Ranking no 1 on google is the prayer of every blogger but it doesn’t just happen. You have to approach it with a strategy. Otherwise, you will write an awesome blog but it will struggle to get to the top 10 on google. so in this article, I’ll show you how you can start witting SEO friendly blog posts.
Nowadays, a good keyword is not the only important thing when it comes to search engine optimization. Of course, using the right keywords in your blog post is good but don’t focus all your strength on keyword stuffing.
What should you aim for and how should you write a blog post so that it not only rank #1 on google but also satisfy the reader? Here are the exact steps I take when writing my blog posts.
Follow them so that you will start getting more traffic to your blog from google.
10 Tips to Write an SEO Friendly Blog Posts
- Do keyword research
- Understand the search intent
- Use keywords the right way
- Structure your article like a pro
- Use Headings properly
- Use shorter paragraph
- Long content is king
- Link to and from related posts on your website
- Write an awesome title
- Write a helpful and short description aka excerpt
Do keyword research
Is keyword research really important?
The short answer: “YES”
The somewhat long answer
Keyword research is one of the most important things when it comes to blogging online. It will help you in many ways.
It will give you insight into different topics and questions that are being discussed in any niche. And it will help you to know whether you can rank for them.
And even after you’ve picked a topic to write about, doing keyword research will help you to know some questions people ask related to the topic.
But what if you are the professor and you know all the topics and questions that anyone would ask?
Proper keyword research will help you know how the questions are being asked and related questions that you can add to your blog post.
So make sure you do keyword research before writing your blog posts.
How to find good keywords for your blog
- Brainstorm
- Check other blogs
- Use a keyword tool
- Check Q&A sites
- Look for related keywords on google
- Use “answer the public” to find questions related to the chosen topic
1. Brainstorm
This is the first step to take, you have to brainstorm and think about the topics or questions that your audience might have.
This way you get a general idea of where your focus should be.
2. Check Other blogs
If you are an avid blog read (and you should be) you can quickly know what is currently trending. When you see most of your colleagues (a.k.a competitors) writing about a particular topic.
This should give you an idea of what you should write about.
But this doesn’t mean you should just copy exactly what they’ve written. Remember to always at your own opinions and make them unique to you and you alone.
But this is not the final stage, not yet
3. Use a keyword tool
There are different keyword research tools that you can choose from. You can start with the free ones of now.
I use google keyword planner, h-supertools and keyword.io to find additional keywords that I can rank for. I usually focus more on finding low competition, high CPC keywords.
Thankfully, on h-supertools after you insert a keyword it will give you related keywords. There is an option where you can filter the table to see the high CPC keywords
4. Q&A sites
The beat Q&A site for now (that I personally use) is quora. On quora, if you search for any keyword, you will find more related questions that you can use inside your blog post.
Most of these questions are of low competition keywords, so adding them to your post will boost your traffic.
5. Look for related keywords on google
This is one other strategy that is usually neglected by many but trust me it’s a goldmine.
Google itself, is telling you what people are currently searching for.
So stop neglecting it and start using it to find keywords for your articles.
6. Use “Answer the public” to find answers related to the chosen product
If you go to answer the public and search your seed keyword, you will find many different variations of that topic.
But I want you to focus mainly on the questions part.
In answer the public you can find different questions to use on your blog.
Now you understand how to do keyword research it now time to learn about the second most important thing you should do if you want to rank on the top 10 of Google
Understand the search intent
After taking your time to select the best keywords for your blog, it is very important that you understand the search intent of that keyword.
Why is this important and how does it help you for SEO?
To explain this let me use an illustration
Let’s say user A is searching for “how to read” while user B, is searching for “how to read a night before an exam”
The search intent of user A is very different from that of user B. Let me break it down.
From the questions, you can tell what the person is really expecting to see.
User A might be someone who doesn’t know how to read but wants to learn to read a particular language, so this person will be expecting to see a tutorial for a language.
While user B is someone who knows how to read already but is going to write an exam the next day.
So this person will be expecting to see a technique or a reading formula that will help them read faster and remember when needed.
Now let’s use this article as an example.
