5 Tips For SEO Friendly Blog Posts
SEOing your blog posts - a 5-point checklist
You know you ‘should’ optimise your blog content for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation to be geeky).
You know there’s something about keyword research, and meta descriptions.
But this SEO malarkey just feels a bit… well, like a mysterious language only super-nerds understand and know how to hack.
But what if I told you SEO is simply about making sure your content gets in front of the right people. And once it’s in front of them, SEO becomes about making it easy and enjoyable to engage with your blog content and website as a whole.
If you’re just getting started with SEO and want to power up your exposure in the search results - you’ll want to be sure you’re using this 5-point process for SEOing your blog posts.
Before we dive in, be sure to bookmark this post for the next time you’re creating a blog post. Ok, LFG!
1: 2-minute keyword research
Eugh, keyword research - you might be thinking. AMMI RIGHT?
But even a 2-minute keyword research sesh can help amplify your blog post.
And it’s worth doing because you’re creating content that’s long term BEBEH!
This is not throw away content, this is content that your people will be reading for months and years to come. So it’s worth doing a little research around the words you put in that post.
My 2-minute keyword research method
Head to Google (even better if you open up a private window so your cookies don’t affect the search results). Type in the kind of thing you think your audience might be searching for on google to reach the blog post you’re writing. Let’s say it’s ‘How do I train my dog to sit?’
Look at the keywords that come up in the search results. I’m seeing training, puppy, obedience, learn, stay
Look at the related searches, any more keyword ideas in there too? I’m seeing ‘dog training tips for older dogs, what age to train my puppy to sit
And done. Those are the keywords to sprinkle throughout your blog post, in the title and into the image names.
If you want to get a bit more geeky about your keyword research you can start using tools like google keyword planner, keywords everywhere and SEM rush. But right now, if you’re not doing any keyword research at all, stick to the 2-minute method until it’s a habit, and build out from there.
2: Optimise your URL
Sprinkle the keywords you dug up in your keyword research throughout your URL.
With the dog training example, you might set your URL as: yourwebsiteurl/blog/train-your-puppy-to-sit-and-stay-at-any-age-obedience
Oh and while I’m on the topic. You want your blog posts to be discovered and read for months and years to come right? So please, PLEASE remove the date from your URL. Once a few months or years has gone by it can give the impression that your post is out of date or no longer relevant.
3: Use the H tags
Say whuuuut? Ok. ‘H’ just means heading. So what I’m really saying here is use headings in your blog post BUT strategically, for SEO.
On your website, when you’re editing the copy you will have noticed you can pick Heading 1, Heading 2, paragraph etc.
These are sign posts to google as to what your blog post is about.
Using a H1 or Heading 1 is like saying ‘hey google, this is the MOST important part of my post, this is what it’s about’. And incidentally, the title of your blog posts will automatically be a H1.
Using a H2 or Heading 2 is like saying ‘hey google, this is the second important part of my post. These are the topics you’ll find inside my blog post.
Using a H3 or Heading 3 is like saying ‘hey Google, these are the smaller topics inside my blog post.
Take a look at how I’ve used the headings in this post as an example.
So, with that in mind, you want to use your headings strategically, rather than putting ‘great, so here’s what’s next’ or something like that in a H1 or H2 - just because it looks pretty.
That said, when you’re using your H tags, or headings in your posts, you’re not only making your post readable for google, but by breaking down the text and incorporating larger, smaller, bolder areas of text, you’re making it more readable for your website users too. Double whammy!
4: Add keywords to your images
Google is pretty incred… but at the end of the day, it’s still a robot. So, it can’t read images in the same way it can read the words in your blog post - although they’re working on it.
So, when you’re adding images to your blog posts (and website in general) you need to describe them so google can understand where to organise them in the search results.
Uploading an image named JPG1356543 isn’t doing ANYTHING for your SEO.
3 steps to adding images to your blog posts
- Compress your images before uploading to your blog using a tool like tinypng
- Before you upload your image, rename it to describe what the image shows or is about, followed by your business name
- When you upload your image to your blog post add the meta description
For bonus SEO points, if you’re on Squarespace, it’s worth adding a caption, then hiding it if you don’t want it to be seen on your blog post.
5: Set your page titles and meta descriptions
In your post settings you’ll be able to edit your post title and description. Sometimes, what it pulls through from the page content kinda works and there’s no need to edit it. But if you’re getting nerdy with your SEO, it’s worth updating the page title and description.
AND FYI while you’re at it, it’s DEFO worth updating your page titles and descriptions across your website.
Your page title and description has two jobs.
It’s another thing Google looks at to figure out where to rank your blog post
And it’s what Google displays in the search results
So it’s worth optimising for SEO and also to invite people to click through to your post when they discover it in the search results.
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There’s tons more you can do to power up your SEO but these five steps are a powerful starting point for your SEO checklist, and a good place to start with building a habit around SEOing your blog posts. Heck, even one of these five steps will help you power up your blog posts. So go forth and SEO the shiz out of your posts.
Wanna tuck this in your pocket for when you’re SEOing your next blog post? Pin it for later:
