Writing a blog post is an effective way to share your knowledge and expertise within a subject. But how do you write SEO-friendly blog posts that rank on Google?
The answer lies in giving your audience what they want and to make them happy.
Here´s how to do it.
Define your audience (persona)
Find out who you are writing for. Your goal is to write blog posts that resonate strongly with your readers.
Choose a topic for your blog post
Find topics related to your niche with a high search volume, but low competition, that gives you a chance to reach the top of Google.
Do a proper keyword research Define your primary target keyword and find the low-competition keywords.
Use Ubersuggest or Google Keyword Planner. You can also use paid SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, or Keysearch.
Use ChatGPT and write: “Give me 20 low competition long-tail keywords to target a blog post about how to write SEO-friendly blog posts”
Understand the search intent Make a (private/incognito) search on Google using your target keywords.
What do similar top-ranking blog posts look like?
What is the most common search intent on those? Check the “People also ask” and “related searches” on the search page. Be sure to touch upon those topics in the blog post. Use Answer The Public to find common search terms for your keyword.
Create a headline (< 60 characters)
Based on your research, write the headline.
Include your target keywords.
Add/update the year, e.g. 2023 (in brackets), to show the blog post is up to date.
Use H1.
Outline the blog post Highlight the main topic and subtopics you want to write about.
Research the outline on high-ranking blog posts within your topic.
Write the introduction
Grab the reader’s attention with a hook – a quote, a statistic, a story or a fact.
Entertain, educate or scare the reader.
No fluff, get straight to the point.
Include your target keyword in the first paragraph.
Convince the reader they have come to the right place.
Inspire the reader to keep reading.
Body text
Write the body text beneath each subheader (H2 and H3).
Write more than 300 words.
The ideal blog post length is 1,500 - 2,500 words, with a sweet spot right at 2,450.
Check how long the blog posts that rank at the top of Google on your topic are.
Give clear answers like “best water temperature is 20 degrees”, i.e. not just “20 degrees”.
Don’t use a complicated, excluding language.
Include your target keyword naturally throughout the content.
Conclusion
Write a concluding section to wrap up the blog post.
Ask the reader a question.
Use a bulleted list, or share some closing thoughts.
Call-to-action
Add an embedded link or a button saying:
Subscribe (to the newsletter)
Download our e-book
Sign up
Try something for free or a discount, to convert readers to customers
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Title tag
(The headline that shows up on the search engine results page.)
Include your target keywords. Less than 60 characters.
You can make a simulation here and see how your title tag would appear on the results page.
Optimize your Meta description
(The text under the title tag on the search engine results page.) Show the reader what to expect.
155 characters. Concise and compelling.
Start with a verb, such as "Learn", "Read" or ”Discover”.
Include your target keywords.
Optimize your URL slug
Make it short.
Give people an idea of what to expect.
Include your target keywords. Hyphens between the words.
Optimize your Header tags
H2s and H3s following a hierarchy of importance.
Include primary keyword in the text
Include your target keyword in the first 100 words of your blog post and more.
Include your target keywords in your subheadings, if possible.
Image file names
Something descriptive that includes your target keywords.
“red-car.jpg”.
Descriptive Image alt text Name it as how you would describe the image over the phone. Include the target keyword.
E.g. “an image of a red car”.
A clickable Table of contents It helps readers jump straight to specific subheadings.
Include internal links to relevant content on your website
Include external links to authoritative sources
Group your blog posts into categories
Tags allow readers to browse for more content in the same category on your blog.
Make your content easy to read Use short paragraphs, lists, bullet points, italics, callouts and bolded text. Use Hemingway Editor to check your content’s readability score.
Include graphics, relevant video, or embedded slide decks Make your content more engaging.
Image size
Minimize the size of your images without losing the quality.
I often use Photoshop and tinypng.com.
Mobile friendly
Make sure the blog posts are responsive and look good on a mobile phone.
Proofread
Ask someone else to read your article.
Determine a conversion path
Provide your audience with the next step forward in your funnel path.
Social sharing
Include social sharing buttons to make it easy for readers to share your blog post.
Publish
Find out at which times you hit most readers and hit publish at those times.
Put structured data on schema. Copy the code and insert it into your code.
Set a canonical tag in your code.
Link internally to and from your other blog posts.
Search (private/incognito): Site:[your website or blog].com “[keyword of new article]”. This helps you to find your other (blog posts) using the keyword.
In Google Search Console, go to “URL inspection” and type in the URL of your new blog post. Then, click on TEST LIVE URL to make sure it is responsive and readable by Google. Once you do that, click on REQUEST INDEXING.
Promote
To make the reader a loyal fan, promote the blog post via:
Email marketing (personalized)
Social media marketing
Communities
Boosted or paid ads
Word of mouth
Retargeting
Track the performance
It takes 3-6 months before you start seeing your content rank.
Make improvements based on your data to perform even better.
Download the checklist here.
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