How to Create SEO Friendly Blog Posts For Your Website

A comprehensive SEO strategy doesn’t end after a web designer optimizes individual webpages for the search engines. That is just the beginning. Ranking for relevant search queries also involves crafting SEO friendly, niche relevant content and uploading it to your website consistently. 

It doesn’t make business sense to change web pages frequently, which is why having a blog comes in handy. Through your blog, you can add fresh and relevant content to your website often. Not only does this signal to search engines that your website is alive and well (making it more likely to appear in searches), but you can also rank for specific keywords. 

For your content to appear on search engine results pages (SERPs), you need to make it easy for those pesky website crawlers. You should clearly communicate what searches your content is relevant to and why it is the best solution to refer to searchers. 

Here’s how you can optimize every blog post for search engines and grow your website traffic. Let’s go!

Do Your Keyword Research

Even amid constant SEO best practice changes, the mighty keyword continues to be the key (tehehe) component to rank your content effectively. And it all starts with research. Keyword research helps you to identify niche-relevant searches and decide what content people need. 

Tools like Ubersuggest will show you the top online searches in areas related to your business or brand. If you already have a topic idea, find the right keywords needed to rank your content effectively. And if you have no idea what to write next, popular searches can serve as inspiration for content topics. 

Here’s a top tip: Use a mixture of single/short and long tail keywords. Single/short keywords (one to two words) target a wider audience, whereas long tail keywords (two or more words) hone in on specific searches. 

Include Keywords Effectively

Once you have identified the best long tail and single keywords for your blog post, make the content SEO friendly by including them in the optimal places. Choose your main keyword and include it in your blog title, within the first paragraph, a heading, and a few times in the body of the text.

Beware of keyword stuffing (aka overusing your keyword). Search engines translate this activity as spam and will penalize your post in the results pages. Avoid this by using your main keyword sparingly and finding keyword variants to use instead. You should also include your keyword within the post URL — this doesn’t contribute to keyword stuffing. 

Final Advice on Keywords

Now for a few final notes on keywords. Yoast SEO is a useful website Plugin to have as it gives you clear SEO instructions. It also makes it easy to access and customize a blog post’s metadata — another critical place to include your keyword. 

While this post is all about crafting SEO friendly blog entries, don’t write just for search engines. Remember, it takes engaged humans to build a dedicated blog following and grow your website traffic. 

Disengaged readers will soon leave your website after clicking on it, leaving search engines to assume your site doesn’t answer the query well enough. Meaning you won’t get recommended in your ideal search again.

Use SEO Friendly Images 

High-quality images within a blog post keep readers engaged, which means they will stay on your page for longer, and that increases the likelihood of you appearing in the SERPs. That means more new readers are coming your way from organic searches. 

The SEO benefits of imagery don’t end there. You can also use images to make your content SEO friendly by editing the alt text. Ever been on a website where the photos have failed to load and noticed some text instead? That is the image’s alt text, and it helps search engines crawl and rank your content. 

Use this text to communicate the right message to search engines, including any relevant keywords. If you lack in the design department, you can download bundled together design elements to create professional graphics in tandem with digital software. OR make use of stock image sites to license-free photos.

As a side note, the alt text also appears in the pin description when someone shares your post to Pinterest. Another reason to include imagery and customize its’ alt text. 

Readability and SEO = Peanut Butter and Jelly 

The previous entry alluded to the importance of using images to keep readers engaged, and part of the reason behind this is readability. Blog readability ticks two crucial boxes simultaneously; it makes it easy for search engines to crawl your post and keeps the content easy on the human eye. 

Nothing will disengage a reader faster than a giant wall of text, and as previously noted, disengaged readers are awful for SEO. Break up your text with images, quotes, and multiple subheadings. Consider the Flesch reading ease score when crafting content; this means shorter sentences and paragraphs. You can also use the Yoast SEO Plugin or Rank Math Seo Plugin for readability.

Add Value 

On the subject of writing for search engines and humans, both highly appreciate value. VALUE should be the buzzword when writing your next post. Consider how you can add the most value to your reader’s day.

Remember you appear in the SERPs because someone has a query, and your content responds to it in the best way. You can create the most SEO optimized blog post in existence, but search engines will soon weed it out as a lousy recommendation if it doesn’t solve the problem. 

Use Internal Links

The more websites that link back to your content, the higher value your site will be. Search engines see this as many other people recommending your blog post or website, which means it must add value and solve queries well.
Internal linking is the unsung hero of SEO friendly content. While you don’t have much control over external links, you can control which internal links you include within your posts. Using internal links in your SEO strategy, you can signpost search engines and visitors to cornerstone pages on your site.