Guide to SEO Blogging: Learn How to Blog for SEO

When it comes to getting your blog entries seen on search engines like Google, blog SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is more crucial than ever. Today, this makes SEO for bloggers one of the most important issues to devote time and effort to learning—and implementing—during the content development process.

Now that we’re approaching 2023, a massive 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and Google is the search engine of choice for 92.04% of those people.

For many content authors, blog SEO appears to be a daunting task. It’s easy to believe that no list of blog SEO methods can ever make a significant difference. Others portray Google as a cruel reaper who chooses which sites to let live and others to deprive of valuable organic search traffic.

That is exactly what blog SEO is all about. It’s connecting your blog content to the solutions people are looking for—and allowing search engines to detect your relevant, high-quality content.

So, what if you’re doing everything right… yet your site isn’t receiving any traffic? It will if you use these ten blog SEO tactics.

These are the precise tactics, philosophies, and blogging recommendations. I’ve utilized blog SEO to develop this blog from zero to 584,958 readers a month, and I’m going to show you that it’s not some enigmatic, invincible beast.

10 Blog SEO Strategies

1. Nail your keyword research

Learning how to do keyword research—and discovering fantastic keyword chances to rank for—is the most essential component of any SEO strategy. If you overuse them, your material will sound like it was written by R2-D2. In the worst-case scenario, Google suspects you of keyword stuffing and penalizes your site’s rating. That’s not good. New blogs also have lower domain authority (when you create a website for the first time) and hence do not carry the same weight as older, more respected websites. As a result, ranking for more competitive keywords can be difficult, and your attempts to promote your blog will take longer to bear fruit.

If you’re a new blogger, the greatest keywords to attempt to rank for are:

• Low level of difficulty
• Excessive volume
• A high rate of click-through

The goal is to locate three to five head keywords (phrases of one to three words) and one to two long-tail keywords (whole phrases people are searching for). Long-tail keywords have less traffic and competition, yet they are just as lucrative. You should select terms that are related to the same niche. This is something Google emphasized in its latest Helpful Content Update.

If you want to really improve your keyword game and use a robust, paid tool, check out Ahrefs and SEMrush to take your SEO game to the next level. You’ll be in good hands with any of these two really popular SEO analysis tools.

The most notable difference between the two is that, while both are superb keyword researchers, Ahrefs has the advantage when it comes to analyzing what backlinks your competitors have. This will be useful in determining where your rivals are being referenced so you can do the same!

2. Concentrate on user intent (not search engines)

Gone are the days when mentioning your keyword as many times as you could got you ranked.

Google’s algorithms have matured, and it’s now all about providing high-quality material and addressing user intent—what people are looking for when they type a word or phrase into a search engine bar.

Fortunately, we don’t need Spock’s mind-melding powers to figure out what people are looking for when they search for anything. Google has already deduced this.

Enter your term into the search box and glance at the “People also ask” and “Searches connected to” areas for further information. When you click on a website and then hit your browser’s back button, a “People also search for” box appears beneath the clicked site. These are all valid concerns and questions that you can address in your post.

While you’re in the SERP, assess user search intent to discover how your competitors responded.

Aim to better address the reader’s concerns and make your post an even more beneficial resource for them.

Consider:

• How long has your competitor’s post been up? Your blog post should be at least as long as mine.
• What other resources can you provide? Consider movies, useful websites, and downloadable templates
• What topics can you clarify or expand on?
• What would make the post more beneficial to you as a reader?

Writing a 10,000-word rambling blog post just because you believe it’s a good idea won’t help your SEO. However, developing a tailored piece that is a one-stop reference for the exact answers your target audience requires can undoubtedly help.

If you correctly answer the reader’s questions, you might even get the coveted position of position #0 on Google’s featured snippet area.

3. Take your time when creating SEO-friendly blog headlines

You can create the best blog post ever to grace the Internet, but if your audience doesn’t click on the blog headline and read the piece, it doesn’t exist.

