How to Optimize Blog Posts for SEO.
If you have been searching for ways on how to optimize blog posts for SEO, organic traffic just isn’t where you want for your own site. Am I right? Keep reading and then implement these SEO techniques into your next blog post to help increase your blog traffic.
SEO Blog Examples.
As a very visual person, I love seeing SEO blog examples in order to know how to apply the principles of SEO to my own site. Take a very quick minute to look at this actual post and look at my long tail keyword which is “How to optimize blog posts for SEO.” You’ll see I have it in my heading and in the very opening sentence of my post. Now, this multiple-word keyword phrase is in the body of the post as well.
I used it three times in a natural way within the post. You don’t want to write posts just for the keywords though, you want to write so that it is very helpful to your reader. It should flow and make good logical sense to humans.
One mistake some people make, in understanding how search optimization works, is thinking the keyword needs to be written 15 or 20 times in a blog post.
- The truth is, you want it to be present but more importantly you want to fill the post with words that support the idea of the keyword.
- Use nouns wherever you can.
- The Google algorithm is a learning machine. It isn’t a human reader.
- Therefore, the processes it uses to understand posts resemble a cluster.
- It is searching for structure and data points or data patterns.
- It groups them together as being related information.
Remember as a kid playing with legos and you would group them together in piles. Sometimes by color, so blue over here and reds in a different location. Or you might group them by kinds of parts. You get the idea.
Google AI learning is using this clustering and this is why I believe niche websites are doing really, really well because Google knows and understands what the content is about and how it can benefit searchers.
You’ll read that “Content is King” all the time.
- From my experience, “Content is King” because when you have well-written posts with lots of nouns it makes it much easier for search engines to understand what your post is about contextually.
- Content that also is highly informative and helpful to your reader is good content so they stay on your site and their problem is solved in critical to the long-term success of your post as well.
I love the short video by Google Developers and at the 2:48 mark, it has a really great visual of machine learning clusters. You can also scrub the video back to understand more about it as well.
Because of clustering, you need to have the words surround your keyword through your content. Here in my post, you’ll see other related ideas to blogging in my H2 headings. These all support my point on how to optimize blog posts for SEO.
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Optimize the Images
Yes, images are a great way to add your main keyword as the image file name.
- Then when you upload the image, be sure to fill in the alt text information just as you would for someone who is blind.
- Just tell them what the image is about. Don’t force the keyword in there but if it makes sense then add it.
- Add the keyword to the image title and description boxes. These little things add up.
Optimize the Meta Description
If you are using Yoast or Rankmath fill in the meta description area with a short overview of what that post is about. Google isn’t always going to use what you have written but if it is filled out, you at least are telling them what you want the post to say.
Blog Keywords Examples
Keywords are in the simplest terms, what someone types into a search engine. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Duck Duck Go ect.
“Google handles 3.8 million searches per minute on average across the globe. That comes out to 228 million searches per hour, 5.6 billion searches per day, or 2 trillion searches per year!” Skai
When you type something into a search bar you’ll see a drop-down of related searches around the topic you are looking up. These are all keywords that you may potentially want to use for your blog posts.
Free Keyword Research Tool
Writing a good blog post that will eventually rank and bring you traffic starts with good keyword research. I know, it isn’t as fun as the writing part but it is very important.
One of the biggest mistakes I see bloggers make is skipping the research step and doing it after the blog post is written.
It is very hard to retrofit a blog post for your keyword.
For example, if you love Chocolate Chip Cookies and you write a whole blog post about them and then go do your research you’ll see that the competition is so high, you’ll honestly never rank on page 1 for it. You have really spent time on a post that will bring in 0 organic eyes to your post. Please don’t waste your time like that.
Instead, research it first. You just might find a recipe with a much lower competition that you can cover and bring traffic straight from Google to your site.
What free keyword research tool will help you do your research?
Ubersuggest is free to try and I suggest beginning here. Type in any keyword your blog should cover. You’ll see other variations of keywords and then look for SD numbers that are on the lower side. 0 is very easy and 100 is very difficult.
You are limited to 3 searches a day so use them carefully.
The problem with free tools is the limited amount of data you’ll be given and the quality. Data is expensive and as you grow in your SEO understanding you’ll need reliable data. When I do keyword research I’m searching through 10,000 of thousands of data points and 1000s of keywords in a single sitting. That just can not be done through a free tool.
But starting out, you need a jumping-off point and this is why I suggest starting with Ubersuggest.
Need help with SEO for your blog? We help busy bloggers with SEO Services. Check it out today!
Best free keyword research tool
The best free keyword research tool is the trial version of Semrush. I highly recommend their product and the support from their free Facebook group, “Semrush All-Stars” is excellent.
