By Heather King
As a business owner, you probably regularly hear terms like search engine optimization (SEO), online marketing strategy, and blogging tossed around as best practices. And there really is a reason for that!
Blogging allows your business always to have fresh content to share—and ideally sets you up as an expert in your chosen field of business. In fact, a well-written blog post optimized for search engines can significantly increase your organic traffic to your website—which is a big deal for SEO and, ultimately, your bottom line. If you’re not a tech-savvy person or you’re just starting to build a cohesive online marketing strategy, here are 10 simple SEO tips you can use to optimize your blog posts and improve your search engine rankings.
Do Keyword Research
Using relevant keywords in your blog posts can help search engines identify the topic and purpose of your post and how it fits into the searcher’s intent. Google Keyword Planner is one great tool that you can use to find relevant keywords. Be sure to use one or two keywords in your post title, meta description, headline tags, and throughout the body of your content.
Use Headings and Subheadings to Divide Your Content
Not only does this technique improve the readability of your blog post for your reader, but it also helps search engines process your content. Make sure you use relevant keywords in your headings and subheadings as they serve as signposts for the search engines, telling them what your post is about.
Optimize Your Meta Description
Your meta description is a short summary of your blog post that appears in the search results. It’s important to optimize this part of the post since it’s visible to the user. When writing your meta description, make sure that your focus keyword is included and that the description is relevant and enticing to a potential or current customer.
Use Images
Images are a great way to capture the attention of your readers, and they can also be optimized to improve your SEO. When choosing images, be sure to use relevant filenames that include your focus keywords, fill out alt text and image descriptions fields for each image in your post, and optimize the size of the images to avoid slow load times that could hurt your page speed ranking.
Use Internal and External Links
Link building is a critical component of SEO. Not only does it improve user experience by providing helpful information, but it also helps search engines understand the structure of your post. Include internal links to your related blog posts and relevant calls-to-action on your website, and external links to reputable sources that support your content.
Write Quality Content
Quality content is more important than ever, where readers decide whether to click in only seconds. When writing a blog post, make sure that your content is engaging, relevant, and valuable to your target audience (link to 5 things to consider before launch post when live). Readers will love it, and search engines will reward your efforts.
Be Mindful of Your Post Length
Word count is not necessarily indicative of good content. That said, make sure your blog post has enough words to cover your main topic. At minimum, your post should be about 500 words with an ideal length of around 1,500-2,000 words if your subject is weighty enough. This allows for in-depth coverage of your topic while keeping your reader engaged.
Use Social Media
Social media plays an important role in SEO. Posts shared on social media increase the visibility of your blog and website. When you publish your blog post, make sure to share it on your social media platforms, using relevant hashtags that match your keywords where applicable, to reach as many people as possible.
Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
Mobile-friendly websites are a must-have when most browsers are accessing information from their smart phones. It’s important that your website and blog are responsive across all devices. This is also critical since mobile-friendly sites are favored by Google.
Continuously Monitor and Improve Your SEO
Keep an eye on your analytics to see how your blog posts are performing. What keywords seem to resonate with your audience? Which ones are not having much success? Use this information to make key decisions on future keyword choices and topics you should be focusing on.
Get SEO Optimized
Using these 10 tips can help you optimize your blog posts for SEO. Over time, the impact of these optimizations can lead to a significant increase in visibility and traffic to your website and blog.
To learn more about Elle Marketing’s SEO-optimized business blog strategies, set up a consultation today.