Writing a blog post isn’t easy, so you shouldn’t just post your blog without optimizing it. Without optimization, your blog post will have a lesser chance of being indexed by Google. Remember that each day, there are hundreds of thousands of businesses publishing articles and blog posts, and many of them are in the same industry as yours. For your blog to be indexed by Google and be searchable by your target audience, you need to know how to optimize your blog post. And as a trusted digital marketing agency in Pasadena, Cybertegic is here to help you.
Here is a list of tips on how you can optimize your blog post:
1 – Brainstorm first before you start with a draft.
Before you write anything else, you need to have an idea about the thing you want to write about. What is the purpose of you writing the content? What questions will be answered by users who will read your content? Write the answers to these questions, so you know what relevant information you can give with the content. You can start by checking which keywords your target audience is typing on Google Search Box. You can use Google Keyword Tool and Google Trends for this.
2 – Create a structure for your blog post.
Readability is a big factor in your blog post’s SEO score. The structure is a big part of your blog’s readability. And when we talk about structure, this means that your content should be divided into different sections. For starters, there are three main parts of a blog post: the introduction, the body of the content, and the conclusion.
However, if you are writing a well-informed blog post such as a how-to guide or tips, you need to create bullet points that will discuss important things on your topic. For example, if you are writing tips, each bullet point should feature a separate tip.
3 – Use headings.
As stated earlier, your blog posts should be divided into different sections or parts. Each point or sub-section of your blog can be turned into a subheading. Your heading will, of course, be your blog title. But subheadings could be used for specific parts of your text. For example, if you are writing a step-by-step guide as a blog post, each step can be turned into a subheading. Under that, you will need to write a paragraph that will thoroughly explain the sub-heading.
Headings can also be used so that readers can easily scan your content. This way, readers can decide whether they want to stay and check your blog post or not.
4 – Use transition words.
Transition words are another factor that Yoast SEO considers when it comes to scoring the readability of a blog post. Transition words are placed so that readers can scan through the text and understand the connection between sentences and paragraphs. You should use these words so readers can easily get to the conclusion of what you are trying to say in an article.
Here are samples of transition words:
- first of all
- moreover
- furthermore
- similarly
- however
- finally
5 – Add related keywords.
Stuffing your article with your focus keyword can hurt its SEO-friendliness. So stop inserting your main keyword into each sentence or paragraph of your article. This will make it look spammy, and it can hurt all the other articles in your blog. Google prefers blog posts with keywords that sound natural to readers. They want writers to write for their readers and not for the algorithm. This is the reason they have released several updates from the past to make sure that people will get quality content.
To avoid repeating your main keywords, again and again, use related keywords instead. You can check the synonyms or other related phrases of your target keyword. You can use Google Keyword Tool for this task.
6 – Consider the length of your content.
A great article should have over 300 words. But this depends on the type of content you are writing about. For example, if your blog post is about current news, then writing over 300 words is enough. But if you are writing a step-by-step guide or how-to-article, then 300 words will not suffice. You have to write longer than that. Again, it depends on the content you are writing about.
Although a lot of websites suggest that you write over 1000 words, if your content is not of quality, then it serves no purpose. The relevance of content is still important.
7 – Internal linking is your friend.
If you have a previous post that can be used as a reference in your current article, then don’t forget to link that article. It will help your new blog post and the old blog post to rank higher as it shows your authority and expertise in what you are writing about. Not only that, link structure is important and considered as an SEO factor for Google and other search engine websites.
Another thing you should remember is that internal linking is good for readers, especially if they want to know about what they are reading about. It also helps reduce bounce rates because it keeps readers and users to your blog post.
8 – Don’t forget your meta-content.
Meta content refers to the title tag, meta description, and focus keyword phase. By adding these to your blog post, it will be easier for Google to index your content. And when they index and crawl your content, it will likely be shown in their search engine results. However, not everyone has an idea how they should add meta content to their blog post. There are several tools you can use. If you’re using WordPress, there is a plugin called Yoast SEO that can help optimize the meta-data and know your blog post’s SEO score.
9 – Post regularly.
Regularly publishing content on your blog lets Google know that your website is active. Remember that Google prefers websites that are posting new and regular updates. This means that the information on their website is new and current. Take note that the less you post content on your website, Google is likely to crawl it less often, so make sure to post regularly on your blog. And you should not only post content just for the sake of having one. The content should deliver relevant information and be of high quality.