You also need people to click on your post since Google sees that the more reads, shares, and likes it has, the more likely it is that it is what people want when they search for your term. Google gives higher search rankings to sites with strong click-through rates.

When it comes to learning how to write a headline, the first step is to tell your reader how they will profit from your blog content.

Then you must follow through on your pledge.

For example, this post says these SEO strategies for blogs can generate you hundreds of thousands of readers every month if strictly followed.

But, if your headline makes over-exaggerated claims and doesn’t live up to it with your content, it’s clickbait.

Avoid at all costs.

When you fail to follow your promise to the reader, it breaks the reader’s trust and harms you more than it helps. Clickbait titles also produce higher bounce rates, which leads to worse site rankings for you.

The second step is to make your title attractive to click on. The best titles combine tried-and-true concepts with a combination of common, rare, emotional, and powerful words.

Fortunately, the good guys at Co-Schedule have devised a headline-analyzing tool that takes all of this into account, informs you how likely your title is to generate shares, and breaks down your score result.

Your major keyword should be in your headline for blog SEO purposes

SERPs cut off titles at 60 characters. There’s no compelling need to have a title longer than that many characters, but if you do, make sure your target keyword is at the beginning of your title.

Yoast is a well-known (free) WordPress plugin that will aid in SEO for bloggers who want to ensure that their article titles and content tick all the key core SEO boxes.

If you’re having difficulties generating a catchy title that tells the reader the advantage AND is SEO-friendly, you can use Yoast to create a separate SEO title that will appear in search results.

Click “edit snippet” in the Yoast area of the WordPress editor, then erase the automatic title tags and replace them with your own SEO-friendly title that will rank higher in search results.

While your SEO title should remain intriguing, you can experiment with the arrangement.

4. Use appropriate heading tags

Heading tags (H-tags) are formatting options that can be applied to your post’s content.

Instead of adjusting font sizes to highlight headings, choose your heading sizes from the menu.

Here’s how to use the WordPress text editor and Google Docs to choose your heading formats (also known as header tags):

Proper headers are extremely crucial for SEO.

Google examines them to determine the main point of your material, making them vitally necessary—especially for correctly dialing in your on-page SEO.

In order of priority, here’s how to use them for search engine optimization.

Heading 1: This is normally designated for your title and can only be used once. Fill in the blanks with your primary keyword.

Heading 2: These are the main points of your article. They are also important for SEO and are excellent areas to work on both head and long-tail keywords. Look at mine, and you’ll find that I did just that.

Heading 3: These are the subtopics or smaller ideas related to your H2. Each of our ten SEO strategies for bloggers is featured in this post. You can also include keywords here.

Headings 4-6: These are used to aid in the formatting and design of your page. These are the ones with the least SEO value.

It’s also critical to incorporate your primary target keyword inside the first 100 words of your introduction.

Your target keyword phrase and its variations should be used naturally and conversationally throughout the body of your content. As previously said, keyword stuffing to acquire a few extra mentions is something to avoid.

The free Yoast plugin can also assist you make sure you’re hitting all the right notes.

5. Improve the URL of your page

The URL of your blog post is scanned by search engines and is a crucial way for them to determine the topic of your content. It’s a fantastic opportunity to incorporate your desired search phrase.

For example, I intended to rank for the long-tail term “how to make money blogging” in one of my most popular tips.

You simply need a few words to tell the reader what the link is about.

Other blog SEO guidelines for choosing a smart URL include using only lowercase letters to avoid duplication content and keeping the slug to 50 to 60 characters. Your URL should be as brief as possible.

Yoast can determine how SEO-friendly your URL is and give recommendations that are consistent with these on-page SEO methods and best practices.

6. Choose your links wisely

It’s a fact that search engine website crawlers will scan your text for keywords.

But did you know they pay extra attention to keywords that are linked? They give more weight to linked keywords than non-related words and phrases.

