When you’re running a blog, chances are, you probably understand just how important it is to post to that blog. However, do you know how to optimize blog posts for SEO? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is important.
When you optimize your site, including those blog posts, you’re making sure you’re doing your part in making your site more visible to those that are typing in keywords that are associated with the product or service you offer on your site in popular search engines, like Google.
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When is the Best time to Do SEO on a Blog?
The best time to do SEO on a blog would be when you write the content, but if this is something you have failed to do, you can always go back and improve those old articles. SEO is important because it will help you get more traffic flowing in.
Use these SEO Tips to Help Get Your Blog Noticed
Want to get your blog noticed by Google? Of course, you do – here are some easy SEO tips to help get your blog out there:
Research
We cannot stress enough just how important keyword research is for page optimization. Chances are, each time you’re writing a blog, you’re naturally including some keywords without even realizing it. However, you have to do more than this …there are many tools and techniques you can use in order to find keywords that are relevant to your blog posts.
Take Google Adwords Keyword Tool as an example, they offer good tools that will give you the opportunity to find keywords that are related to your topic and you can even spy on your competition to see what keywords or phrases they have been targeting to bring traffic to their sites.
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Use Keywords Throughout Your Blog Post
Once you have found some valuable keywords to target, you need to naturally sprinkle them throughout the posts. By all means, avoid keywords stuffing, because this can do more harm than good. Keyword stuffing will look unnatural and could end up chasing readers away. Try to include the keywords in the following places:
- Title
- In the first paragraph
- Subheadings and headings (H2, H3, & H4)
- In the concluding paragraph
- Meta descriptions and title tags
Again, avoid keyword stuffing. This involves filling your content with so many different keywords to the point that it makes it hard for an actual human to read. This act will frustrate your blog followers and could cause you to get penalized by Google. Severs placed keywords throughout the article will work just fine.
Optimize Those Images
That’s right, you can also optimize your images. Whenever you upload a picture to your blog, the file name should consist of keywords. There’s an alternate text field, make sure you fill that field up with a description of the photo that is keywords rich.
Allow Readers to Subscribe to Your Blog
On your blog, don’t forget to place RSS or Feed Subscription Buttons and give viewers the opportunity to subscribe to your blog via email whenever it’s possible.
This will give your blog followers the opportunity to receive notifications of your latest posts, without having to routinely check your site to see if new content has been placed.
Focus on a Couple of Long-Tail Keywords
When it comes to optimizing your blog for keywords, it doesn’t mean you need to fit as many keywords into that post as you possibly can, we went over this earlier (remember, keyword stuffing). In this day and age, this tactic will actually hurt your SEO because search engines like Google look at this as keywords stuffing and will know that you’re placing as many keywords as you possibly can with the sole purpose of getting a high rank in organic search.
Search engines prioritize a ranking factor in order to make sure you intend on offering your visitors an answer to the question they typed in. With that thought in mind, when you use your keywords in your blog posts, make sure you aren’t forcing them in there. Consider focusing on a couple of long-tail keywords per post.
Why used long-tail keywords? These longer keywords will help keep your blog post focused on the specific goals of your visitors. For example, the long-tail keyword “How to optimize blog posts for SEO” Is much more impactful than a short keyword like “blog post.”
When a website visitor searches long-tail keywords, there are more chances that they will read the entire post, then look for more information from you. Basically, this will help you bring in the right traffic (visitors who convert).
Write an Effective Blog Post Title
The blog post title is an important thing that some forget about – the title is the first thing the reader sees, so it can make or break your post within a matter of seconds. So, make sure you put some thought into that blog post title. Having a good title can make your article more relevant in Google search and it is what motivates the reader to click and read the article.
Your blog title can be SEO-friendly. All you have to do is place your focus keywords in the title. Apart from placing your focus keywords, you should also make the title catchy in order to improve your click-through rate (Click-through rate plays a vital role in SEO).
There are numerous formulas you can use in order to write an effective headline. The one that we have found that works is called emotional marketing value, or EMV, for short. With this formula, you’re going to be using power words, which will trigger a specific emotional response in your visitors.
Internal Linking Should be a Habit
Once you have blogged for a couple of months, you should have enough content that your visitors would want to read. Just don’t forget about internal linking. With internal linking, you’ll be sending your new visitors to read relevant posts that are older on your blog. Think of internal linking as a good way to develop a relationship between your old and new posts. This way, those old posts will be just as important as those new posts.
Final Words
Now that you know how to optimize blog posts for SEO, it’s time to head over to your blog and see if you’re on the right track. As a reminder, avoid keywords stuffing as this could cause the content to read unnaturally and could chase readers away.
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