Writing engaging and share-worthy blogs is only half the battle of creating content that engages and converts consumers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a smart way to attract readers to your blog and increase your site’s visibility.
What’s more, the traffic you drive will consist of interested, engaged readers who found your blog by typing in relevant keywords through Google (or other search engines). With effective SEO, you’ve overcome the hurdles that sparked your readers’ initial interest. If you optimize your content correctly, the searchers who end up visiting your blog will already be eager to use the content you create.
All you have to do is keep them interested through thorough research, well-organized structure, and high-quality content. This is especially important for bloggers who rely primarily on organic traffic to attract leads and generate ad revenue or sales.
Whether you’re a small business owner looking to launch an e-commerce site or an SEO expert, here’s an in-depth overview of our top blog SEO tips to help you optimize your next piece of content. Next, in concrete terms, we’ll explain what great content should look like:
The term “search engine optimization” (SEO) often refers to making a few small adjustments to a website’s content. Although each of these adjustments might seem like a minor improvement, when combined with other optimizations, they can have a substantial influence on how well your site performs in organic search results and how well users experience it. Many of the subjects covered in this article may already be familiar to you because they are fundamental components of all web pages, but you may not be utilizing them to their full potential.
Leverage topic clusters to organize your content
In the past, blogging and SEO focused primarily on optimizing individual posts. While this is important, you can further improve your Search Engine Rankings by using topic clusters. Following this model, you choose a larger “pillar” topic or target keyword to rank for, and create individual “clusters” of content based on specific keywords related to that topic. This leads to greater interconnectivity between individual blogs, enhancing the overall authority of the site and the user experience of the audience.
This approach also prevents individual blog content from competing with each other. When you have multiple blog posts on the same topic, you end up being distracted by URLs. An editorial calendar is crucial if you want the pillar cluster model to be successful. You can choose your pillar and cluster topics ahead of time and plan a logical blog SEO strategy for publishing new content.
First, choose your pillar theme. Then, compile six to eight subtopics based on specific questions a person might have after reading the content of the pillar pages.
Use keyword research
Comprehensive keyword research is critical to the success of your blog. It requires more than thinking to yourself, “Hey, what are people going to plug into Google?” For example, the most obvious keyword isn’t necessarily the best choice. Popular keywords with high search volume are highly competitive and difficult to rank high in search engine results.
Focus on one or two long-tail keywords that will reflect the search intent of your target audience. It’s a longer, more focused phrase that people are more likely to use at the point of purchase or when doing a voice search. For example, a person might search for “how to write a long essay” instead of “long essay”. These keywords should be included in your body text, organization title, page URL, and meta description and title tags.
Write Featured Snippet Ranking
Featured snippets appear at the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). They usually appear as bullet points, short how-to guides, or short question-and-answer formats. Featured snippets essentially provide quick answers to common searches, especially “who, what, where, why, and how” questions.
If you write content that Google chooses as a Featured Snippet, you will automatically appear at the top of the SERPs. To optimize featured snippets, you should first find an existing SERP with snippets. You can also check the type of featured snippets Google shows for that term, such as bulleted or numbered lists and paragraphs. You can then structure your writing accordingly. In terms of style, prioritize clear, concise copy with thoughtful subheadings.
Incorporate rich media types on the page
A high-quality blog requires more than just great writing. Incorporate rich media types such as stock photos, videos or custom infographics. Google provides a handy tutorial on incorporating rich media. Incorporating this type of media is also a great way to springboard to other clustered content under the same pillar.
Video content is especially worth the effort for any new blog post. Videos automatically ask users to stay on the page for a certain amount of time, increasing bounce rates. Video is also a very popular medium, as the popularity of platforms like TikTok shows. Global online video viewing is on the rise, and ad spending reflects this. Note that you can often reuse blog content for video, simplifying your content creation process.
Add internal links to your content
Another SEO best practice that doesn’t require you to be a technical SEO expert is inserting thoughtful internal links into your blog content. Linking to other pages can encourage readers to explore your site further, keeping them on your platform longer. It also helps search engines find other relevant authoritative pages you have to offer. When hyperlinking, do not use more than five words for the anchor text. To get users to click on a link, be clear where it will take them and what value the click will provide.
Last but not least, make sure any internal linking is logical. Hyperlink anchor text doesn’t give readers any added value (meaning they won’t click). Most importantly, Google rankings focus on end users and the value that content provides them. In general, these blog optimization tips are geared towards this purpose.
Customize the URL you are using
An important ranking factor is the structure of your URLs, so you don’t want to rely on auto-generated URLs for your blog posts. Custom URLs make it easy for search engines to understand what a page is about and allow Google bots to index the page accordingly. For example, a pillar page about content marketing might have the subdirectory “/content-marketing” at the end of the URL structure. A cluster about using blogs for content marketing might end with “/content-marketing/how-to-use-blogs-for-content-marketing”.
Custom URLs also make it easier for users to quickly view the content of a page. This can be especially handy when it comes to internal linking. If the user hovers over the anchor text and displays a URL indicating where the user will be redirected, they will be more likely to click on it. Note that if you change the URL, you must go back and modify the internal link. Also, inbound links may no longer be valid. Get the right URL the first time.
Another benefit of custom URLs? You can use the keywords you want to rank for. Make sure your URL is SEO friendly when using keywords, which means it’s concise and clear.
Use tools and plugins to make your job easier
A Content Management System (CMS) plugin will simplify your blog SEO efforts. For example, if your CMS of choice is WordPress, you can use Akismet to monitor comments and spam or workflow enhancements, which allow you to easily change font sizes, create tables, and more. If you use Ghost (popular among bloggers), you can integrate plugins from Google Analytics, YouTube, Twitter, Zapier, and more.
Plugins can save you valuable time when it comes to on-page SEO. Take Yoast as an example, it is a WordPress SEO plugin. It’s a one-stop shop for optimization. When you install it, you get a module on every page’s editorial post that shows you how your page is performing against key SEO criteria. It analyzes everything from content length to inbound links, meta titles, focus keyword positions, and meta title length. Any issues that require further attention are flagged so you can fix them quickly.
Monitor mobile responsiveness and experience
When it comes to web design, mobile is no longer an afterthought. Google has now confirmed mobile-first indexing. This means that the search engine giant prioritizes the mobile version of content (instead of the desktop version) when indexing and ranking web pages. The mobile-first approach was implemented in July 2019 and is now the default for all new sites.
The first step you can take to check if your site is mobile-friendly is to run it through Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool. This will flag some basic problems and how to fix them. In general, make sure you have a responsive design so that your blog page has only one URL (rather than two different URLs for desktop and mobile). This ensures that backlinks to your blog are not split between the two URLs, increasing the power of those inbound links.
You can also take some simple style steps for a more user-friendly mobile experience. The optimal blog structure for SEO will prioritize readability. For example, avoid large blocks of text that are difficult to read on mobile devices. Use headings to break up text and organize it. Other key points that Google’s mobile-friendliness testing tool may flag include content that is wider than the screen, placing clickable elements too close together, and using text that is too small to read.