Within your entire blog SEO strategy, there are three categories of links to consider:

• Anchor Links: Hyperlinks to different sections of the same post. It can appear as a clickable WordPress table of contents for larger posts, such as this one. It’s a great time to start linking to your major keywords.
• Internal links: These are links to pertinent material on your website. For example, I have multiple guides on various types of blogs such as personal blogs, lifestyle blogs, mom blogs, and more—so I make sure to link to those helpful resources throughout my content. This not only assists readers in discovering useful material, but it also joins your individual content pieces in a connected web that search engines can scan, map out, and assign authority to.
• External Links: Hyperlinks to content on another website. Linking keywords to strong pieces of content—think first page of SERPs or sites with high domain authority—raises the trustworthiness of your site through association.

While anchor links aren’t required, you should always have a good mix of internal and external links.

A decent rule of thumb is two to four internal and external links every 600 words.

7. Create an appealing meta description

In SERPs, meta descriptions are the text that shows below your headline.

Another reason Yoast is great (assuming you’ve chosen WordPress—one of the best website builders—and one of the best WordPress themes to go with it) is that it allows you to construct your own meta description for your blog post rather than Google choosing one for you.

After clicking “edit snippet” in the Yoast area of the WP content editor, the choice will appear.

What is the formula for a captivating meta description?

• Between 50 and 160 characters: This captures the reader’s interest and avoids being cut off in search results.
• The benefit to the reader is obvious: The reader understands why they should click on you rather than the link below you.
• There are one or two keywords included: This is done to make the keyword bold so that it matches the user’s search keywords and clarifies what your content is about. Keep in mind that your keywords must still be used naturally.

Do this often, and your blog’s SEO will profit immensely from putting in the effort up front. Remember that if your audience expands, you may want to explore employing some more advanced SEO services to assist scale your best practices across all of your blog’s pages—as well as uncover some more innovative options to boost your key rankings.

8. Improve the quality of your images

Many people overlook the fact that optimizing your photos gives your site an additional significant SEO boost.

Because search engines can’t “see” photographs like you and me, they rely on the description of the image file—both the title and image alt text—to understand and categorize your images.

Rename the file names of images uploaded to WordPress to something short, incorporates an important term, and is still descriptive for added SEO power.

This is especially crucial for your feature image, as it is frequently pinned, shared, and indexed in image search results.

For example, if “blog SEO” is your goal keyword phrase, you can label an image “before-after-blog-seo.jpg,” and the image could be a graph demonstrating your blog traffic before and after it was improved.

If you’re utilizing a proprietary image that you generated, make sure to include your keywords in the alt text and keep your description to less than 100 characters. You don’t have to do this with images from the Internet because they already rank for someone else’s keyword.

Before you start keyword-stuffing your picture alt text, remember that its goal is to essentially describe the image to someone who is blind, not to be a location for keyword stuffing.

Following the title and alt text, the second step for each photo is to utilize tools like ImageOptim or Pichi to reduce the dimensions to less than 1,000px and lower the file size.

Reduce the file size as much as possible without sacrificing image quality and resulting in a fuzzy photo.

Why does the size of your picture file matter for the SEO of your blog?

Proper scaling and file size is crucial to keeping your page load times short; since if users have to wait more than three seconds for your page to show up, they’re going to go “Bye, Felicia” on you. This is one of the most common blogging errors I find, so try to prevent it!

9. Ensure mobile compatibility and shorten website load times

Have you ever been in a hurry while grocery shopping and felt relieved when a checkout lane was vacant…

Remember how quickly your enthusiasm was dashed when you learned you’d chosen the one with the single cashier-in-training?

Oh, the anguish.

That’s how your reader feels when waiting for your blog article to load—and it’s even worse when your blog is crawled by Google.

People will leave if you continually making them gaze at blank sites, and the main search engines dislike it as well. Loading times and mobile responsiveness have an impact on your blog’s SEO and user experience, so keep this in mind when creating your overall blog layout.