You can try Semrush for 7 days and no this isn’t an affiliate link, I just love their product.
Learning SEO is easy through their Semrush Academy as well. You can learn and even earn certifications when you have completed individual courses too.
Best Keyword Research Tool
It just is not possible to do solid keyword research without good tools and do it on the scale in which you’ll need to do research. If you can’t tell, I love Semrush for finding the best keywords for blog posts. It gives you access to so much data!
A good keyword tool will help you understand these factors.
- A long list of related keywords. You can’t possibly think of all the ways other people are searching for a topic so the tool will help you find closely related keywords.
- Search Volume. This will always be a rough estimate of how many people search that exact keyword in a given month. The monthly amount given is an average. If this is a seasonal keyword like “Christmas cookies” it won’t have the same amount in July as December but you will get an estimate so just tuck that little bit back into your mind when doing research.
- CPC or Cost Per Click. If there is a dollar amount there you will have paid competition. For most bloggers, you don’t want to select these words because you’ll have ads showing first before any organic posts. In general, for niche bloggers, I would say avoid those keywords.
- Keyword Difficulty. Each word/phrase is ranked by 0-100. 100 is a major site like Amazon or something like that. Your goal would be to look for lower numbers. 20-0 is a really good place to start. Especially for beginning bloggers. The keyword difficulty score is the FIRST number I look at. How hard is it to rank for this term? I want that to be a very low number.
- SERP Standings. This will show you who is already in the top 10 for that match now. These 10 websites are your competition. As you look at them you should be asking yourself, How many backlinks do they have? How many referring domains do they have? How many ranking keywords does that post have.
My long-time favorite tool is Semrush. It has all these features and much more for doing great keyword research. Data is expensive to get and if you want to do good keyword research you’ll need to invest in software to help you do the job well.
Keyword Planner
- Keyword Planner is Google’s tool for helping you plan a paid campaign.
- Therefore, you’ll uncover keywords that are already being bid on with ads. As a blogger, you probably do not want to be competing with ads.
- There will be ads at the top of the search results which will push organic links further down the search and you’ll also be competing against larger sites that are most likely using affiliate links to promote their product or service.
- I suggest not using Keyword Planner for research because of these reasons.
Keywords for Blog Titles
Okay, you’ve put in the hard work and have found a great keyword and you want to use it in your blog title. What is the best way to do add your keyword into your title?
By using this SEO blog title formula.
Number + Adjective + Keyword + Reason = Great Blog Title
For example. We will pretend our blog post is going to be all about “Free Keyword Research Tools”
Here are some excellent titles using the phrase.
2 Free Keyword Research Tools You Need to Try
5 Free Keyword Research Tools the Pros Use
7 Free Keyword Research Tools to Gain Traffic
H3 Numbers in Blog Titles
The human mind is drawn to numbers because you are giving them the exact # of reasons why this post will be helpful to them.
The keyword phrase is the main point of the problem that you will be solving and the short description at the end further entices them to click through and read it.
There are also other formulas too.
- How-to Posts
- Scarcity (Free Keyword Research Tools – Grab Them Before They Are Gone)
- Big Success (The Ultimate Guide to Free Keyword Research Tools)
- Use one of these formulas for every blog post title you write.
Catchy Blog Titles
If you do a google search for your favorite magazine and then click on the images option, you’ll see the cover of the issues. These can provide great inspiration for catchy blog titles to adopt and use in your own unique way.
- Just look through the titles of stories and see what ones jump out at you. Write them down, and see what patterns you see in the titles.
- Try using these patterns on your own blog posts.
- Remember, your blog title often times is shown in search and it is the main determining factor of why someone clicks through to read your article.
- Make sure it is a good title!
Blog Title Generator
There is a tool for that! Yup, there are some powerful tools that will help you write really good blog titles that will help readers want to click on your post vs someone else post.
Hoth Blog Title Generator
This helps you focus on your audience, what their pain points are and why they need to read your post. It takes less than 30 seconds to add in the words and then just press the button. You’ll see a whole list of ideas to think about!
FatJoe
If you want really easy titles this one by FatJoe is the one for you. Drop-in your keyword, hit the button and in 10 seconds of being on the page, you’ll have title ideas. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Optimizing your blog post for SEO isn’t as difficult as we sometimes think. Follow these steps and you will be well on your way to writing posts that gain organic traffic for your website.
Still need help with your blog? We are here to support you on your blogging journey. We offer SEO Services for keyword research, blog prep, and courses.
Need help with SEO for your blog? We help busy bloggers with SEO Services. Check it out today!