Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is very important if you want to achieve high ranking results for your blog posts. When you optimise your web pages, including your blog posts, you are more likely to be found by potential customers who have entered relevant keywords associated with your product or service via search engines like Google.
But does your blog content really help your website to rank higher on Google and will it increase your visitor traffic?
The simple answer is yes! This is because well written blog posts will help you to increase the SEO quality of your website by positioning your site as a valuable resource to answer questions that are being asked online, by customers searching for the products or services you provide.. Highly optimised blog posts offer you an additional opportunity to rank highly on Google and increase the number of potential new customers visiting your website.
The following Top 10 tips on “How To Make Your Blog Posts Search Engine Friendly” will help to increase the opportunity for your posts to rank more highly in the Google search results
1) Only target one or two relevant long tail keywords for each blog post that you write.
Although you could use more than one or two keywords in a single blog post, you should keep the content of the post sufficiently focussed, to enable you to easily optimise your target keywords.
These long tail, often question type keywords help to keep your blog post concentrated on the topics that are of interest to your audience. For example, the long-tail keyword “how to fix a leaking tap” is much more specific in it’s meaning compared to the shorter keyword “leaking tap”.
Your website visitors that are using a long-tail keyword search term are far more likely to read your complete blog post which will increase the possibility that they may contact you for more information. In other words, they represent highly targeted visitors, genuinely interested in your content. They are likely to spend more time on your site and may well end up buying from you.
2) It is important that you Include your long tail keywords in specific sections of your blog post.
What are the most important areas of your blog post to include these keywords to enable you to rank highly in search engine ranking results?
The four most important sections where you should include your long tail keywords are, your posts title and meta description tags plus your body text and URL.
3) Title Meta Tag
The title of your blog post will be Google’s and the reader’s first step to determine how relevant your content is in relation to the search term used. Therefore, including your keyword in your blog post title is a critical part of the search engine optimisation process. The same keyword must also be placed in your Title meta tag, which is equally important.
If you have a a very long headline, you should use your keyword at the beginning as your headline may appear truncated in the search engine listings, if it is positioned towards the end, From a visitors perspective, this is also likely to have an adverse affect on the perceived relevancy of your blog post.
4) Your Main Body Text
It is important that you include your long tail keywords in that main body text of your post. However this should be done without affecting the readability and natural flow of your content. It is also very important that you do not over do it and use your keyword too many times within your body text. This is because Google’s algorithm will calculate the keyword density of your keyword and if it is more that a few percent of the total number of words contained in your blog post you will be penalised for this.
5) Your Blog Page Web Address (URL)
One of the first things that all search engines will analyse is the URL of your blog post, as this will enable them to establish the primary topic of your post. It is therefore vitally important to ensure that every blog post contains an optimised URL.
6) Your Meta Description Tag
The purpose of your meta description tag is to provide Google and other search engines with a brief description of your blog post’s content. It is important that you include your keyword within your description to help your potential visitors to have a better understanding of your blog posts content.
Your meta description is the additional text that appears in the search engine ranking results underneath your title. Your description provides your customers with important information that they will require, in order to determine whether or not your content is what they are searching for and ultimately helps them decide if they will click on your listing and visit your website to find out more.
You need to remember that the maximum length of this meta description should be no more than about 300 characters. If you make it too long it will appear truncated in the Google search results.
7) It is very important that your Blog has a mobile responsive design
Far more people are now using their mobile phones for online searches rather than using a desktop computer?
And did you know that Google displays these mobile search results first, in their search engine ranking results? This is why it is critically important that your website is mobile friendly.
8) Any images used in your blog post need to be optimised with image alt text
As Google cannot “see” images in the same way humans can, they rely on the image’s alt text to determine what an image is about. Using image alt text will help to improve the overall optimisation of your blog post. This will also help to rank your images specifically in Google’s image search results.
9) Where possible you should link your blog post internally to another page on your website
Internal links to other relevant content on your site will help search engines to understand the relevancy of your overall website. If you have already written about a topic that’s mentioned in your blog post on another post or web page, it’s a best SEO practice to link to that page.
10) Consider removing outdated content from your blog
It is important that you remove any outdated content that is no longer relevant on a regular basis. This is especially important if you have blog posts that include out of date statistics and old product information that is no longer valid.
I hope that you have found our “Top 10 Tips To Make Your Blog Posts Search Engine Friendly” useful. Please feel free to comment and share it with your friends and colleagues.
