Writing a blog on your website is one of the most effective ways to optimise SEO and push you up to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines work by crawling websites for the information a person is searching for. This information is the keyword or key phrase. It ranks those web pages on relevance to the keyword/phrase, how up-to-date the information is, and how well the website performs technically. Posting to a blog regularly is a great way to ensure your website has a steady stream of good quality, recently published information that will help it stand out amongst all the other websites battling to be seen on the results page.
If we think about how people use a search engine, they normally ask a question (the key phrase). If you have recently written a blog post with the exact or nearly exact phase that searchers enter, search engine crawlers will show your post first, knowing it will be useful to the searcher. Once the searcher clicks on your post, they are on your website and could then become a lead or customer.
If, like me, you love a good statistic, then businesses that blog get 55% more visitors to their websites than those that don’t (Social Media Today). You can’t argue with the facts, but why not write a blog post about them instead?
So, how do you write for SEO?
Here’s our guide to getting the most out of your post and what to do when you upload it to your website.
SEO Blog Writing Best Practices
- Keyword Research: Identify and target relevant search terms your audience uses.
- Compelling Headlines: Create attention-grabbing titles that include primary keywords.
- Meta Description: Write engaging meta descriptions within 150-160 characters.
- Content Structure: Use headers (H1, H2, H3) to organise content logically.
- Optimal Length: Aim for 1,500-2,500 words for comprehensive coverage.
- Internal Linking: Connect to relevant content within your website.
- External Links: Include authoritative sources and references when relevant.
- Image Optimisation: Use descriptive alt text and compress images for faster loading.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure content displays properly on all devices.
- URL Structure: Create clean, keyword-rich URLs.
Remember to write for humans first and search engines second. Quality content that provides value will naturally perform better in search results. Consider your audience’s specific needs and preferences.
Happy Writing!
