Can your blog posts help with your website SEO? Blog posts are no longer just a way for homemakers to share recipes. Now, they are a way for different businesses to share information and blog posts related to their industry, and they can be a valuable asset to your overall SEO strategy.
If you want your blog posts to be found on Google and other search engines, you may already know SEO’s importance. Without a good SEO strategy, your blog posts won’t rank well in Google, meaning that you will lose valuable leads.
Writing high-quality blog posts that are optimized for SEO is an art form because you have to write for both users and search engines. Understanding blog post SEO and how Google ranks search results, and implementing that into your own content creation strategy, can be challenging and time-consuming.
That’s why we’ve set up this comprehensive guide. Here, we’ll share everything you need to know about what blog SEO is, what impacts it, the type of posts that boosts website SEO, and how you can start creating SEO optimized blog posts.
- What is blog post SEO?
- Types of blog posts that will increase website SEO.
- How to write and optimize your blog post for SEO.
- Getting professional SEO blog posts.
What Is Blog Post SEO?
Blog SEO is the method of optimizing your blog posts, site architecture, and HTML code for search engines to make the post relevant for Google searches. A few of the common tasks associated with blog post SEO are on-page optimization, installing plugins, improving the page loading speed, and internal linking. We will cover these topics in more depth later in this article.
Search engines are the largest source of organic traffic for websites. They can generate even more traffic than social media, email marketing, and direct traffic. Having an optimized blog that ranks high in search results will make your site more discoverable and improve lead generation. A recent study has shown that businesses with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those that only have a website.
If your website has a blog, that means you are adding more content in the form of posts. This gives Google’s web crawlers more content to index. Soon, Google will come to recognize that your website is a resource of information that will boost your SEO and search rankings. After all, content is king, and valuable blog posts that have been optimized for SEO reigns supreme in the search rankings.
Also, creating valuable blog posts that users will want to share and interact with will also lead to more backlinks. These are from other users and websites that link to your posts because they find the content valuable and informative. In turn, your blog posts will be seen by their audience as well. Businesses who have a blog receive 97% more links to their website from external sources.
Can Blog Posts Improve Website SEO?
The answer is a resounding yes. A blog isn’t only useful for sharing the businesses news and promotions or earning trust amongst your clients as an expert in the industry. Blogging also helps with a number of elements that are important ranking factors and directly impact your SEO.
Helps You Connect With Your Audience
If you create high-value posts that your target audience loves, they will start sharing your blog posts. By having your blog posts shared, you will see an increase in site traffic. Google notices this and will see that your SEO content is sought after. That, in turn, raises your authority level within their algorithm.
Keeps Your Content Fresh and Relevant
Google doesn’t like recommending pages that look outdated. While it isn’t always possible to frequently update your site’s home page, a blog is an ideal space to provide fresh and relevant content. Also, if you add new posts to your blog on a regular basis, Google will be indexing your site more often, meaning that you will be on their radar continuously.
Blog Posts Provide Answers to Questions
Users use search engines like Google with specific goals in mind. This could be to get more information on a topic, research a product, or make a purchase. Their queries usually come in the form of questions. The Google Search algorithm loves blog posts that address an issue and provides value to users. Creating blog posts that answer users questions thoroughly will improve your SEO.
Improve Visitors’ Time Spent on Your Page and Reduces the Bounce Rate
Google’s main priority is providing users with the information they are searching for. If a user types in a query and goes to the site of the first result and doesn’t find what they’re looking for and jumps right back out, Google will know this site didn’t provide the answers the user was looking for.
This is known as your bounce rate, and for good SEO, you want to keep the bounce rate as low as possible. If users spend more time on your website, that signals to Google that your blog post is helpful, which improves your SEO. A blog provides more opportunities for you to create valuable blog posts that will keep users on your site for longer.
Allows Internal Linking
Linking is an important part of SEO. Internal linking is very useful and it’s something you can create yourself. By linking one piece of information to a different yet related piece on your website, you guide the user across your content and provide them with even more value. Combine this by using good anchor text that gives Google an idea about what the page you are linking to is. You can also incorporate the keyword into your anchor text for better SEO results.
