Optimizing your blog content for SEO is an important way to send strong messaging to search engines and ultimately get your content seen by your clients and prospective clients. We’ve compiled a list of tips, provided by a panel of digital marketing industry experts, to help maximize your SEO efforts when it comes to your blog.
- Mobile friendly
Daniel Veiga of Danny Veiga Marketing says “Make sure your blog is mobile-friendly so readers can access it on their phones with ease. Remember to include keywords at the beginning and end of each sentence and throughout all parts of your article. As a blogger, you should know the importance of optimizing your blog for mobile devices and large screens. If not done correctly, it can lead to poor UX, affecting user engagement with your site.”
- Create internal links
Steven Jaenke of Digimark states “ I’m surprised at how often people forget to link to their other blog posts and pages from within their blog post. This pushes SEO equity through the site, increasing the authority of all the pages, not just siloing it in the blog post.”
Justin Smith of OuterBox advises “As a best practice, we always tell clients to add internal links to their blog posts, using the keyword they want to rank for as anchor text. By linking from internal pages that you already rank for, you’re helping boost your blog post’s authority in the eyes of the search engines.”
Rob Delory of QuickSilver Agency adds “Internal linking is one of the most missed opportunities that people overlook for blog posts. Determining the main keyword for a blog post and then finding that same keyword or other similar variations within the content of other posts and pages on your website, you link back using those terms as your anchor text. This sends strong signals to search engines and helps them better define your posts.”
Matt Tudge of WDA states “Link to relevant blog articles you’ve previously written and link back to the article you’re optimising from other relevant articles. This helps Google crawl your site, keeps visitors on your site and passes on link juice.”
- Keywords
Jamila Lotia of Jamsocial says “It’s pretty obvious and clichè, but I cannot stress enough on the importance of using the right keywords in the right places! Blog posts can rank only with keywords that rank, and there are many websites that help you in researching which keywords are ranking. You can then craft your blog post around that.”
- Name your article appropriately
Matt Tutt of Matt Tutt Marketing advises “Make sure your article has a title that is targeting a specific topic or query. Instead of writing a blog and giving it a very broad, generic title, try instead to make it more actionable or interesting to the user. So instead of publishing a blog post like dog grooming make it more insightful like 5 easy ways to groom your pet dog at home. Not only will it help with SEO rankings but it should also encourage more people to actually click through and read the article, wherever they see the title mentioned online.”
Eric Dingler of In Transit Studios adds “Let’s say you have a parenting blog and you write a post about becoming empty nesters after your last child living at home moves away for school. Do not title your post ‘And Then There Were 2’. No one is searching for that. Instead try to go with something like: ‘What To Do After Becoming Empty Nesters’ or ‘Tips To Thrive As Empty Nesters’. A title must be optimized for both SEO bots and humans at the same time. There is no separating the two or even prioritizing one over the other.”
Saffron Sheriff of Aqueous Digital adds “The more specific your title is, the better – because this will help readers find exactly what they are looking for when searching online! In order to achieve this, you should get into the mind frame of SEO before you create your content. You should not only consider the SEO of your individual posts but how these posts fit into your overall content strategy as a whole.”
Lauren Kennedy of Coastal Consulting states “Oftentimes, the title is an afterthought. However, the title is the most important part of your blog as this is the first component the search engine evaluates when deciding where to return your blog in the search results. Limit the title to 60 characters and ensure it captivates the reader and clearly expresses what your blog post will cover.”
Cathy Baleda of Reach Digital advises “Keep in mind that even with an expertly crafted, SEO-friendly body of text, a bad headline negatively impacts your ranking in search engine results pages.”
- Utilize different forms of media
Joe Turbin of Design Box Media says “One of the best ways to optimise your blog posts in 2021 is to utilise different forms of media. Google really appreciates your ability to provide content in different formats since people digest information differently.
Some like video content, whereas others might prefer information in the form of a diagram. Therefore, the best thing you can do is to provide as many different forms of media in a blog post as possible, make sure that these pieces of content are all very relevant to the blog post though, of course.”
- Update content that is ranking well
Tim Brown of Hook Agency says “One of the best tactics to optimize your blog posts is remembering to update content that is already ranking well. After using resources such as Google Search Console to see which articles are doing well with search engines, take these posts and make them even better by increasing its comprehensiveness. Include more topics and keywords that the content doesn’t currently cover, add and optimize images, and structure the content to improve user experience. If you do these things to update your already stellar content, you will be surprised by how much more traffic you can bring to your site.”
- Question and answer format
Becca Nicholson of The Audit Lab advises “The question-and-answer format is an effective method when optimising your blog content. Why? Because Google loves that kind of layout, especially with its passage ranking and featured snippet opportunities. The search engine crawls through so much content to help answer search queries, many of which are simply questions. If you can get some subheadings in with a nice, easy-to-read (for Google and a website visitor) question that is then answered in a paragraph underneath, you’re more likely to rank for relatable queries. So, whenever you’re writing blogs, just make sure to mix it up with the sections and headings. It doesn’t always have to be this format, but thinking about what you want that page to rank for (the keywords, terms and questions) will remind you to think more strategically with your subheadings, or more like Google. Be creative and technical.”
- Optimize featured snippets
Adam Zajac of Majux Marketing says “If your target topic has a featured snippet, analyze the format and improve upon the current response. A featured snippet can be in the form of a bulleted list, paragraph, table, or video. Whatever that format is, replicate it on your page and answer the question succinctly but fully. Optimally, you want to do this right after an H1 or H2 that proposes the question users are asking to make the association clear to Google.
In order to establish authority on the topic, your page should also answer related questions users are asking. This can be accomplished by answering People Also Ask (PAA) questions.
Gaining a featured snippet position can take clicks away from competitors, build brand trust, and establish your brand as an authority within your niche.”
In conclusion, by stacking techniques such as using keywords, internal links and ensuring your blog is mobile friendly, combined with appropriately naming your article and optimizing featured snippets, you will ensure your blog is effectively optimized for SEO. This ensures you are sending a strong message to search engines and ultimately getting seen by your target market.