Last updated on July 17th, 2022 at 09:32 am
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Today, we’re going to talk about how to excel in writing SEO-friendly blog post tips.
All bloggers care about this.
It’s how you get high rankings on search engines and one of the best ways to get traffic (people say social media is another strategy to gain traffic but we’re not going into that topic today).
BUT a lot of people can be intimated by SEO (search engine optimization) since there are a lot of moving parts. I know I was when I first started blogging.
SEO is a long-term game. It can take months of work before you see the results.
So don’t give up if you don’t see your traffic explode after 1 month of doing SEO.
I’ll do my best to break down the concept into actionable steps so you know what to do.
Let’s get started, shall we?
Writing an SEO-Friendly Blog Post – Picking a Target Keyword
Some would argue this is the most important SEO-friendly tip you need to focus on.
Picking a target keyword is probably the hardest thing about SEO and it’s crucial to your ranking.
When writing a new blog post, you want to pick a keyword where you have a chance of scoring a spot on the first search result page. People don’t tend to look beyond that.
You have to check out your competition to see if you have a chance.
Once you’ve decided on a keyword, use it on your title, URL, blog post content and meta description.
Put the target keyword in places that sound natural. Google will know if you’re overdoing it. That’s known as keyword stuffing.
Also, make sure that the keyword you selected isn’t one you’ve chosen before.
There are plenty of resources that will help you with keyword research. Ahrefs.com has an article that lists 10 FREE keyword research tools.
Internal Links
In an SEO-friendly blog post, you must include internal links.
Internal links are links within your blog.
One of the factors search engines determine whether or not a post is ‘good’ is how many links are pointing to that article.
Getting other websites or blogs linking to you can be difficult but internal links are pretty easy. You control what you want to link to.
Even if it’s not from an SEO-friendly perspective, you want your readers to stay on your blog for as long as possible. Include relevant internal links throughout your blog post to keep them engaged.
Make sure these are RELEVANT internal links.
If you’re linking to irrelevant content within your blog post, Google and other search engines will eventually pick up on this habit. It would do the opposite of helping you with SEO.
Including internal links takes practice. When you first start, it can feel unnatural.
You’re lucky if you can easily fit in 2 links in one blog post at the beginning.
As you spend more time on your blog, including internal links will become routine. You’re likely to bump up the number as time goes on.
It would be terrific to be able to include them in your writing naturally. It would save you a lot of time but it’s okay if you don’t either.
Write naturally without thinking about internal links. When you’re editing your blog post, you can always go and add some in.
External Links
Now you understand the definition of an internal link, you can probably guess what an external link is.
An external link is when you link to a website outside your blog.
You’re usually including external links for outside information that would benefit the reader.
For example, when I wrote a restaurant review on SHE restaurant, I included an external link to their online menu. People who read that blog post might be interested in seeing what kind of food they can order from the restaurant.
You would also include external links if you’re trying to make affiliate income.
Most of my external links are to Vestiaire Collective because I’m a part of this affiliate program. That means that I get a cut if someone buys something off Vestiaire Collective using my link at no cost to you. I wouldn’t be an affiliate for something I don’t genuinely love and use myself.
(Vestiaire Collective has some amazing luxury fashion deals. There are thousands of new items being added to the platform every day at amazing prices. Follow Vestiaire closely and you’ll be notified when they cut their prices down. How cool is that?)
It’s good SEO practice to make affiliate links to be no-follow links (you’ll get penalized if you don’t).
You don’t have to do the same if you’re linking to other external websites. For example, when I linked to SHE’s online menu, it was a do-follow link. That means you get some SEO juice from the website.
As for how many external links you should include in a blog post, I usually do about 2.
Meta Description
If I type in ‘Love and Redemption drama review‘ on Google search, this is the search engine result. You’ll see my blog on the first page of the search results, which is what you want.
There’s the title of my blog post. The meta description is right underneath it.
Search engines sometimes do their own thing but typing out the meta description helps maximize exposure.
Sum up what your blog post is about with a short paragraph.
People will scan the meta description and if your post is what they’re looking for, you’ll have a higher click-through rate.
That means that more people will come to your website and you’ll get more traffic.
Also, don’t forget to use your selected keyword in the meta description.
Use Headers
Using headers is also SEO-friendly.
It tells search engines what your blog post is about.
Headers are also a way of people finding the information they want from your article.
Most people aren’t going to read your content word by word.
Headers help organize your content. It makes it easier for your audience to scan your post.
You’ll probably use mainly these headers: H1, H2, H3, and H4.
The title of your blog post uses H1.
Most of the headers are H2 but if you want to break up even more text, use H3 and H4.
Be sure to include the keyword you selected in some of your headers as well. This will also help with SEO.
Choosing Images
Pick at least one picture for each blog post.
This will be your featured image (these are the pictures you see along with the title as you’re scrolling through my blog’s homepage. See the image below).
Depending on the topic, you should also include multiple photos as well in your content. Pictures help facilitate understanding and chop off big chunks of text.
As many people say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
For an SEO-friendly blog post, remember to fill out the ALT text for each picture (once you upload the image in your media library on WordPress, click on it and you’ll see a section called alternative text on the left-hand side. That’s the part you should fill in.)
Search engines use this information to understand what this image is. In turn, it helps your page rank higher.
I’ve had situations where my blog post isn’t ranked on the first page of Google but on Google Images, some of my images are ranked pretty high up.
It’s an opportunity to get your blog more exposure.
How many words for an SEO-friendly blog post?
As a rule, you should get used to writing at least 1000 words per blog post.
Some posts will be lengthier than others but only when it’s necessary (for example, my LASIK experience and the best websites to buy affordable designer bags post).
Make sure it’s quality content. There’s no need to ramble if you can get your message across in fewer words.
1000+ words blog post might sound like a lot.
If you’re not the type to write everything in one go, split it up every day.
Plan out your day and week accordingly so you don’t have to squeeze all 1000+ words in one day.
Don’t worry about writing too much. It’s likely not going to happen. It’s also easier to cut down when you’re editing compared to adding more information later.
Final Thoughts – Writing an SEO-friendly Blog Post
Start (or continue) writing blog posts with SEO in mind. It will help you rank higher on search engine results.
It might be tough at first.
The thing with SEO is that search engines consider a bunch of factors for your page to have a high ranking. If you’re a somewhat new blog starting, it’s going to be hard to compare with a more established domain.
The hardest part is probably knowing you’re doing everything right but you still need to sit back and wait.
Keep going at this consistently and do not give up. You’ll eventually see results.
Now to You – Writing an SEO-friendly Blog Post
I know this is a lot of information in one go so I created an SEO-friendly checklist to optimize all your blog posts. This checklist is something you can refer back to each time you write.
I use it every time I’m writing content. It helps a lot instead of me relying on my memory.
Download my free SEO blog post checklist to help you guide you to create the perfect blog post.
Xoxo,
Nicole