Gives an Opportunity to Target Long-Tail Keywords
Targeting keywords is very competitive. While you may want to target keywords related to your niche, with the amount of competition, it can be very challenging. As such, many marketers have found success in targeting long-tail keywords.
As the name implies, long-tail keywords are longer and often more specific, and they usually have lower competition. These long-tail keywords might be difficult to work into your static pages but are easier to incorporate into a blog post. Using these effectively will bring you much more traffic than trying to compete for a high competition keyword from the fifth page in the search results.
Blog Posts Create Backlinking Opportunities
While internal links are valuable, for Google to really identify your site as an authority, other respected sites need to link back to you. If you don’t have high-quality SEO blog posts, it will be much harder for other sites to link to you. After all, other businesses are more likely to link to a blog post that will help their visitors rather than to your homepage.
Generates Returning Traffic
At the end of the day, you want users to come back to your website. It is much easier to convert an existing or returning visitor than to convert a new one. By providing quality blog posts that are valuable to the reader, you give them an incentive to keep coming back to your website, signing up for your mailing list, and making use of your products or services.
Factors That Impact Your Blog SEO
Aside from creating valuable blog posts that have been optimized for SEO, there are also a few other factors that may impact your optimization that you should look out for.
Page Speed
If your website and pages are slow to load, you will lose traffic, and this will be reflected in your bounce rate. There are a few common issues, such as the amount or size of images on your site, that can impact the speed of your site. It’s also important to consider Google Core Web Vitals. That Google initiative scores web pages against a strict set of user experience metrics. A failing score can tank your SEO and blog performance.
Mobile Responsiveness
More than half of Google’s search traffic comes from mobile devices, and this amount is growing rapidly. More and more people are using their smartphones to access the internet, search for information, and make purchases. As such, having your blog posts optimized for mobile devices must be a key factor in your SEO strategy.
Index Date
Search engines consider the date that your content was indexed to determine if it is relevant or not. Google prefers sharing the most recent blog posts whenever possible. To improve your SEO, you can implement a historical optimization strategy where you update your older posts with new ideas and research to make it relevant again.
Recent Data
This is an indirect ranking factor that could influence your SEO. Including recent data in your blog post by linking to supporting posts on other reputable websites where the information is relevant and up to date is a great way to keep your blog posts fresh and provide more value to your visitors.
Types Of Blog Posts That Will Increase Website SEO
There are many different types of posts that you can use. These different types have their own goals: sharing information, teaching someone how to do something, comparing products or services, or sharing templates. To boost your SEO, it is recommended that you use as many different types of posts and carefully link them to your keywords and the user’s intent.
According to a survey, the most popular blog content is ‘how to articles (77%), next is listicles (57%) and finally, articles related to news and trends (47%). Let’s take a brief look at the different types of posts that you can include in your SEO content strategy.
Listicles
Lists are extremely popular as they are a good way to break up the blog post in an easily digestible way. Lists can be skimmed easily, making them great to share. Lists also have a bigger chance of going viral than other forms of blog posts.
Here are a few examples of listicle titles:
- 10 Reasons everyone is talking about Squid Game.
- 5 Herbs you should have in your kitchen.
- 7 Must-have travel items.
Best Of’s
Best of’s are a variation of a listicle. They also feature some of the characteristics, but with a different goal. The aim of a best-of article is to compare a range of products or services in order to establish which one is the best. While the article might include a list, in the end, one product or service is usually highlighted above the rest.
Another difference between the two is that a listicle is usually shorter and easier to scan and digest. In contrast, a best-of article is longer and provides a lot of information on each topic to provide the grounds for the final decision.
Here are a few examples of best-of article titles:
- Top 5 web providers.
- Best antivirus program for 2021.
- 5 Best automation software for your business.
How-To Guides
Many people use the internet to learn how to do something. Whether they are looking for a recipe to bake a cake or how to use the new software they purchased, these types of guides are exceedingly popular. This is even more so if you include videos depicting the steps illustrated in your post.
Here are a few examples of how-to guide titles:
- How to defeat the final boss in Skyrim.
- Recipe for Macaroni and Cheese.
- How do I make flowers from paper?
Checklists/Cheat Sheets
Checklists and cheat sheets are a variation of how-to guides. While they still outline certain steps that need to be taken to reach a specific goal, they don’t leave room for interpretation. This can be a valuable form of SEO content to provide your readers and is often used as a downloadable resource in exchange for email signup. These are usually shorter and much more compact, simply laying out the actionable steps that need to be followed.
