SEO Tips to Optimize Your Blog

Most business owners know that blogging is essential to SEO, but do you know that the way you write and post your blogs will affect your SEO ranking?

Here are 10 tips that you can follow to optimize your blog for SEO

1. Have a clear and concise topic

Having a clear and concise topic will make writing and optimizing your blog a lot easier. When you have a clear topic, you have a clear idea of what your keywords need to be.

2. Create & use keyword phrases for every post and use it 3 times in the copy.

The keyword phrase should clearly explain what your blog is about and the problem you’re trying to solve. Think about how people Google a topic now. Gone are the days of people Googling a single keyword like ‘pet sitter’, people now Google phrases such as ‘Best Orlando pet sitter?’

Your keyword phrases should be used in headlines, titles, image alt attributes, meta descriptions, the opening paragraph and the last paragraph.  You want to use your keyword phrase a minimum of 3 times in your blog.

If possible, you should pick keywords that have high search volume and low competition and never use the same keyword for any of your blog posts.

I use Google Keyword Planner for my keyword research, but there are other options available as well.

3. Use headlines & sub-headlines

Be sure you are using your keyword phrase in headers and subheaders. It helps visibly organize your blog and it’s great for SEO.

Headers should have an H1 tag and subheaders should utilize an H2 – H6 tag, depending on the level. Best practice is to only have one H1 tag per blog post or website page (all website pages should utilize header tags as well). The H1 tag should clearly identify the subject of the blog. For example, an H1 tag for this blog is ‘SEO Tips to Optimize Your Blog’.

4. Use bullet points or numbers

Use either bullet points or numbers (as I have in this post) to organize your post and make it easier to read,  It also organizes your post for search engines.

5. Always fill out the author and publish date

Be sure you fill out the author and publish date.  This is probably automatic in your WordPress setup, but just make sure that it there.

6. Assign your blog to a category.

This helps your website visitors easily find related posts and it helps search engines quickly figure out what your post is about and how to index it.

7. Title, tag, and optimize your images with variations of your keywords

There are several steps involved here:

• Optimize your images/videos to the lowest file size you can without it looking grainy. I use Canva to resize my photos because it is super easy to use.
• Be sure to name your file with your keyword before you upload it to your website. For example the image for this post will probably be named  ‘SEO tips for Blogging’
• Add an image title, alt text and description with keyword variations to each image. You can typically find these fields in the image settings.

8. Ensure your blog is at least two paragraphs

Search engines like longer articles, but not all readers do so you have to balance the SEO benefits with your readership to figure out what you are most comfortable with. I like my blog posts to be at least 600 words.

9. Link out to your previously published, related posts or contact information

This is called ‘link juice’ and Google loves it!

10. Utilize Rank Math or another SEO plugin

Be sure you have Rank Math SEO plugin or another SEO plugin installed on your WordPress site. I have been using Rank Math on some of my more recent sites and it is getting some good traction so I’m in the process of swithing all my sites to Rank Math. Once that is installed, be sure to fill out the focus keyphrase and snippet preview. Yoast will give you a rating of red/yellow/green for your post. I try for green, but sometimes it is not possible so don’t sweat it too much.

Contact us if you need help with blogging or to optimize your blog.  We offer monthly blog packages that include blog writing, posting and optimizing.