Web.dev and Google’s PageSpeed Insights will tell you how your site is performing. Check out this very useful guide on how to get the most out of PageSpeed Insights and translate the insights you’re seeing into meaningful blog changes.

If your blog isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll need to hire a professional, adopt a mobile-friendly theme (such as OptimizePress), or install a specific WordPress plugin to help.

If your page load times need to be improved, you can begin by:

• Image optimization
• removing any unnecessary WordPress plugins (WordPress blogs only)
• Changing to one of the top hosting plans will help your site load faster

The plain fact is that blogging does cost money, and you will most certainly have your own economic limits. Depending on your circumstances, you may be limited to simply the cheapest hosting plans, budget-conscious shared hosting solutions, or even free hosting plans with speed limitations. If so, that’s fine. Because blogging is a long race, you can afford to update your hosting later on if your site starts earning cash.

Your ultimate objective is to have your pages and articles load lightning fast—ideally in under two seconds (or faster).

10. Publicize your content

When you first start blogging, you may feel as if you have a lot of catching up to accomplish with your blog’s content.

You simply want to write, write, write… and then write some more. However, if your blogging goals involve increasing visitors and improving your domain authority…

You should devote 20% of your effort to writing and the remaining 80% to promoting your content.

Here’s how to market your blog material for the best blog SEO results:

• Writing guest blog posts: Getting published on another site gives you the opportunity to obtain a link back (or backlink) to your own. When someone else endorses your work, Google recognizes that you must be producing high-quality material and rewards you with higher search ranks.
• Networking with other bloggers: If you’ve been wise and chosen a subject in which you have some experience (or contacts), other bloggers can be your closest friends when it comes to spreading the word! Use sensible blogger outreach techniques to send them an email about being a guest on their podcast, accepting a Q&A style piece from you, or collaborating on a joint YouTube video series. Better still, establish your own podcast and utilize it as a networking tool—just make sure to choose the best podcast hosting for your budget.
• Sharing fresh content on social media: People aren’t going to visit your website every day to see whether there’s new content. Share and promote posts on social media to make everyone’s life easier. You never know, you might strike it lucky and go viral.
• Promoting prior posts: You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Take what you have, edit it, improve it, and re-share it with a few other names to see which garners the most attention on social media.
• Using your email list to promote content: Your newsletters and welcome-series emails are fantastic opportunity to not only practice your blog email marketing skills, but also to link to important information that your readers are unaware of, have missed, or have forgotten about. When it comes to promoting freebies (such as an eBook you produced) and material geared to monetize your audience, your email list will be very vital.
• Using Pinterest to pin blog posts: Pinterest is a wonderful supplement to Google, especially while you wait for more organic search engine traffic. You may discover that Pinterest traffic isn’t as dependable as Google traffic, but because Pinterest’s algorithm isn’t as sophisticated, it’s still a lot easier to rank and bring plenty of visitors to your site when you’re first starting out. I’ll be utilizing Pinterest to promote the content on both my new side site.

While each of these actions is important and contributes to getting the traffic you want, don’t overburden yourself by thinking you have to do everything every day or you won’t get the blog SEO results you want—take your time to thoughtfully create a blog business plan that leans on your own strengths and experiences, consider posting to a blogging job site if you need to hire some help, do your research by reading relevant blogging books, and consider taking b

Choose two areas of attention for the month (or even the quarter).

When you have the time, focus on some of the other parts of your blog SEO plan—and make sure your SEO work always links back to your overall blogging approach.

You’re in it for the long haul when it comes to blog SEO

I wish I could tell you that you can immediately use all 10 of these blog SEO methods and watch a virtual stampede of visitors pouring to your site to eat every single word you’ve ever written.

However, you may become an SEO specialist with your blog material and still not see much of a difference in the beginning. It’s most likely not you.

It can take up to six months (or even longer) to notice benefits.

But once you do, the growth of your blog might be more explosive than your greatest fantasies.

Examine what’s working, what’s not, and what may be changed.

Above all, keep your audience in mind—and consider what you can do to improve your content for them.

 

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