The 1st step in writing the perfect SEO-friendly blog post is to decide what to write about. I like to reflect on frequent questions my clients ask about our services. I often find these can make some of the best blog posts. Otherwise, I may just research the hot topics in my industry and get other great ideas to write about. Some of us have been conditioned to write shorter blog posts around 500 – 600 words. Now there is evidence that Google is favoring longer blog content around 1200 – 2000 words. Content marketing plays a huge role in reaching your target audience, and therefore it becomes essential to write compelling content that is share worthy. Once I’ve outlined and written the content, I begin optimizing it for the Search Engines.
Some of the key factors to optimizing the written content are as follows:
The Blog Title – The blog title is what the reader sees first. It should be captivating to make the reader want to read it.
The Meta Title – The meta title is what the Search Engine sees first. It is important to have the keyword(s) in the meta title.
Post Meta Description – Most SEO plugins allow you the ability to create a meta description. It should contain the keyword and be compelling enough for the reader to want to click on it.
Image Attribute – It is proven Google favors blog posts with an image. Understand that Google does not have human eyes and relies on the image title or attribute to determine what the picture is about. One of the biggest mistakes I find in business websites is the lack of an image alt description.
Interlink and Anchor text – When we write a new post, we link back to old posts so the reader will discover these and prompt the search engines to re-crawl the old posts.
WordPress Tags & Categories – using categories and tags properly can improve the user experience and boost traffic to your website as Google will use these as a ranking factor.
Remember, sharing the article on your social media channels is a great way to drive traffic to your website and improve your Google Social Media ranking signal.
Happy Blogging!!!