September 1, 2022
Your blog is an opportunity to engage with your audience on a personal level and share knowledge you have about your industry. But did you know that your blog is for more than just providing valuable content to your readers? It’s also for providing authentic content for search engines to determine what you’re all about and rank you accordingly. Search engines evaluate your content based on relevance, quality, and usability. In this article, we’ll show how you can not only interest your readers, but also get your website ranking through effective blog copy for SEO.
Research SEO Keywords Searched by Your Target Audience
First, conduct research about keywords and phrases to use in your blog. This will help you produce relevant content. When you’re evaluating keywords, you want to consider both popularity and difficulty.
For example, pretend you were writing this article about how to perform keyword research to optimize your SEO. If you were to look at the data from Google Keyword Planner (shown on the right), the search term “keyword research for SEO” shows that there are 1k-10k searches per month on this phrase. Next, look at the competition for the keyword. According to this information alone, there are up to 10k searches a month for this keyword with very little competition for you to rank for that keyword. So, your audience is interested in reading this content and if you provide that information, search engines will most likely show it because not much else is available.
A variety of tools exist to help you do this, including Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, Google Trends, and Yoast.
Add Valuable Internal Links and External Links to Your Articles
Next, you’ll want to add internal and external links.
Internal links send readers to somewhere else on your own site. They are helpful for readers who are looking for more in-depth information or are ready to take a next step. Search engines also follow that same path. Internal linking communicates to search engines that this other page is also important; don’t miss it!
External links, on the other hand, encourage readers to discover more information outside of your site. For example, you may link to your sources or other beneficial resources relevant to their interests. This establishes credibility and trustworthiness with your reader. In the same way that you would cite your sources on a research paper, these links communicate the quality of the information provided. Search engines are looking for that quality. They want to see that you are provide valuable, accurate information from reputable sources.
Use Strong Headlines for Each Blog Section
Organize your blog post into sections, which you’ll want to make obvious by using headings and labeling them accordingly.
Headings are important for SEO because search engines use them to determine what your content is about and what the hierarchy of information is. Headings give your readers (and Google) a path through the article and make it easier for them to skim through information quickly. This makes your content more useable! Search engines prioritize headlines over body copy when it comes to ranking, so you want to ensure that each headline accurate reflects the information provided and contains important keywords related to the content within.
Heading levels (H1, H2, H3…) should be used to communicate importance. With readers, this is done visually. For example, H1s are larger and more prominent than H3s. With search engines, this is done with the H1, H2, and H3 tags. Interested in more information about headline tags? check out this article from Yoast or see the photo for an example of how some websites allow you to simply change your headline tags.
Post Quality Blog Content on a Regular Schedule
Consistency is just as important as effective blog copy for SEO. Relevance is one aspect of SEO and it is not just about providing content that people are searching for. You must also make sure that information is up-to-date. Posting regularly will keep your readers engaged and communicate to Google and other search engines that you’re staying active and relevant with those topics. You don’t have to worry about writing every day or even every week! Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. Set aside time to focus on writing and don’t skip it. If weekly or biweekly seems daunting, start with monthly.
Conclusion
Writing effective blog copy for SEO will always be an evolving process. You’ll need to stay on top of trends and best practices to continue to provide relevant and quality content for your readers and search engines alike.
That said, follow these basic things as a starting point to ensure that your writing is optimized for readers and google! Keep these tips in mind as you write your next blog post. And don’t forget to check out all the other ways you can make your more website effective to attract your target audience and increase your business growth!