Templates
Many users look to the internet when they need help with creating certain documents. A template is a great resource in these cases as it illustrates the format that they need to implement in their specific project. These can be templates for invoices or estimates, presentations, contracts, and more.
Infographics
While infographics might not be ideal for lead generation, they are great at driving traffic to your blog and creating awareness about your brand. These are also fun, informative, easily digestible, and extremely shareable. You can also include an imbed-code beneath your infographic, which others can use to embed into their own posts. This is a great source for backlinks.
Reviews
With so much information available, and so many people making the same products or delivering the same services, it is more critical than ever to research before making any purchases online. Reviews are a great way that users can get information on how a product or service really works before deciding to make a purchase.
How To Write and Optimize Your Blog Posts For SEO
Optimizing content isn’t always easy, and it isn’t fast. But, when implemented properly, it can have a big effect on your overall SEO and search engine rankings. We know it can be challenging to know where to start creating optimized blog posts. Here are a few of our top tips to start creating blog posts that are optimized to boost your SEO.
Know Your Target Audience
You have to know for whom you’re writing. What are their questions? What do they need help with? How are you providing an answer to their problem? Before you even start to create a post, make sure that you know your audience. It is a good idea to look at your buyer personas, as this will give you great insight into your target audience. You can also use analytics to gather more actionable insights. This way, you can start creating posts that reach your audience on a personal level.
Create Catchy Headings
Headings are the first thing people see when they look at your content, and it also appears in the search results. Make sure that you use a catchy heading that your target audience will want to click on. This doesn’t mean that the heading has to be funny or flashy. You still need to stay true to your brand, but make it something enticing and interesting. To make your title and headings catch, you can use data, questions, or lead with curiosity.
Make it Interesting
Your posts have to be interesting as well. You can create interesting posts by including bullet points, lists, images, infographics, videos and other elements that are just a bit different from the text. Not only will your readers appreciate the brain-break, but search engines also like it when there is a variety of information sources included.
Don’t Forget User Intent
User intent is one of the most important SEO factors. Gone are the days of just stuffing your posts with your targeted keywords. Search engines are no longer just looking at keywords, but to see if your content meets the needs of the user. This is why it is essential to write content for people and not machines. Make sure that the post you create provides value to the user and answers their questions.
Do Keyword Research
Just because user intent has become important, it does not mean we can forget about keywords. Keywords are still a critical part of your overall SEO strategy. Keywords are a great indicator of the type of post your target audience is after. Once you’ve identified the personas of your audience, the next step is to start with your keyword research. Keyword research can be a hefty task, so make sure you have a strategy in place to identify your keywords.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to help you discover what users are searching for and how popular those searches are. Tools like Google Trends can also help you see what topics are currently popular to target those.
Keyword research is best done periodically as trends change. By doing your research frequently, you will know of any opportunities where you can outrank your competition.
Create Article Outlines
Creating article outlines is important for a few reasons. For one, it makes your posts easy for Google’s crawlers to index and discover what it’s about. It also makes the post scannable so that readers can quickly find the information they need. This will improve the reader experience meaning that they will spend more time on your page, which will affect your SEO and search rankings.
Make Use of Links
As mentioned, links are an important part of your overall SEO strategy. By using internal links, you can direct your visitors to more of your posts. This is a useful strategy to guide them along your sales funnel and keep them on your site longer.
External links are equally important as it provides readers with more value and ways to increase their knowledge. It also indicates to search engines that you’ve done your research. When using external links, make sure you only direct readers to relevant information from reputable sources.
Building backlinks is just as important and more difficult to achieve. You want other reputable sites to link back to your posts. Each website that links back to you shows Google that you are a trustworthy and reliable site. You will have to include high-value assets in your posts, such as original data and thought leadership, to get a backlink. You could also negotiate interviews or collaborations with other experts in the field to generate backlinks.
Take the Content-Length Into Account
Search engines like Google prefer longer posts that are more thorough and contain in-depth information. These posts usually rank much better in search results, despite the short attention span of most users. Depending on your industry, longer posts that are easily digestible and scannable are very important. On average longer posts generate eight times more page views, three times more social media shares and nine times more leads than short-form posts.
