Composing content that is optimized for both website visitors and searches requires expertise. The process may be both tedious and challenging. The key is to be strategic when selecting and crafting your articles aimed at keeping your audience involved. Writing a blog post is not the same thing as creating an article, therefore, you should focus on specifics and follow a list of SEO guidelines.
The SEO-optimized blog post with excellent content has a higher possibility of ranking better in search results, while an SEO-friendly blog post with not relevant content has a low chance of ranking well. Here are three tips on how to create an SEO-friendly blog post.
1. Conduct a thorough keyword research
To achieve higher rankings in SERPs, the first thing you need to do is to write an article that satisfies a user’s information needs. However, you also need to give search engines the signals they should understand what your content is about. And there’s no better way of doing it than by using relevant keywords in your title, meta description and body copy. The first thing that you should do before writing your blog post is to figure out what keywords you would like to rank for. To do so, you just need to use advanced keyword research tools, such as SEMrush, and check the volume to see how many people search for the specific keyword and the keyword difficulty for insight into how easy it might be to rank for that keyword.
There are plenty of other things that you can take into account while doing your keyword research. Once you’ve decided on the main keyword that you would like to rank for, it’s a good idea to also think about two or three secondary keywords and incorporate them into your post. These could be long-tail versions of your main keyword or related keyword phrases.
2. Use keywords in the title and throughout the article
This is one of the most important pieces of advice for writing an SEO-friendly blog post. The keywords you choose should appear in your headline, as well as multiple times throughout your body text. If a keyword doesn’t fit naturally into your article, consider changing the subject matter or picking a different keyword that works better with the topic being discussed.
You should know where to put your keywords. Your keywords should appear in your title and headers, preferably near the beginning of those sections if possible. Your goal is to make sure they’re sprinkled throughout your body text, but you should avoid utilizing keyword phrases repetitively. This is known as keyword stuffing which is frowned upon by Google and other search engines, and can even get you penalized.
3. Use outbound links
You should use outbound links in your blog posts. People often find themselves on your website after following a link from somewhere else, and it’s likely that they’ll go back to where they came from once they have read your post. By linking to relevant websites, you can keep visitors reading other content that could be valuable to them while also improving the chances that they will come back to your website later on. It’s important not to overdo this; links should only be included naturally within the text and finished articles should contain no more than one or two outgoing links.
Outbound links are great marketing tools because they demonstrate industry expertise. Linking to well-known news websites shows that you’re familiar with what’s going inside industry news and events, which makes customers trust you more as an authority figure on those topics. Business blogging guides can be of benefit to you to get to know every nuance of the specific industry.
Conclusion
The benefits of SEO are pretty straightforward: a high ranking on Google results pages means more people will find your content. Similarly, you want to reach as many readers as possible with your blog posts.
Imagine writing amazing posts to help people learn about a topic that interests you, only for the information to end up on page 20 of the search engine results. It would be extremely frustrating! By optimizing your content, you can increase the likelihood of your blog post ranking higher in search engines and getting seen by more visitors.
While there’s certainly no magic formula for SEO success, these above mentioned tips show how easy it is to keep SEO in mind when creating and publishing content. The next time you are going to write a new blog post or article, don’t treat keywords as an afterthought and don’t create content that feels unnatural or forced due to the inclusion of keywords. Keep these three principles in mind: pick good keywords, use them naturally and appropriately, and monitor their effectiveness over time.
