Blogs provide a way for us to stay in touch with customers, talk about what’s hot in the industry and what’s going on in your company; but, perhaps the greatest benefits of blogs is how they can bring in organic traffic and build up your site’s value in the eyes of Google. But how do you write blog posts that will attract search traffic? And how can you keyword optimize your blogs so that they’ll be understood by Google’s search spiders?
5 Essential Tips for How to SEO Your Blog Posts
Part 1 - SEO Your Content
This blog post will outline some best practices for writing blogs that contain keywords that drive traffic.
1) Use Headings and Include SEO Keywords
Kind of like i just did. Much like your eye will be drawn to what the headings will say, so too will Google’s spider as it crawls your page. Google’s algorithm although very mystical does contain a lot of common sense cues. So when you write blog posts don’t just write paragraph after paragraph, break them up with headings that contain keywords and you’ll be rewarded.
2) Don’t Keyword-Stuff Your Articles
Overusing keywords just to appeal to search engines will not only turn off Google, but also your readers. Keyword stuffing might have worked years ago, but today it’s an out-dated technique that simply doesn’t yield the same effectiveness. When it becomes obvious that a blog is keyword-stuffed your reader isn’t likely to finish the post and the time they spend on your site will be low. It’s been suspected that time spent on site can affect ranking and it makes sense; if most people only spend a few seconds on a blog post, it won’t likely be much use to the next person searching for that related term.
3) Use Variations of Your Keywords
When writing your blog posts don’t just repeat the same keyword (remember that “keywords” refer to a single, or string of words used together). Try using variations e.g. if your keyword is “internet marketing Toronto,” use variations like “online marketing Toronto,” “Toronto internet marketer,” “Toronto online marketing,” etc.
5) Repeat Your Keywords and Their Variations Throughout Your Blog Post
When you’re writing posts try to use your keywords throughout the blog. Google wants your entire blog to relevant to the keyword(s) people are searching for. This will increase the time people spend reading your posts, in turn boosting your blog’s ranking.
Writing for Search Engines is More Common Sense Than Anything
Yes, Google has its algorithm, but don’t focus solely on factors like keyword density and article length, instead write with the reader in mind. Include useful content that people will want to link to – inbound links will boost your site’s ranking far more than including an extra keyword here and there. Google is smart, very smart, just think of it as a critical editor who will decide whether your blog post is relevant to the user’s search term. Keep your blogs focused and make sure your language consistently addresses your keyword focus.
Parts 2 and 3 of this Series
Part 2 of this series will focus on on-page optimization for articles, where Part 3 will review different online tools you can use to build your keyword lists. Stay tuned in the weeks to come!
on
Very helpful article! But how many key words would you recommend using on a blog post? I’m concerned I might be using too many.
on
How many is too many? For a 500 word article I’d say no more than 10 keywords; therefore, around 2 per cent of the word density.
on
Thanks for the comment Jay. H2 and H3 headings do indeed make articles easier to read, numbering and bullet points also do a lot for readability.
on
The content formatting also is a major thing to be considered while writing blogs for SEO. Inserting too much texts in to a single paragraph will take the readers away. Insert proper headings / sub-headings with H2 / H3 tags with proper description will make the blog interesting to read.Thanks Steve for your valuable post.
on
Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks or longer to get a new domain indexed by Google. There are many off-line and on-line SEO techniques that can greatly improve and speed up your inclusion in search engine index.
on
Absolutely, writing a fair amount of content and generating some inbound links (by commenting on related blogs) are one of the many ways to get your site indexed quickly. Thanks for the comment!