How To Write SEO Blog Posts
Blog posts are an essential part of any SEO strategy; that is, boosting your search engine ranking to increase traffic to your website. But what exactly goes into creating a blog post that not only resonates with your audience, but also ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERPs)?
In this guide, we'll dive into the strategies that can help you write SEO-friendly blog posts that stand out in a sea of online content.
If you’re looking to outsource your blog writing to an experienced team of copywriters for a great price, check out our remote blog writing service — where we can deliver professionally-written blog posts to your inbox in just three business days.
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SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is a digital marketing strategy that involves helping your website rank at or near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant search terms. Blog posts do this by:
Targeting keywords
Providing opportunities for technical optimisation
Forming part of internal and external link building actions
Telling Google that your website is active and worthy of re-indexing
Keep reading this article to find out how to optimise your blog’s visibility and achieve each of the SEO goals above.
Keyword Targeting
What Are SEO Keywords?
The most obvious benefit of SEO blog post writing is keyword targeting. There are two kinds of keywords you want to incorporate in your content.
Short-tail keywords are words or terms that cover your brand’s broader interests (e.g. skincare, improve acne, cleanser) while long-tail keywords are more specific questions or phrases (e.g. best skincare routine for acne).
Short-tail keywords are more common but cover a much wider scope, so not every searcher will have the intent to consume your goods or services. Long-tail keywords are less common but speak to the most interested customers. It’s important you include a good mix of both.
How To Choose Which Keywords To Target
To begin planning your blog post, conduct keyword research to understand what terms your target audience is searching for using tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush (our favourite). From there, come up with a blog post concept centred around no more than five keywords.
We suggest choosing a group of search terms that are all related to one overarching idea, so you can build a cohesive article with detailed insights (e.g. Our Top Five Cleansers for Acne-Prone Skin).
This is to avoid ‘keyword stuffing’, or unnaturally and excessively overloading your content with words and phrases in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. Your goal is to provide valuable, relevant content that naturally incorporates keywords.
Technical Optimisation
Meta Data
While most technical SEO is its own seperate beast, there are a few technical strategies you need to know about for blog writing — starting with meta data.
Meta data isn’t displayed on-page. It refers to the summaries of webpage content visible from the search engine results, encompassing a title and description. This is the first things Google will use to rank your blog post; so you want your blog’s meta title and description to include relevant keywords.
An example of an optimised meta title (blue) and meta description.
Alt tags are another form of meta data. They describe the content of images to search engines and are also played aloud to visually impaired users. Keyword-rich alt text will do two things at once: improve the accessibility of the blog post, and also tell search engines which keywords you’re targeting. Both of these things influence rankings by enhancing the user experience and indicating keyword relevance.
SEO Blog Headlines
The other technical component of a blog post is its headlines.
Headlines are important for grabbing the user’s attention, but did you know they have another purpose? Your headlines are also analysed by search engines.
On any website infrastructure, headers will be categorised as H1, H2, H3 and so on — with H1 being the on-page title. This is how Google understands the main topic of your webpage's content, so every single page needs a H1 title or Google won’t be able to rank it effectively. If it’s missing, Google won’t know where to begin. Alternatively, if you have multiple H1s, Google will be confused.
It’s also worth mentioning that H2 subheadings can help SEO too, not via the technical side but through enhancing user experience — which, as mentioned above, Google factors majorly into its rankings. The algorithm considers clear, well-formatted headings easier to read than large chunks of content, and it will rank a user-friendly content structure higher than competitor websites.
Link Building
Internal Links
In SEO, link building refers to actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of links to your various webpages, which in turn increases the search engine rankings of that page. There are two types of links to focus on.
Internal links are hyperlinks from one place on your website to another. This enhances SEO by distributing authority among pages — the more internal links it has, the more important the page will be to Google’s ranking. Each page should be linked at least once from somewhere else on your website. In fact, a page that isn’t discoverable by any link at all is a big ‘no no’ to the algorithm (known as orphan pages).
External Links
External links are also factored greatly into your SEO performance, considered a sign of trustworthiness and expertise. The first type of external link is an outbound link, where you defer to other reputable external websites throughout your blog post — like we did above when talking about orphan pages. The second type is backlinks, which is where another website links to your blog post. To learn more about how to earn external backlinks, read SEMrush’s backlinking guide.
For both internal and external links in blogs, prioritise relevance and authority by ensuring that the linked sources complement and enrich the topic discussed in your blog posts.
Freshness Signals
How Does Fresh Content Help SEO?
Freshness signals play a huge role in SEO. A freshness signal refers to any content that’s added to your website — such as new product descriptions, and of course blog posts.
Google prioritises new content because it reflects the latest information and trends, ensuring that users receive the most accurate and up-to-date results. Therefore, uploading regular blog posts will indicate the timeliness and relevance of your content to users' search queries.
This also signals to search engine crawlers that your website is actively maintained, increasing the likelihood of frequent indexing to constantly improve on your ranking. As a result, your blogging strategy should include a calendar of regularly published content.
How Often Should I Post Blogs?
For our clients, we include monthly blog posts in our SEO packages. Each month, we’ll review keyword positioning and industry trends, planning content ideas accordingly. Things to look out for are any keyword rankings that have slipped, or if there’s a trending topic that’s suddenly receiving high search volume.
A final note; make sure to upload your blog URL to Google Search Console once it’s live on your site. This lets Google know that your blog post is ready for analysis. If you’ve done all of the above, you should notice an increase in organic traffic within a month. Remember that SEO takes time!
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In conclusion, crafting the perfect SEO blog post requires a combination of careful research, strategic planning, technical optimisation, and link building. If you follow the advice in this guide, you can blog's visibility to attract more organic traffic, and ultimately achieve your content marketing goals.