10 Highly Effective Tips on SEO Blog Writing

There are countless blog posts and articles present on the internet today. Type in any topic in the search engine, and you will find many search results. In this pool of content, how do you make your content or blog post stand out and rank? With SEO friendly content, of course. 

Ranking first on the SERP is what every website, digital marketer, and content writer is after. With new content being written and published every second, it becomes extremely challenging to stand out and rank. Writing SEO friendly blogs is thus imperative. This article will cover some SEO blog writing tips to help you curate high-ranking blogs.  

10 Tips on SEO Blog Writing

The following list will provide a base guideline to help you get started with SEO blog writing. 

1. Look out for the keywords

SEO blogging is often a lot about getting the keyword strategy right. Keywords are words that people use for searching any particular topic or business. Let’s say that you want to know about digital marketing, so you type the following in the search bar:

• What is digital marketing?
• What do you mean by digital marketing?
• Digital marketing 101
• A quick guide to digital marketing

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These words in the search query are nothing but keywords for digital marketing. A keyword will determine whether or not your blog post catches the search engine’s attention and ranks on the results page. This is why conducting in-depth keyword research before you begin to write or draft a blog is extremely important. 

When conducting the research, select the right primary keyword, one that you specifically want to rank for, along with a set of secondary and tertiary keywords that people use in place of the primary keyword. It is also advisable to target medium to low-intensity keywords to reduce competition. You can use various keyword research tools available on the internet, like Moz, Google Keyword Planner, etc.

2. Curate for the readers

The search engines determine which blogs rank on the first page and which ones don’t. The search engines’ algorithm considers several factors for determining the rankability of blogs. 

Content writers and marketers, thus, have to ensure that they adhere to these guidelines while curating content. However, search engines are not the end-users of the content or blogs. 

While it is easy to get swayed by the temptation of ranking by stuffing keywords and other unnecessary means, it is best not to. Besides, the search engines reward sites that cater to their content to meet the demands and expectations of their audiences. 

This is why it is important for content writers and marketers to always write SEO friendly content by keeping the readers and audience in mind. Prioritizing readers over search engines is important because it directly affects the content quality, readability, and reach. 

3. Structure it well; make it scannable

This sort of follows the second point. When you write SEO blog posts, you must ensure that readers understand them easily. A well-structured blog enhances readability. 

Furthermore, a well-structured blog that is scannable is crucial. The search engines use crawlers that crawl through web pages, websites, and blogs to determine their rankability. 

When a blog is well-structured and readable, these crawlers will have minimal to no problem crawling through the blog post. Thus, hinting to Google that the blog post is worthy of being ranked on its first page of search results. 

Make sure to include headings, shorter sentences and paragraphs, statistics, and use bullet points whenever possible. 

4. Build those links

Building credibility and connections are important in personal and social life and are also key for SEO blog writing. Linking external sources, those with high domain authority, will, in turn, help build your blog’s domain authority. It will also indicate that you have done good research. 

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Embedding links work like citations in a research paper. You can also work with other content writers, authors, or content marketers to increase reach and drive traffic to your blog. 

5. Optimize the images

Along with what’s written in the blog post, what is shown, i.e., the images in the blog post, also requires special attention. Like how people first look for pictures in a storybook or magazine, blogs with images lure readers more interest than those without a picture. 

Having images in SEO blog posts is important to drive traffic and retain readers. While inserting an image, ensure it is not a generic image and is free from copyrights. Also, add an alt text for every image that you insert. This will help search engines like Google know what the image is about and why you have added it. Thus, helping the blog post to rank better. 

6. Are you paying attention to the URL?

While SEO blog writing is mostly about optimizing the blog post, it is not limited to that. A high-ranking blog will have a short and clean URL. Having a long URL can confuse search engines and reduce the blog’s credibility. To give you an example, take a look at the below-mentioned URLs

• https://peppercontent.io/marketing/blogging-for-seo
• https://blogeroftheday.com/b234hijahymarketing/how-to-write-good-blogs-that-are-sEo-freindly

Which one do you prefer? The first one, right? This is because it is simple, clean, short, and precise. You know, and the search engines know what the webpage is about. Try to include the primary keyword in your URL and keep it short, below 80 words.

7. Place the keywords right

While many content writers do good keyword research, most of them miss out on the right placement of the keywords. Long gone are the days when search engines would fall for stuffed keywords. The algorithms are regularly upgraded and catch on to keyword stuffing or unnatural keyword placement quickly.

Include the primary keyword in the H1 tag, meta description, and the blog’s first and last 100 words. The keyword density of primary keywords, as recommended by Yoast, is about 3-4% of the total word count of a SEO friendly blog.

Include secondary and tertiary keywords in the subheadings and paragraphs; again, don’t stuff them; place them naturally. 

8. Sharing is caring on social media

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Having an all-around digital presence is a sure way to get more traffic to your blog. If you publish your blog on the website, notify all your friends and followers on your social media handles. This way, you will be diverting some of them to your blog post. 

Sharing blogs on social media also makes you visible to wider audiences and fellow content writers. Linking these social media handles to the website also indicates to the search engine that you are serious about your work.

9. Optimize the meta title and description

Including keywords in the meta title and meta description is a great way to increase the rank of a blog. The meta title and meta description give a gist of the blog post. Therefore, it is crucial to have a captivating meta title and description. 

10. Capitalize for snippets

Google has an added feature of snippets. Even if the blog post doesn’t rank on the first page, it is possible to get the blog post to be featured in the snippets. Be sure to include a question in the blog and answer it precisely. Try to answer in under 80 words and use the keyword in both the question and answer. 

Key Takeaways

• Websites and blogs are ranked by search engines based on a few ranking factors. 
• Ranking high on the search results page helps websites and web pages drive organic traffic, increasing their reach and visibility. 
• SEO blogging is good for content writers and marketers and for business websites aiming to increase their turnover and reach.

• While writing an SEO friendly blog, thorough and dedicated keyword research is the first and foremost thing to do. 
• Determine the primary, secondary, and tertiary keywords you would like to target. 
• When including these keywords in the blog, add the primary keyword in the blog’s first and last 100 words. 
• Try to use secondary keywords in subheadings. Use a title that lures the readers to your website. 
• Remember to format the blog to enhance the readability and make the blog appear well structured.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic showed us how robust the internet is and that all businesses now need to build their online presence. Businesses also realized that they need to rank their websites on the search results page to increase reach and traffic successfully. And for that, they need an SEO strategy that includes SEO blog writing.For content writers, optimizing blogs for SEO is proof of their writing abilities. SEO writing can be challenging, but the task can become smoother and hopefully more convenient with the above-listed SEO friendly content writing tips.

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