Writing SEO friendly blog posts can be a very good way to start getting traffic to your blog. Because even though you might write the best piece of content, people need to see it.
If people don’t see it, well … you invested all that time and energy for nothing. That’s why SEO is so powerful.
Once Google sees that you put effort into making your posts as enjoyable to read as possible, it will reward you with higher rankings in the search results. Therefore, you will be able to get more traffic and enjoy that passive income that you desire.
If you’re here to find out how you can better optimize your blog post in order to increase your rankings, you’re in the right place! By the end of this guide, you will know exactly what to do in order for Google to start giving love to your blog.
How To Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts
Describing SEO to a beginner is very difficult. Because they can easily get overwhelmed with all that information.
In reality, SEO is really not that hard. You just need to focus on providing quality content for your visitors, so that they stay as much as possible on your blog.(1)
The reason why it seems hard, is that it can sometimes get very technical. However, there are a couple of things you can do in order to make sure that your posts are SEO friendly.
Let’s jump straight into it:
1. Choose The Right Blog Post Title
A very common mistake I see new bloggers make is that they don’t choose a good blog post title. In order to make your posts more SEO friendly, you need to think about 2 things:
First, you need to optimize your title for a better click through rate. Meaning that if people don’t click on your blog post link in the search results, you will then be relegated to the bottom.
Google started to prioritize user experience more and more in the past couple of years. Therefore, if you have a high CTR, you will get higher rankings and more traffic.(2)
The second reason why you should choose the right blog post title is to let Google know what your post is about. Remember: the search engine is not human. Therefore, we need to act accordingly.
Always try to include your main keyword in the title of your blog post. Also, try including numbers and parenthesis whenever you can. Including the current year could also have a positive impact on your click through rate.
If you write a post about dog training tips, an example of a good blog post title would be: “7 Dog Training Tips That ACTUALLY Work (current year)”.
Experiment as much as possible and don’t get depressed if you don’t get a high CTR right away. Sometimes you don’t hit a home run on your first try.(3)
2. Do Your Keyword Research
If you want your blog posts to be as SEO friendly as possible, performing proper keyword research is a must. You can have the best piece of content, but again, if nobody can find it, you just wasted your time.
What does keyword research mean? Well, in short, it means to search for keywords that you can actually rank. The harsh reality is that you will not be able to rank on the first page for every keyword you want.
Therefore, you need to spend some time to find low competition phrases to write content around. There are a ton of SEO tools that help you with the keyword research process, like SEMrush. If you have the budget, I highly suggest signing up for a free trial.
For example, if you were to try to rank for “dog training”, you don’t really have a chance. At least in the short term.
If you consistently produce good content about dog training products for a couple of years, then at some point you will probably rank for the phrase “dog training”.
However, you should try to get a couple of quick wins under your belt before you do that. Meaning that in stead of trying to rank for “dog training”, you should write content around the keywords “best dog training tips” or “how to train your dog fast”.
You will be surprised on how all these articles will add up and push each other in the algorithm.(4)
3. Optimize The Length Of Your Blog Posts
Another very common mistake beginners make when they start their blogging journey is not making their blog posts long enough.
On the other hand, they also make their blog post too long, to the point where Google will simply not rank you for the keywords you want.
There have been numerous studies that show your blog post should contain a minimum of around 350 words. BUT that doesn’t mean that 350 words are enough.(5)
A very efficient way that most successful bloggers write SEO friendly content is spying on Google. Yes, that’s right.
After you do your keyword research and decide what you want to write about, look on the first page of Google to see what is already ranking. There are a ton of free tools like wordcounter.net that can help you quickly see how many words an article has.
If most of the articles that are ranking on the first page contain an average of about 1000 words, then you should write something of a similar length.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If an article ranks on Google with only 1000 words, you can write about 1000-1200 words and you’re good to go.
4. Link To Other Websites
OK. I know how this sounds … You might be thinking “why would I link to my competition?”
Again, there have been a ton of studies that showed linking to other relevant content improves your rankings.
Why does this happen? Well, because Google views your external links in a good way. It means that you actually try to help your audience with useful information, and that you’re not here just for your own benefit.
In my experience, adding a minimum of 2-3 external links really helps in the long run. Remember to add these links only to relevant content.(6)
If you just mindlessly link to useless stuff, you will not be able to reap the rewards of doing so. Also, try linking to authoritative websites whenever possible.
We all want to monetize our blog, but we should try to help people as much as possible. The good part is that it’s really not that hard to do so.
5. Optimize Your URL
After you finish writing your blog post (or before), don’t forget to optimize your URL as well. Similar to the blog post title, it should be optimized both for humans, as well as for the search engines.
Always try including your main keyword in the URL. If you use WordPress for your blog, then keep in mind that the URL is usually generated automatically.
In my experience, a good rule of thumb is to keep your URL as short as possible while including one of your main keywords in it. For example, the URL of this post will be “https://www.repoxr.com/seo-friendly-blog-posts/”.
Many people overthink this. Just use your common sense and you will be just fine.
Social media has become part of our daily life. It makes sense to use it for your business as well, as Google really appreciates this.
If you think about it, any legitimate business has a website and a social media presence. You just need to create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and so on.
Create accounts on all social media platforms you can think of. This might take you a couple of hours but it will be worth it.
You might be thinking: “what does social media have to do with SEO?” Well, quite a lot, actually.
When you share your blog posts on social media platform, Google notices. Therefore, it will treat your blog like a real business.(7)
In my experience, the blogs with no social media presence perform worse than the ones who share all their articles everywhere they can.
If you feel that it will take too much effort, you’re not the only one. Luckily, there are a ton of tools out there that will share your blog posts automatically, once they’re published.
There are paid tools, like Buffer, that cost about $15 per month. But you also have free options, such as Nextscripts.
If you’re the type of person that likes spending time on social media, you can always improve your accounts, share other people’s stuff and so on.
But if you’re not that type of person, you can just connect your blog and social media accounts to these tools, and then you can forget it.
Final Thoughts
Writing SEO friendly content can be very beneficial for your blog. We all know that traffic that comes from the Google search results is one of the best out there.
That’s because the people who end up on your website, are actually interested in your content. As opposed to paid ads on Facebook or YouTube, SEO traffic also tends to convert better.
Once you start getting consistent traffic to your blog, your life can literally change for the better. If you’re working a 9 to 5 job, you will be able to quit and work as a full time blogger.
Who doesn’t want to be their own boss, travel and spend time with their loved ones? This is a dream that every new blogger has.
If you don’t give up and consistently put out helpful content, you will be able to do this too. After you start getting traction, my advice is to invest in a good tool, like SEMrush. It’s a real game changer when it comes to SEO.
- SEO is really not as difficult as people think it is. Be consistent and play the long game!
Related:
How To Optimize Your Blog For SEO
SEMrush Site Audit Tool Review
Andrew is an entrepreneur and has been in the business game for a couple of years. Read more