Great blogs help your business reach more potential clients. A few quick SEO tweaks can improve that reach even further. Read on to find out how…
5 easy ways to improve SEO for every blog you write
Is SEO a dirty word in your business? Well, technically it’s an acronym, but either way, it’s a term many business owners really hate.
Stupid Extra Oddstuff
So Epically Offputting
Seriously, Every Opportunity? (Ha! Pretty pleased with that one!)
Yes, seriously. Every opportunity you take to improve the SEO of your website is worthwhile.
SEO affects how search engines ‘see’ your web content which, in turn, affects how easily your content is found. Everyone who discovers your content has the potential to become a client, so the more people who find your content, the better for your business.
Here at Words by Woodslea, I’m certainly not an SEO expert, but I do know a bit about SEO and blog writing. So, to get your blogs working harder for you, here are 5 simple tips to make your blog posts easier for potential clients to find.
Decide on the purpose of your blog
Your blog needs to have a clear purpose.
If I were an estate agent, I might write a blog to showcase my vendor services. If I were a virtual assistant, my blog might focus on how I save my clients’ time. Whatever the product or service you provide, your blogs should relate back to some aspect of it.
Your hobby might be growing organic veg or raising African grey parrots, but if it’s not related to your business, keep it out of your blog. Hobby content is fabulous for connecting with your audience on social media, but not for helping people find your business website.
Choosing keywords for your blog
Once you’ve decided on the purpose of your blog, give some thought to the keywords you need to include as signposts for your clients.
Ask yourself, what are your clients searching for? What words or phrases are they using in their searches?
Identify 2-3 of those words to be the focus of your blog. For this blog, the main keywords are ‘blog writing’ and ‘SEO’.
A common mistake people make is to try and fit keywords into their writing at every opportunity. Be warned, this can do more harm than good. If your blog is bursting with keywords, search engines can decide you’ve been ‘keyword stuffing’ which can harm your site’s ranking in Google. Don’t be tempted!
To make a solid start, use 2-3 keywords in your title. Make it short and catchy; keep it under 60 characters if you can so the whole title shows in Google. Use the same keywords through your blog but not too many times…make it readable!
SEO descriptions and metadata
Don’t worry… “SEO descriptions” and “metadata” aren’t as technical as they sound.
An SEO description (or meta description) is a short summary that interests and informs readers by telling them what your blog is about. This is the paragraph that pops up under your page title when your blog appears in a search.
Metadata gives your potential reader more information about your website as a whole. If the SEO description for your blog offers them what they’re looking for, the reader will click through to your website. The more times people click to visit your website, the more valuable your content appears to search engines. This results in your content appearing higher in search engine rankings.
Can you see how this goes?
So, write a short and pithy summary of your blog including your keywords and paste it into your SEO description field. Try to keep to 150 characters or less to make sure it’s all visible in search results.
Headers in blogs
Having headers in your blog breaks up the text and makes reading it much more enjoyable. But blog headers aren’t different sizes or in bold just for aesthetics; they also provide context for search engines by telling them what the blog is all about.
When you upload your blog, you can use the blog software to format the headers in your writing as H1, H2, H3 etc.
H1 header formatting is for the main title – your software will probably do this for you. H2 and H3 headers then work rather like chapters in a book – H2 might be the chapter title and H3 would be to drill down into more specifics within that chapter.
When you’re adding headers to your blog, try to think like a reader…
Don’t just stuff your headers full of keywords. Readers (and search engines) are on the lookout for quality content, so make sure the headers are relevant and interesting to your audience. I often use headers to help me skim through articles to the part I’m most interested in. Structure your blog so that other people can do the same.
If your blog is a wall of text, readers won’t stay long. Make sure they can find the information they’re looking for from you. Even if they don’t read your whole blog, there’s a much higher chance they’ll remember your content as useful and visit your blog again.
Include links in your blogs
Having links on your blog is a great way to show search engines your content is trustworthy and valuable. When other websites link to your blogs as a source of good information, it can give your website ranking a boost.
It takes time for this to happen though. Most new blog posts won’t have links from outside sources straight away.
To kick start the ‘links’ effect, add internal links to other content on your website such as other blogs, a shop, or newsletter sign-up page. Google finds pages with links more interesting than those without, so will check your content more frequently and see your blog with links as more important than a page with none.
Getting started with SEO when you blog
I hope this quick summary has shown that the whole SEO thing really doesn’t have to be a headache.
Each time you write a blog, spend a few minutes considering the blog purpose, keywords, SEO description, headers and links. The more you can do, the more likely you are to attract readers and the more traffic you will bring to your website in the long run.
It’s worth those extra few minutes to boost your blog and reach as many new leads as you can!
Click here for more blog writing tips>> 7-step blog writing guide for beginners | Words by Woodslea (copycontent.co.uk)
To contact me about copywriting services for your business, email wordsbywoodslea@gmail.com
