How to Write an SEO-Friendly Blog

Blogs are a great way to establish your website as an industry resource, generate return visitors, and add plenty of high-volume keywords to your website! However, how you write the blog post makes all the difference. Two blogs on the same topic can have two vastly different SEO values, and we're here to tell you why! Follow these easy blogging tips to help write an SEO-friendly blog! 

What is SEO-Friendly?

SEO-friendly content put simply is content that is written in a way that helps search engines rank that content higher. This leads to coming up earlier in search engine results, getting more website traffic, a boost in analytics, and so on. There are so many factors that contribute to search engines optimization, and following SEO best practices throughout your website is vital. For a full search engine optimization (SEO) breakdown, check out our blog "A Beginner's Guide to SEO to learn SEO basics!

Blogging Basics

Whether you're wondering how to start a blog or how to write an SEO-friendly blog, there are a few basic guidelines every blogger should follow. Some of the main blogging best-practice basics include:

• Titles: A simple, concise, and eye-catching title is more important than you may think. The title of your blog post helps search engine crawlers understand what your post is about so it can be properly crawled, indexed, and ranked. Overly wordy or vague titles can cause crawlers to misunderstand or rank your blog post. These titles cause readers to lose interest before they even click the post. 
• Consistent Posting Schedule: Fresh, regular content is important to both search engine crawlers and website visitors. Set an attainable number of blog posts you want to write per month and how you want to space them. Writing ten blogs a month can not only be hard to accomplish but can bury your content before website visitors even stumble upon it. On the other hand, writing only one blog every other month may not be enough to keep users checking back. Having a consistent posting schedule helps you plan ahead and also lets your readers know when to check back for a new post.
• CTA: No matter what type of blog you're writing, be it a business blog or a personal blog, include a call to action (CTA) at the end of every post! Do you want the reader to subscribe to your blog? Contact you? Learn more about a product or service? Include a hyperlink, button, or submission form under the CTA to help accomplish these goals. 
• Meta Description: Not only should every website page have a meta description but every blog post should as well. Aim for 140-160 characters that will entice readers to check out the full blog. 
• Subscription Feature: Keep readers coming back to your website while boosting your email marketing by giving visitors the option to subscribe to your blogs. Notify them when a new post is made or send out a monthly blog recap. Subscribe to Global Reach blogs!
• Cross-Promote: When a new blog is posted, get the word out by sharing it across all your social platforms! Post a fun graphic on Instagram, tweet an interesting snippet, or make a vlog version of your blog on YouTube. Check out our vlog series: Get A GRIP!

6 Easy Ways to Boost Your Blog's SEO Value

1. Keyword Research 

Keyword research is vital to both website pages and blog posts. What people are searching for and how they are searching should guide your writing. If you don't have any SEO software, free keyword research tools can give you some ideas. Google Trends can give insights on the best way to phrase keywords, location popularity, and related searches. 

If you hire professional digital marketing services, you can gain access to advance keyword reporting tools and SEO experts. Here at Global Reach, we provide clients with keyword reports, optimize existing blogs, or write fully optimized blogs from scratch! 

2. Establish Core Keywords

Though topics will vary from blog post to blog post, the nature of your website/business does not. Keyword research relevant to your specific blog topic is vital, but as is general keyword research for your business as a whole. Choose a set of core keywords relevant to what your business does or sells, and try to find ways to incorporate them into each blog in a way that feels natural. 

3. Proper Formatting 

Structure and hierarchy factor heavily into search engine rankings. Following clear and consistent formatting throughout a blog is important in helping search engine crawlers understand your blog. Having every heading formatted as an H1 can confuse crawlers about the blog topic and can harm its ranking. A post should only have one H1 that clearly and concisely identifies the primary, overarching topic of the blog. From there, the headings should follow with H2s and their corresponding H3s ending with an H4 CTA. This is a general guideline that can vary given the length of the post and the necessity of additional headings.

4. Internal Linking 

Internal linking not only prompts website visitors to visit more pages on your website, but it is also great for SEO. Hyperlinks with clear anchor text can help crawlers identify the most important pages on your website. The more incoming internal links a page has, the more important it will seem to search engines. With that being said, having too many internal links is not visually appealing for readers. Tip: Make sure your links are set to open in a different window, if they open in the same window it can hurt your bounce rate! 

5. Image Alt Text 

If you include any images in your blog (which is usually a good idea) make sure they include alt text! Aside from the inherent benefits of WCAG compliance and general appeal to readers, there's also a major search engine optimization benefit. The SEO benefit of image alt text is twofold. Firstly, it gives you the chance to add in some extra keywords. Second, if a user types into their search engine the alt text keyword(s) and clicks the "Images" tab, your image and website will pop up in the results!

6. Length

The length of your blog post is important for a wide array of reasons. SEO best practice calls for at least 200 words per page, ideally, you would want even more for a blog post. A blog that is the proper length allows you to adequately incorporate the five tips discussed above. A 150-word blog stuffed with keywords, images, and internal links looks bad to both search engines and readers. With that being said, there's no "golden number" to shoot for in terms of length. The length of your blog depends on the topic, writing ability, and the time you have to write the blog. Play around with length from post to post and see what looks and feels the best to you!

Why You Should Hire Copywriting Specialists 

These tips merely scratch the surface of what you should keep in mind to write a strong blog that looks good to both readers and search engines. In addition to the expertise and industry knowledge that copywriters bring, it can also save you valuable time! Graphic design, web design, digital marketing, and sometimes even web development are significant factors in running a successful blog. Employing copywriting services to help with your blogs allows you to be as hands-on or hands-off as you want in your website blogs. At Global Reach, we provide clients with detailed keyword reports to help guide your writing, optimize the blogs you write for maximum SEO value, or write optimized blogs for you! 

Get Tangible Results

Our digital marketing specialists are experts in all the aspects that go into writing successful blog posts. From content writing to search engine optimization to creative strategy, we've got you covered. Let us show you blogs can change your business! 

Get a FREE Blog Consultation Today!