Blogging has lots of different benefits to your brand and website. One of these benefits is that it helps to boost your on-site SEO, making your website easier for people to discover when they search for related terms on a search engine. But there is a skill to writing SEO friendly blogs. Here are a few tips to make your blog a powerful SEO tool.
Keywords signal to search engines which terms you want to be indexed for in their search listings. But we’ve come a long way from keyword stuffing. Google now prioritises quality content, so bloggers who stick keywords and phrases in excessively and randomly where they make little sense could be penalised for it. Conduct your keyword research and work out how those keywords can be naturally incorporated into your content.
Where you use keywords is also important for SEO friendly blogs. Including keywords in your headings and subheadings will give you bonus points with search engines and will also help to guide your reader. Then there’s the stuff behind the scenes like your URL, SEO title, and metadata. You should try to use your main keyword when writing each of these.
A good way to add depth and authority to your blogs is to link to related content, both on and off your site. Link to other websites that are reputable and authoritative to improve your blog’s standings with Google. Adding internal links to other pages on your website can also reduce bounce rate as it guides users towards other pages they might want to explore.
Google knows that users want to see pages that are easy to read and digest. They don’t want to see a huge block of text filled with complex language and long sentences. People will simply click away from those pages, and neither you nor Google want that. Firstly, split your content into short paragraphs with headings interspersed throughout. Lists and bullet points are also very reader-friendly.
Including images on your blog pages also makes the content more engaging and easier to scan. These could be simple stock photos to make the page visually appealing or things like graphs and charts to support the content of your blog. Also, try to vary your sentence length, but avoid using too many long sentences. Many SEO tools recommend a maximum of 25% of sentences containing more than 20 words.
We’ve mentioned that Google loves quality content, so this should be your main priority over all the technical stuff. Don’t just write about your business. Write about topics that your audience will find interesting or useful. Give them tips, answer their questions, entertain them. Provide them with content they’ll want to share as well as read. Producing shareable content that gets linked to on social media and other sites is one of the best ways to rise up the ranks on search engines.
If you need more advice for boosting your on-site SEO or would prefer to outsource your blog writing, then we can help with your SEO friendly blogs. Get in touch for our support.