Blogs have been evolving over the years and today they are a very valuable tool from a commercial point of view and a great source of traffic for many websites. Brands of all kinds create valuable and useful content to interact with their clients and attract their target audience.
Optimized blog posts allow products or services to become known and businesses to expand, as long as it is high-quality content. In this article we tell you how to write an SEO-friendly blog post!
What is a blog post?
A blog post can be an article, a news post or a guide published in the blog section of a website. On average, blogs are between 600 and 2000 words long and contain other types of multimedia content (images, videos, GIFs, infographics, and interactive graphics).
Typically, a blog post is informative and talks about a particular topic or query. Blog posts allow businesses to post ideas, thoughts, opinions, or stories on any topic. They also serve to attract traffic to a website, increase brand awareness and improve conversion rates thanks to call to action (CTA).
What is SEO writing?
SEO writing refers to the process of planning, creating as well as optimizing content for search engines and users. SEO copywriters take into account keyword density, latent semantic indexing (LSI), structure, style, tone and readability to organically increase a website’s content in search engines.
SEO copywriting is a mix of science and art which requires analytics proficiency as well as high-quality copy skills. It’s important for blog posts to respect SEO best practices but also make sure content is adapted to maximize the user experience. Good SEO copywriters have the ability to develop content that targets customers and guides their behavior on a web page through call to action as well as hyperlinks.
Google’s algorithm takes into account the browsing experience of users and the relevance of the content. This means that the quality of the content is essential to rank well in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
The importance of keyword research
Regardless of the article that is written, there are certain steps that must be followed so that the article is effective and ranks well in search engines. The most important thing is to perform keyword research and define the most appropriate and relevant keyword for the subject in question.
Positioning a website in the SERPs depends on several factors (site structure, authority, meta tags, quality of content, etc.) but the choice of the main keyword is one of the most important aspects. Take into consideration the search volume of the keywords before choosing them as this will determine how easy or difficult it will be to rank in a certain location.
The content must be aligned with the chosen keyword, and also include long-tail keywords, similar terms and synonyms of the keyword. Apart from the main keyword, it is highly recommended that you identify keyword variations and LSI that are related to the topic. These should be different from the main keyword but relevant in order to provide more context to crawlers and increase your chances of being indexed higher.
Google’s algorithm for ranking websites is constantly evolving and tries to understand what the user is looking for beyond the keywords they type in their query. There are many tools that are at your fingertips to perform a keyword search to effectively position your article in the SERPs. Some of them include SEMRush and Ahrefs !
Expert tips to write SEO-friendly blog posts
1. Choose a good headline (H1)
Having a good headline is one of the main factors that will make users click on the article and reduce your bounce rate. Obviously, the success of an article does not depend only on this, but without an effective title (H1), even the best content will not have visits. You should also make sure to include your main keyword in your H1 for optimization purposes.
Do you khow to write an attention-grabbing headline? The recipe for the perfect headline is complex. You need to make it stand out in SEPRs as well as inform and engage the user by convincing them to stop and click. All of this must be done in less than 65 characters!
2. Structure the article
Once you have identified the main keyword and chosen a powerful title, you have to create a clear structure for the article and insert the keyword in the most natural way possible. To do this, the best thing you can do is start by writing down some ideas for the titles of the paragraphs (H2) and subparagraphs (H3). By using H2 and H3 tags in your blog, you can organize the text on the page, dividing it by subtopics or subject areas.
This makes for much better readability and increases the chances that users will read the post until the end. In addition, it is very useful so that readers can quickly find the information they are looking for. Remember that a good article should always have a clear and engaging introduction, a development of the topic and a conclusion. Keep this in mind as you build the blog structure. Creating lists, adding internal and external links, using bold and italic to highlight information as well as adding call to action is also helpful !
3. Include call to actions
At the end of your well-optimized blog post, you should insert a call to action (CTA) to guide user behavior and influence what the reader will do next. Depending on your business objectives, you may want the user to download content, subscribe to your newsletter, schedule a consultation, register for an event, buy a product or service, etc.
After visitors read your blog post, they will click on the CTA and, in the best case scenario, they will become a potential customer or perform the action you wanted them to perform in the first place. A call-to-action is also a valuable resource for the reader, as you can use them to deliver more content similar to the topic of the post they just read.
4. Image optimization
All the articles you publish should contain images, infographics or videos to better represent what you are explaining to readers and make the content dynamic. You should know that images are not read by search engines like normal text, so it is necessary to optimize them so that the search engines know what they are about.
One of the most important elements to optimize an image is alt text, which is the alternative text that describes the content of the image. It is good to focus on the keywords contained in the text and include them in your alt text.
5. Optimiser pour le référencement Web
Once you’ve finished writing the article, you should go back and optimize the elements on your blog post. You shouldn’t exaggerate or obsess over the number of keywords to include (this is known as keyword stuffing). However, if you find opportunities to incorporate more target keywords without negatively affecting the reader experience, go for it. Also, you should optimize your URLs and make sure they include your main keyword.
Here are key on-page elements to review on your blog:
- Keywords
- Keyword variations
- Title tag and meta description
- Internal and external links
- H1, H2, H3… tags
- Page URL
- Structured data
- Etc.
6. Meta description
This is the description that appears below the blog post title on the search engine results pages. Meta descriptions offer users a short summary of the post before they click on it. Ideally, your meta description should be between 150 and 160 characters long and should start with a verb, such as “Read”, “Discover” or “Learn”. Meta descriptions help improve your search click-through rate!
7. Anchor text
Anchor text refers to the word or words that link to another page, either on your website or on an external website.
Make sure to choose the keywords for external links or on your site carefully because search engines take this into account when ranking your page for certain keywords. It is also important to consider which pages you link to.
You should consider linking to the pages that you want to rank for a specific keyword. Doing this can end up placing your website on the first page of Google’s results pages!
Are blog posts good for SEO?
Content marketing is an essential part of any SEO strategy. Blog posts use different on-page SEO tactics in order to help businesses rank better in search engines. Nowadays, investing in content production is key to increase traffic to a website, generate leads and optimize link building.
Here are some of the reasons why blog posts are good for SEO:
- They increase traffic to your website
- Google’s algorithm prefers new and updated content
- Backlinks help you improve your website authority and rankings in Google
- Blog posts help you improve the structure of your website
- They allow you to get organic click through rate (CTR)
- Blogs can turn your website into a lead-generating machine
- You can use blog content for your social media posts
- Content marketing drives long-term results
- They help brands manage their online identify and build trust
- And much more !
Do you wonder about the health of your website? Let ProStar SEO assess its condition and ranking in the search engine results pages.