Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts That Customers Will Find (In 7 Easy Steps)

The blogosphere is a highly competitive environment. There are now approx 175 million blogs producing around 1 million new blog posts every day. Creating SEO friendly blog posts, that customers will find, read and engage with – has become a big challenge for content writers and those businesses – that use blogging as part of their online marketing strategy.

Previously, I’ve written about

 SEO Friendly Blog Posts

“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users” wikipedia.org 

How to write SEO Friendly Blog Posts?

 # 1. How to do Keyword Research

I’ve spoken about the importance of doing keyword research before and it’s the critical first step! There are many tools available incl:

• Google Keywords Tool
• WordTracker 
• Uber

Keyword research allows you to confirm or find out about what people (in this case: your prospects) are searching for. When deciding which keywords will work best, consider those that offer you:

1. Relevance
2. Lots of searches
3. Less competition

If I built apps?

Say, I was an app developer and I wanted to write a blog post to target businesses who might like to build an app. I might consider that “We build apps for your business” is a good title for a blog post, but is it?

If I go to Google keywords tool and search for “We build apps for your business” I get 0 searches! Next, let’s input “apps for your business”. OK, that’s better, it shows 2900 searches per month.

However, If I scroll down the page, I see the keywords “How to make apps” which has 450000 searches and is of medium competition. I like this keyword opportunity because: 

1. It has lots of traffic potential
2. It is not too competitive
3. And the people who are searching for it, are looking for actionable information

However, it still has some weaknesses:

• It’s very broad
• And it only weakly relates to my target audience

So how can I optimize “How to make apps”, so that I’m targeting the right type of reader? In my example: businesses that might be considering building (and paying for) an app?

Let’s look at some titles that will make my blog post more razor-sharp: 

• “How to make apps to get your business downloaded”
• “How to make apps that deliver new customers and more sales”
• “How to make apps that return on your business investment”

Note: Position your keywords nearer the start of your title as search engines and people put more weight on the early words

# 3. How to Optimize your Meta description

Meta descriptions are the short descriptions that show up in search results along with the link to your blog post:

• They should be no longer than 150 characters
• And front loaded with your chosen keywords

# 4. How to Optimize H2 and H3 headings

Ideally, you also want to include your keywords in your H2 and/or H3 headings.

• My H2 heading above is “How to write SEO Friendly Blog Posts?”
• Includes “SEO Friendly Blog Posts” which are the focus keywords for this post

To do this in the HTML version of your website, write the following text: 

<h2>Headline Text</h2>

Or 

<h3>Headline Text</h3>  for H3 

Note: WordPress and other content management systems have this option in the format menu.

# 5. How to Optimize Your Images using “Alt Text”

When an image is unavailable, “Alt Text” ensures no information or functionality is lost. However they are rarely used by content creators.

Use the alt text to incorporate your chosen keywords, adding additional SEO value to your post.

# 6. How to Optimize your Links

Readers, other bloggers and even search engines (such as Google) love links.

When linking internally or out, the text that you choose to hyperlink (called “Anchor Text,”) is very important. Rather than using words like “click here” –  incorporate links into suitable keywords.

Do this within the text of your blog post using words that best describe – where that particular link goes to.

Where linking to another site, make sure readers are opening a new browser window. This ensures that they are less likely to permanently leave your website, for the other site.

# 7. How to Optimize on your Keyword Density

Your keywords need to be sprinkled in the text of your article, but you need to also be careful of overdoing it (called keyword stuffing).  Aim for a ratio of between 1-3%. 

For example: In a 600 word article, repeat the keywords between 6 and 18 times.

So there you have it, my 7 steps to write more SEO friendly blog posts, rank better, drive more search traffic and ultimately help you to get found by new customers.  If you liked this article or have any suggestions to add, please let us know in the comments below.

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Images: “silhouettes of concert crowd in front of bright yellow stage lights/ Shutterstock.com, Google Keywords and WordPress”