While the most important rule when blogging is to write with the reader in mind, optimising for SEO is essential for getting people to visit your blog in the first place. Using your content to generate organic traffic is a free and simple way to direct prospective customers to your website so although time consuming Blogging is a crucal part of your web and content strategy.

There are a number of SEO criteria you should consider to improve your blog’s search visibility without hurting the quality of your content and detracting from the user experience on your website. In this piece of content we'll try to outline this criteria in a simple format to follow to ensure that you're covering the basics with your blogging.

Please note: All tips are written with the WordPress CMS in mind; however it should translate across most website platforms. If you use another blogging platform and would like some tailored advice please feel free to email support@seopremier.com and we'll be happy to help.

The title of your Blog post should be enticing without being click-bait to ensure that both users and search engines alike understand what your content is about and why they should read it. The majority of the most popular blog posts answer a common question and are helpful to the reader so it should cover the most important elements of the content itself whilst also posing the problem you're trying to solve. Usually a good place to start would be using Google's 'People Also Ask' section to get a feel for trending search and common questions. Just type a question relating to your blog post and check the Google Search results for inspiration.

SEO Premier Pointers - Try using a list format for your blog post with a title such as '5 top tips to get more traffic from your Blog posts' or post a question such as 'How do I generate more traffic from my Blog posts?' .. Both are good options for a blog title!

The page title is the blue heading in the screenshot above which displays in the Google Search results. The meta descriptions is the small exceprt below your website URL which describes the information on the page.

You want the title of the blog to use the most important keyword relevant to your blog, but also think about what you think your reader will type in to find you. For example, if someone wants to find out about SEO strategies they might Google, ‘what’s involved in an SEO strategy?’, and if they did they would find our SEO blog because the title is so relevant.

Generally the page title would also be the title of your blog post and the title should cover the most important elements of the content itself. Usually you would be answering a common question so it's a good idea to pose this question in your blog title.

The meta-description isn't a ranking factor which Google's algorythm as of 2020 but should also use some target keywords to add relevance as these will be bold in Google listings. Ideally your meta description would include some form of enticing CTA as encouraging click through from the search results can be tough so getting onto page 1 is the first challenge but getting the user to click through to your website is another. A good quality meta description can help with this.

SEO Premier Pointers - Keep your page title under 60 characters to ensure that Google doesn't cut short your title in the search results. Try and keep your meta description under 160 characters to again ensure that the majority of your excerpt displays every time rather than cutting short.

Following a logical structure to your blog post not only makes the content easier to read for the user but it also make it easier for the search engine to process. Separating your post into paragraphs and using headings to describe the copy send a strong signal within Google's ranking criteria and the way in which you label these headings determines the importance of the text.

The H1 tag is your main post heading and should include the primary keyword you're trying to target with the content. You can also bold the H1 tag to provide extra strength from a readers perspective and often with most CMS, labelling a header as a H1 will auto-bold anyway.

The H2 tag is to be used as a sub-heading and you can include as many H2 tags as you like depending on how many paragraphs are separated in your blog post. The H2 carries less weight than the H1 but creates a simple header for Google to read which will benefit your SEO.

SEO Premier Pointers - Always include one H1 and at least two H2 tags. The primary keyword for the post should be included in the H1  tag and the secondary keywords in the multiple H2 tags you include.

Length of content is your first consideration. Too many people believe that just blogging is enough and short, frequent updates can be of value when in fact the length and quality of your blog content is so important. We would recommend a minimum 600 words per Blog post to give you time and space to provide real insight into the topic which in turn provides much more value to the user and scores points with Google.

The content within your blog post is where you can be the most natural as you will include keywords organically throughout the copy without even realising. While you do want the content to include keywords so people can find it, you don’t want to go over the top and obstruct the reader. Consider the following paragraph:

“SEO helps Google find your site and rank it higher. If you’re using Google but a website doesn’t use SEO, you won’t find that website on Google. However, if they had SEO, they would be easily found on Google.”

This was written with the keywords ‘SEO’ and ‘Google’ in mind, so that the blog gets the attention of a search engine. On the other hand, it’s difficult to read, repetitive and gives no qualitative information.

Let’s try it again:

“By using SEO, you are making it clear to search engines that your site is highly relevant for the products and services you provide. Google indexes websites daily, and when it sees lots of links back to your site for particular search terms, it boosts your rankings.”

The keywords are still in there, but they’re more spaced out and the text is both informative and engaging to the reader.

As you can see it doesn't do any favours by stuffing SEO keywords into your copy and you're far better off just writing naturally but with some small consideration for keyword mentions. Keyword mentions are known as 'keyword density' and as a rule of thumb you want to follow a 2-3% keyword density. So basically in a 100 word piece of text you want there to be a keyword mention 2 to 3 times.  

SEO Premier Pointers - Stick to a minimum 600 word length to increase likeliness of shares and encourage publishing as guest posts on other affiliate blogs. Stick to a minimum 2% keyword density to ensure the post is keyword rich without falling into the trap of stuffing.

The example above is from one of the blogs on our client’s website, and is a great example of internal linking. The text in blue is hyperlinked to the Services page on their site, which helps both Google when indexing your site as well as readers navigating to relevant information. Rather than just using the word 'Services' as the link to their internal page they have used as a keyword rich phrase which will help Google to better understand the theme of the destination URL.

Internal links pass SEO authority from one page to another and when linked with keyword rich anchor text they also increase relevancy for your target terms. It's an easy way to improve user experience and in turn score points with the search engines.

SEO Premier Pointers - Try to include 2-3 internal links (hyperlinks). As a common example, you can add one to the homepage, one to another internal landing page and one to an external source if necessary.

Choosing tags that are relevant to your content has a similar effect to body content - Google’s bots check these to see what your blog is about and the types of searches you want to be found for. Putting your blog posts into categories helps to group related posts together, and also tells readers what the blog is about and easily navigate from one article to another.

Categories and tags are quite similar, but tags are generally used to describe your post in more detail and you can list a large number of tags to list all of the key points from your content.

SEO Premier Pointers - You only need to select 1-3 categories with which to organise your posts but you can use 5 or more tags to list the key topics included within your content.

Label your featured image with a keyword rich img alt tag

Always include the author name and the date your blog was published.

Add a section at the bottom of your blog to links to other relevant posts

- Aim for 600 words to gain maximum SEO benefit and greater prospects of shares and guest posting.
- Use H1 & H2 tags loaded with target keywords to structure your blog content and organise your paragraphs.
- 2% keyword density (mentions of primary and secondary keywords).
- No more than 2-3 hyperlinks per blog post. Definitely one hyperlink with your target keyword linking to your target page.
- Add a relevant feature image and optimise the img alt tag with your target keyword which supports SEO and also provides the potential to rank in the Google Images listings.