After I chose the title I wanted to blog about. I discovered that anyone searching for “how to blog for SEO” – or “how to write SEO friendly blog posts” or related topics – wants to know how they can write articles properly in order to rank in google.
So what did I do? I wrote about it, giving actionable steps and explaining in detail all the steps
That’s what you should be doing too, no matter your niche.
Before you sit down to write, make sure you understand why someone will be searching for your article.
This will help you to know what they are currently struggling with and you will be able to write the perfect blog post
How does it help you rank
The simple answer, it reduces your bounce rate.
How?
When people come to your website and see that you’ve got the exact answer to their question and the solution to their problem.
They will definitely continue reading to understand everything. Therefore, they will remain on your website for a longer time, reducing your bounce rate.
On the flip side of things, when they discover that your article does not contain the solution or answer to their problem, they will quickly leave to find a better answer and this will increase your bounce rate.
You now understand how you can do keyword research and I’ve also explained why you need to know the search intent of the keyword.
It’s now time to know exactly how you can use those keywords efficiently.
Use keywords the right way
Writing a blog is not complete until you actually finish writing it. But, how do you write it in such a way that your readers will love it and it will rank on google?
It all comes down to using keywords the right way.
Of course, you want to rank for a particular keyword but that doesn’t mean you should fill your article with only that keyword. Doing that is called “keyword stuffing”
What you want to do, instead, is to use different keywords related to the main keyword you want to rank for.
So how do you do this? Let me break it down
Let’s say, you want to rank for the keyword “retirement plan”
Black hat strategy would be
“The best retirement plan you can choose today is a retirement plan that will help you when you retire. So start working towards getting the best retirement plan”
How did that sound? Weird right? YES. In this case, Google will hate you and so will your readers.
Now, let’s look at how it should be
White hat strategy would be
“The best retirement plan you should go for is one that will take care of all your expenses when you get old. So make sure you start working towards your retirement today”
This is just off the top of my head. I know nothing about retirement plans. But I think you get the point.
When doing it right you can see that I used keywords like “retirement plan”, “retirement” and “best retirement plan” together. Instead of just one keyword.
To get similar keywords that you can use, go to any keyword research tool, add the main keyword you’d like to rank for and you’ll get other similar keywords.
That’s how it’s done, just make sure you avoid keyword stuffing as it can reduce your ranking on google and it will make your posts sound awkward.
Structure your article like a pro
Why structure your post and how can you structure it? Read on
Structuring your post makes it easy for your readers to quickly read through your blog and understand exactly what you are talking about.
So how is it done?
I follow a very simple pattern that I believe is the best and you should start using it too
How to structure your post like a pro
- Heading
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
Heading
Your heading should be short and descriptive. Make sure your readers know exactly what to expect when they read your heading or title.
Also, make sure you add your keyword in your title because it can help you rank.
Just use the title of this post as an example “How to write SEO friendly blog post: copy my exact strategy“
As you can see it’s very descriptive, telling you right from the start that this post is going to teach you how to rank on google and it doesn’t stop there.I
t also help you to know that I share my exact strategy that you can just copy.
Introduction
The introduction should also be short and descriptive, telling your readers what to expect in your article.
This will ignite the interest in your readers and will make them read the full article.
Body
This is the main part of your article, it is the part where you’ll explain what your chosen topic is all about.
Remember we chose related keywords when we were doing our keyword research. This is the best place to weave those keywords into your articles.
The Conclusion
After you’ve written about the chosen topic, it’s now time to write your conclusion, it will also be nice if you use the exact keyword that you want to rank for in your conclusion.
And as a good practice, ask your readers a question at the end of your posts in your conclusion.
This will help you increase your rank on google because when people read your blog, they’ll get the question and some of your readers will answer your questions
Therefore, increasing your engagement, and since engagement is a good ranking metric. It will tell Google that your content has to be ranked higher on the web
Use headings properly
How would you feel if everything on this page was the same font size? Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to read through and it will make it look like a never-ending post.
So here’s what you should do, use different heading to light things up.
Usually, when you do this your readers will have the idea that they are getting to the end of the post, and it wouldn’t feel had to read.
