How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Search Engines

Search engine optimization (SEO) is incredibly important for marketers. When you optimize your blog posts, you’re making them more visible to people who are searching for keywords related to your product or service. But do you know how to optimize your blog posts?

Here are some easy SEO strategies to help you make your blog posts more search engine friendly.

Keyword Research

In every content strategy, you need to find keywords for on-page optimization. There are actually tools that can help you find keywords related to your topic which include Google Adwords Keyword Tool and semrush.com. Both of these tools can also spy on your competition to determine what words and phrases they’re using to bring traffic to their sites.

Optimizing your blog posts isn’t about using as many keywords as you can. Try to use 1-2 long tail keywords to help you get focused on your goal for your post.

Use The Keywords Throughout Your Post

Once you have determined a couple of keywords relevant to your blog post, you need to use them quite often in your content. That way, Google will realize that your content is about that particular keyword. Try to include the keywords in particular parts of your post, such as title, introduction, headers and body, URL, concluding paragraph, and meta descriptions.

A word of caution: Don’t overdo it because your blog post will be hard to read and you’ll get penalized by Google. A keyword density of 2% is ideal.

Optimize Your Images

Your blog post shouldn’t only contain text but it should also include pictures that will help elaborate your content. Each time you upload an image, make sure to incorporate keywords in the file name.

Don’t forget to fill out the alternate text field with a short, keyword rich description of the image. Adding keywords to your alternate text field may seem minor but it’s worth the extra time to change the name “IMG23456” to something more precise, like “cats-sleeping-in-basket:”

Link Your References

If you want your site to receive a high ranking in search engine results pages, use quality links. Always include a link to the information you’re referencing when you cite another article in your blog post. Not only is it good blogging decorum, but your blog post may receive a link back.

Call To Action

Give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your posts via email whenever possible. This instantly notifies your blog followers of any new content without to constantly check your site.

Make Your Blog Mobile-Friendly

Many people are now using their mobile phones to use search. That’s why Google tries to adapt to this new trend by showing mobile-friendly results first. If you’ve been trying to improve your mobile experience, you’d better do it now, or your search rankings could falter.

Make your website responsive so you can only use one URL instead of two. Cut back on heavy text and slow-loading flash animations.

Looking for more help with your blogging? Our team are experts at content creation and can help boost the SEO-effectiveness of your content. Get in touch today for a free consultation.