Use Plugins
There are many helpful plugins available that can assist you in improving the SEO of your content. These plugins can be installed fairly easily, and there is a range of free and paid options to choose from. There are also plugins that assist with different elements of SEO, including text optimization, image optimization, performance, cache, minifying, XML sitemap, crawling, broken link checking, and breadcrumbs and forwarding. You don’t have to use multiple plugins, just the one that assists in the area you need.
Make Use of CTA
Call to action, or CTAs, are important as they help guide your visitors along their journey. They need to be used strategically and shouldn’t just be a generic “leave a comment” phrase. Call to actions can request engagement from your readers, or it can direct your readers to more valuable blog posts and, when used correctly, can even get you readers to make a purchase. You need to think carefully about the type of call to action you will be using, as it needs to be relevant to the SEO content in your blog post.
Review Your Metrics Often
Metrics are key as they can show you which of your posts are performing well. With this information, you will get a better idea of the type of content and length of blog posts your readers want. This will make curating your future posts much easier as you will have a guide rather than just guessing.
From the metrics, you will also be able to get other valuable information such as pages where you lose visitors, pages that are performing well, and much more. Armed with this information, you can make the necessary improvements to increase traffic and search ranking.
Publish Evergreen Content
We already mentioned the importance of relevance. Google prefers recommending content that is updated, fresh, and relevant. This is why evergreen blog posts are so important. By having evergreen blog posts on your site, you can be assured that it will be relevant for the keywords for much longer. Time-sensitive or trending blog posts can be seen as not evergreen. Although this type of SEO content does have its place within your strategy, there should be a bigger focus on evergreen blog posts.
Make Updates to Existing Content
As we mentioned, a historic optimization strategy can go a long way in improving your SEO as it makes the blog post relevant in Google’s eyes once more. All this requires is updating your old posts with new information, data, or thoughts to be fresh and relevant once more. Like with your SEO content posting plan, you shouldn’t just go through all your old emails and update them in one go, but rather do the updates strategically.
Use Metas and Alt Tags
This is a crucial and sometimes overlooked element that can help your SEO tremendously. Meta titles and descriptions are more elements crawled by search engines and used to determine your rankings in search results. The meta description is also the one to three lines you see underneath the heading of the suggestions made by the search engine. So having one that’s enticing and gives the reader enough information to make them want to read more is critical.
Along with your meta’s, the alt tag is equally important. The alt tag describes what is happening in the image and makes it easier for Google to understand why the photo is in your blog post. Try to use your keywords with all of these to boost your SEO even more.
Optimize Your Content for Google Featured Snippets
A featured snippet on Google is the most direct answer that is given to a search query. This is a great opportunity to get more traffic to your site because if your posts are featured as the snippet, it increases your chances of getting a click through to your site. To earn a featured snippet, you will need to answer the question thoroughly, but ideally within 58 words. You should also include the question as a heading in your article and start the answer to the question with an actionable verb such as ‘click’ or ‘read’.
Getting Professional SEO Blog Posts
You may be wondering how you are going to start creating quality blog posts and still run your website? You’re in luck! There are professional post creation services that can assist you. There are many benefits to using one of these services. Let’s look at a few of the advantages you can expect when working with a professional SEO content creation company:
- It leaves you free to focus on other aspects of your business.
- They are already experienced in SEO blog post creation.
- They understand SEO, keywords, and how to implement them.
- It is more time-efficient.
- They have experience in a variety of topics and niches.
- They stay up to date with the latest changes to the Google Search algorithms.
Conclusion
Blog posts can be a great resource to boost your website SEO. Having a blog provides you with an opportunity to engage with your clients, share valuable blog posts that are relevant and up to date, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. However, creating SEO posts is not just about writing and publishing posts. There is more to it. You need to understand your users’ intent, what information your clients will be looking for, and what type of content will give them the most value. If you keep the end-user in mind and implement all the tips we provided, you’ll be well on your way to boosting your SEO through your blog posts.
If you don’t have the time to research and create blog posts yourself but still want to benefit from the SEO boost, why not look at professional content creation services? These services can take all the stress out of creating optimized content and deliver quality blog posts.
