How to Write Blog Posts that Rank

28 Mar How to Write Blog Posts that Rank

Having a blog on your website is a great way to help you rank higher on the search engine results page and increase valuable web traffic to your site. However, it’s not as simple as you think. There is more to it than just writing content and slapping it on your website. The content that appears on your website needs to be high quality, and it needs to be an SEO friendly blog post. SEO is the bridge between your blog post and your Google ranking, so thinking about the structure and readability of your content is key.

Helpful Tips for an SEO Friendly Blog Post

1. Knowing your topic before you write the article is helpful when it comes to writing and structuring your blog post. It is easier to write when you know what you are writing about, especially since it makes it possible to research your topic. Otherwise, writing off the cuff can make your content seem erratic, lacking flow and structure. Well-written, engaging, and informative content is necessary if you want your audience to read and share your blog post.

2. Keyword research is another vital step. Doing keyword research before writing can sometimes help you develop content ideas, but it can also work the other way around too. Writing about your topic can also help you come up with potential keywords. You need to come up with words that are actually being searched for by your audience. Keywords should pertain to your topic, especially since these are the terms that are being used by your audience to find you. However, you must do keyword research before you make your final decision on which phrase to use.

3. Once you know your keywords, you need to be aware of how much you are using them in your text. While they should be found in a prominent place, you need to be careful not to over-use keywords. Using too high of a keyword density can signal to Google that you are over-stuffing keywords and will negatively affect your SERP rankings. Your writing needs to flow if you want traffic, and over-using keywords can make your writing seem chaotic and negatively affect your content’s readability.

4. Using headings and subheadings can help the reader guide through your article, helping with the structure and readability of the text. Besides the readability aspect, using keywords in your headings and subheadings can help you create an SEO friendly blog post. However, you cannot use your keyword in every header. Just like how you don’t overstuff your content with keywords, keywords should only be used in some of your headings to keep your content sounding natural and readable.

5. Using WordPress, you have the ability to use many useful, powerful plugins that can help make your website SEO friendly. The Yoast SEO plugin is a great plugin to help you write a blog post that conforms to what Google is looking for when it comes to SEO rankings. Yoast SEO can help you optimize every webpage on your site by simply inputting your SEO keyphrase into the plugin. Yoast will then check to see if your page or post is fully optimized, and if it’s not, it will tell you what needs to be corrected.