Nine basic tips for SEO friendly blog
Just like every other writing, blog post writing requires the skill of an expert. To get the attention of your reader, and keep them interested in your article, you need to think about the structure and create appealing texts. To assist your readers to get the main idea of your article, you need to provide headings, subheadings as well as clear paragraphs. If your readers get intrigued by your post, you are more likely to get your post shared with their friends. With the increasing number of people reading your post, your rankings will rise as well. Therefore, the first thing that you will like to do so as to get your blog ranked high by Google will be to invest in your writing skills.
To some, writing an article for SEO purposes while simultaneously creating a captivating content seemed like two contradictory goals, which is not entirely accurate. Although you need to carefully insert some specific words in prominent places when you are preparing an SEO friendly post, making too much use of these words will damage the readability of your post severely. Therefore you should totally avoid doing just that.
In this write-up, you will be exposed to tips that will not only make your posts captivating but SEO compliant as well. Our belief is that these two goals shouldn’t be separated and should go hand in hand with each other. These form the best practices for blogging to come out as a successful blogger.
Basic tips for writing a good blog post
Just before you put your pen to your paper, you have to be conscious of the fact that your blog post has to be a masterpiece of writing. Most people into blogging have the opinion that all they need to do is just to start writing once they are creating a new blog post. All they do is put down the things that come to their mind. Although this might not be a problem for some people that are naturally talented with writing, however, several others are in need of help. Some of the rules that we follow are as discussed below.
1. Deep thinking
Just before you write any statement, think very hard about the message of your write-up. What messages are you trying to pass across to your readers and what central questions will you want to raise it? For what purpose are you creating the content? And what actions would you like your readers to take at the end of the page? Make sure that you note the answers to these questions before proceeding.
2. Write down your structure
Begin your post by creating a clear and precise structure. Every blog post is expected to have:
- An introduction (where the topic is introduced);
- A body (where your main is expressed);
- A conclusion (which summarizes the whole post).
Put down what you will like to put in all the sections. Once this is done, you now have a skeleton of your blog post, and the main writing can start.
3. Paragraphs are important.
Of course, almost every blogger makes use of paragraphs. However, not everyone makes use of them effectively. You have to be sure that your paragraphs make sense. Don’t start a new sentence on an entirely different line because it looks nice to you. Each paragraph should effectively describe a single idea. Always ask yourself what the main idea is in each paragraph. The main idea should be grasped easily within just one sentence. If this cannot be done, and you need more than a sentence, then you should simply produce more paragraphs.
4. Headings should be used
Headings help you to structure the whole page. Hence, you should make use of headings. They are not only important for readability but SEO too. They help search engines get the main idea of your post and help to increase your SERP ranking. Making use of subheadings will help to guide people through your article. Do not forget to insert your keywords in some subheadings. Do not try to force it into every single subheading.
5. Signal words are important
Signal words are important to help your readers go through your blog post and get the information you are trying to pass. Say for example; there are three reasons why people should do something. Making use of signal words such as: "First of all," "secondly" as well as "finally" will be perfect. Use of words such as ‘indeed’ and ‘surely’ gives clears signal to the readers of your post.
GET COMPLETE ONSITE SEO REPORT OF YOUR WEBSITE - 100% FREE!
6. Ask other people’s opinion
Just before you publish your post, share it with your friends and ask their opinion. Ask if they understand the main idea of the blog post. Make necessary correction to typing errors and sentences not structured properly.
7. Optimize your article length.
Ensure that your post reaches at least 300 words. Search engines prefer long articles, although too long posts will scare away your readers. Therefore, try to keep it between 500 and 700 words. You should also try to ensure that your search terms appear in about 1 percent the entire text. Therefore, your search term should be mentioned about five times in a 500 words article.
8. Link previous contents
In case you have previous posts related to your current post, then you should not forget to link these posts. This will make your post stronger, as this shows that you are an authority in the given field. Also, your link structure is important in your SERP ranking. Also, there is a great possibility that your readers have an interest in these other posts.
9. Regularly add contents
Regularly adding new posts to your blog will signify to search engines that your website is alive. If it is sensed not to be active, GOOGLE crawler will go through it less often. This will have a negative impact on your rankings.
In a nutshell
The time when SEO tricks were enough to rank your website high on search engines is long gone. Nowadays, great content with SEO will do the trick. Great content will also lead to more tweets, Facebook likes and shares as well as return visitors. Don’t forget to sprinkle your keywords nicely, but above all, create a captivating post!
Thirumalesh Prasad C G (Thiru) is an entrepreneur, Founder, and CEO of Inboundsys. He has over 22 years of experience working for various multinational IT products and services companies in India and abroad. He was a significant member and worked as a user interface architect, designing the user interface for many web applications and products. In addition to running Inboundsys, he is an advisory board member in various other design studios and digital marketing agencies. He is a passionate blogger who loves writing on digital marketing, inbound marketing, lifestyle, philosophy, positive thinking, and motivation.