So use the h1, h2, h3 and even h4 tags in order. This is how it’s done
Where to use the h1 tag
The h1 tag is used for the title of your post, and this is the only place where you should use the h1 tag.
Where to use the h2/h3/h4 tags
Like I said earlier, the h2/h3/h4 tags should be used for the main points and subsections in order as this will make reading your blog seamless.
This way you will give your blog post a professional look and at the same time, make it easier to read.
Use shorter paragraphs
When you use short paragraphs when writing your blog post, it’s going to make it really easy for people to read your post.
It’s quite hard to read a blog post with a chunk of text. Normally, I prefer to read blog posts that space their paragraphs well.
Come to think of it, when a blog is properly spaced with shorter paragraphs it won’t look like the text is long. So you can easily read through it without thinking of the length.
Recommended:11 Blogging Tips I Learnt After Blogging For Three Months (2021)
Long content is king
You want to make your post the best resource on the internet. I always strive to make my article more than 2000 words. That way, I’ll be convinced that it is good.
Anyways, that is just my own personal rule. Your post doesn’t have to be two thousand words for you to rank on google.
But one important thing you should keep in mind is that Google is constantly trying to rank only the best content on the web. It does this to ensure that people searching for things find exactly what they are looking for.
To illustrate this, let’s say you are searching for “how to make money online” would you rather listen to someone who shows you the various ways of making money online in just 10 sentences or would you listen to the one that tells you the various ways plus the exact strategy and approach.
Of course, you’ll go for the second option. Now let me ask you among the two which one do you think will be longer? The one with the simple list or the one with a list and the strategies.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you should make your content unnecessarily long, if you do that it can also hurt you.
So here’s what you should do. Always make sure that your content is long enough to explain all the important points. But not too long and filled with fluff ( I mean irrelevant stuff)
Link to and from related posts on your website
Internal links have different benefits to your blog.
Firstly, it will increase your dwell time ( this is the time someone spends on your website)
Secondly, it tells Google that you know your stuff because most times the best linking is going to be to a related post which will position you as an expert in the eyes of Google.
There are different things I’ll like you to know about links
Anchor text
Use a descriptive anchor text when linking to or from other posts on your website. This way when crawlers come to your site. They will be able to know what the posts you linked to are really about.
A good example of this is when I linked to my post about affiliate marketing and creating a free website. Did you notice the keywords I used to link to those posts? They are called anchor texts.
Link more to important pages
If you have a page promoting a product or a service that you offer, you should link more to those pages.
It tells Google that the page is important on your website and it can also help you rank on google.
Write an awesome title
If the title of your articles are of low quality, it can reduce your click-through rate. Therefore, it will reduce the amount of traffic coming to your site
But on the flip side, if you have an awesome title when people see your website listed on google, it will make more people click on your article. Therefore, increasing your CTR and the amount of traffic coming to your site.
But one more thing it can do is, it can help you rank higher on google. Let’s say you manage to rank one of your posts to the top 10 on Google.
If more people click on your article than that of the 9th, before long you would outrank the 9th person because your CTR is higher. Telling Google that more people prefer to see read your article.
And if this continues, before long you’ll be ranking #1 for that keyword. Of course, this is just one of the many factors that will help you rank so don’t neglect it.
Write a helpful and short description aka excerpt
How many times have you read a blog’s description before deciding to read it?
Writing good descriptions will drastically increase the traffic to your website or blog. If you are blogging on WordPress then writing a description will be very easy.
Just scroll down and you can find the excerpt section where you can add a quick description of what your article is all about.
As a good practice, always make sure you add the main keyword you are trying to rank for in the description.
But don’t do it in such a way that it will look unnatural. Google is becoming smarter by the minute so ensure that your post sounds natural.
Conclusion
In this article, I’ve shown you the exact process I follow to optimize my posts for search engines to help me rank higher on Google.
I showed you step by step exactly what you should do, showing you the complete blueprint of writing an SEO friendly blog post.
These are really simple steps that you can start implementing today (that’s if you weren’t doing it already)
So now that you’ve gotten to the end of this post, let me know in the comment section. What are the two most valuable tips you got from this article?