engine results pages if you employ the related keywords, which are the ones that your prospective audience uses. Please don’t overdo it, or you’ll be fined for keyword stuffing.

URL

This is a long-debated subject in the search marketing field, and the answer depends not just on how different search engines handle keywords in your domain name or URL but also on how you use keywords in your domain name or URL. Search engines use your URL to determine the topic of your blog post, and it’s one of the first things they’ll explore on a page. 

Each article has its unique URL, so you have a big opportunity to optimize your URLs. Make sure you include one or two keywords in it. There’s a correlation between how a website ranks for certain keywords and if keywords exist in the URL. 

Design a link building method

The essence of link building to your on-page SEO strategy is at a higher peak. Inbound links to your content help search engines determine whether your content is valid or relevant. Linking to reliable websites not only provides additional reading material for blog visitors but also demonstrates to search engines that you’ve done your homework.

On the other hand, internal linking to other pages on your website is the same. Internal links to additional valuable content keep visitors on your site longer, lowering bounce rates and increasing conversion opportunities. Search engines can construct a more accurate sitemap if you link to other pages or blog posts on your website.

Optimize images

A blog post is not all about the text; it’s also about images that reflect the topic you have. Search engines, on the other hand, don’t just hunt for photos. Rather, they search for photographs with an alternative text.

To ensure that your photos improve your blog SEO, make sure that you add image alt text. Because search engines can’t see pictures as people can, an image’s alt text tells the search engine what the image is about. As a result, the photographs will appear higher on the search engine’s image results page. 

Improve the page loading speed

Google uses site speed as a ranking consideration. If a mobile website doesn’t load in three seconds, visitors will leave and abandon it. Even if you have the relevant content, even if you’re applying keyword research, it will make your ranking drop on the last page of search engine results if you have a loading speed. 

So, what’s the best way to make your content or web page easy to load? Overall, you want to ensure that your page loads as quickly as feasible. Analyzing your page speed with a tool can be a great help.

Write for people, not for Google.

Who cares about your article? Who do you write for?

Not everyone knows the true meaning of writing a blog post. Mostly write it for search engines, for it to rank for. Writers do not even think who will read the article they make.

The main concern is that people have to like it. Search engines are ways to answer people’s queries. So, keep in mind the motives, difficulties, and interests of your buyer personas.

With all of these search engine optimization standards, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that when they search on Google, they’re looking for a solution. Writing high-quality blog content is the best method to boost your ranking prospects.

What is the preferred length of a blog post?

So, how long should your content be? It’s a vital and frequently asked question because many beginner SEO writers aren’t sure if they should produce longer or shorter blog pieces. However, the number of words in your blog posts impacts how well your content ranks in search engines like Google.

When it comes to blogging, the longer, the better performs better in practically every metric. In addition, longer blog entries can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. This is by giving greater value to readers and showcasing your experience.

But, it is also a good way to remember that you need to make your long content fantastic. Most long blog posts tend to be boring, and most people don’t want to read them longer. Make use of images, and make twisting content that makes your visitors entertained.

Other factors that affect your content

Blogging is beneficial to SEO because it aids in a variety of essential Google search ranking variables. It may make a tremendous difference in how well your whole website appears in the search engines if you have blog posts that are kept up to date with high-quality blog entries on themes that are customer-centric. However, some factors affect your ranking.

Readability

Users should be able to read your blog content easily. SEO tends to make this factor part of the content ranking. Make your phrases brief, use fewer phrases every paragraph, and use easy-to-understand terminology instead of tough ones to increase the readability of your blog entries. 

Accuracy

What makes content accurate? This is where link-building plays the game!

Link building also plays an essential role in its accuracy, which is already mentioned above. Google favors articles that are well-researched and accurate, and they are more likely to receive links from other blogs.

Uniqueness

Learn to avoid plagiarism in your content. This is where Google has no chance of showing your blog post to searchers on the first page if it has the same content as every other post on the topic. You can do some research on your subject and create a new revised copy of it.

The Takeaway

Writing blog posts for websites is not an easy task. There are many considerations you must know, from selecting a topic down to optimizing it. Thus, following the blog SEO tips in this post will help you optimize for more organic searches.

Now that you’ve learned about creating blog entries, it’s time to get started! If you make something better than everyone else, you’ll have no issue achieving good results in the organic rank. Learn to set expectations and goals when it comes to SEO and content marketing.

Connect with Gert Mellak:

Email: [email protected]