How to write a blog post with optimal SEO

woman sat at table typing on laptop in cafe

(Epitome credit: Shutterstock)

An enormous corporeality of content is published on the internet every day, so if you lot want to concenter readers to your blog, y'all'll need more than the best website builders and a topic to talk about—you lot'll too need to understand SEO, or search engine optimization, equally information technology's a cardinal role of how to write a blog postal service.

SEO is the process of tailoring your blog postal service to make it more visible on search engines such as Google and Bing. These search engines clarify web pages for sure indicators of content and quality. If you lot learn how this works, you tin implement a few simple tricks to movement your posts higher up in the search results.

In this feature, we show you lot how to write a blog post with SEO in heed, in club to bring in more readers - you might also desire to peruse the all-time free blogging sites, should y'all be looking for a new home for your writing.

How to write a web log post - Step one: Take a clear purpose

person typing on a WordPress blog on a laptop — Call back about SEO when writing your blog posts (Image credit: Pixabay)

Before you write your postal service, think about what its purpose is. At that place should be one clear, specific topic that your commodity is nearly. Consider what kind of person you want to read your article, what they should go out of it, and what search terms they might use if they were looking for it. Answering these questions will help you lot write the commodity and implement the following steps.

Pace two: Structure your commodity for readability

Search engines can tell how readable an article is—that is, how easy it is for someone to read through and understand its points. A major aspect of this is giving your writing a articulate structure. There should be an introduction, a principal body of text, and a conclusion.

Information technology should also be divided into paragraphs, preferably with department headers. Short paragraphs work better, as they are easier to browse for information, peculiarly on mobile phone screens. Similarly, curt sentences are preferred to long, complicated ones.

Try to use transition words, like "similarly" and "and," to connect content points.

Step 3: Use a strong focus keyword

a focus keyword box with the phrase 'how do I choose a good focus keyword?' in it — A question tin work well every bit a focus keyword (Paradigm credit: WordPress)

Many blogging sites let you set a focus keyword, which is the main search term that you want leading to the post. Cull one that'southward specific to the post and not used by any other posts on your website; after all, you lot don't want your pages to compete with each other.

A useful trick is to utilize a long-tail keyword, which is a longer term, and often a question. Make sure to include your focus keyword throughout your article. For example, the long-tail keyword of this article is, "how to write a blog post," which nosotros used in the title, the introduction, and this very sentence.

Besides your focus keywords, you can add tags to your weblog posts. These are like category titles, which organize all the content on your website. Think of them similar the index words in a book—readers interested in a topic tin find all your articles near it using the tag.

If an article covers several topics, you lot can include multiple tags. However, don't utilize tags likewise similar to each other, like "SEO" and "Search Engine Optimization." Search engines and readers are both clever plenty to translate this every bit you trying to play a trick on them by listing the same content multiple times.

It'due south useful to have a set list of tags for your site, and restrict yourself to that listing.

Step 5: Have an constructive title

a Google search for 'how to write a good blog title" — Emotive words like "catchy" can help draw in readers (Image credit: Google)

Choosing your title carefully is of import, because not only do search engines employ the title to determine the article's content, but it's also the first thing that viewers see in the search results - then it plays a major function in their decision to click through.

It'south useful to include your focus keyword in the championship. Google cuts titles off afterwards around 60 characters, though, so make sure your keyword comes earlier that indicate. Information technology's also a practiced idea to utilise emotive ability words. Think about how words like "like shooting fish in a barrel," "spectacular," and "thought-provoking" might grab a reader'south attending.

The meta description is a summary of your article'south content, and it appears below the title in search engine results. In an engaging and concise style, summarize why readers should click through. Ideally, your meta description should be limited to 155 characters, and include the focus keyword.

Recently, Google has started displaying parts of the article relevant to the searched terms underneath titles, rather than the meta clarification, so some SEO experts say that the meta description isn't as useful equally it used to be. But it's nevertheless worth the short amount of time that it takes to write information technology.

Step 7: Use images finer

Pexels' homepage — You tin can find suitable images on royalty-free photography sites (Image credit: Pexels)

Since the human mind frequently finds it easier to parse visually highly-seasoned content, adding images to illustrate and help explain your point makes your manufactures more engaging. Consequently, they'll be placed college in search results. You tin can as well embed videos for extra appointment.

It'south important to add alt text to your images. This should be a concise, specific description of the image. Information technology tells the search engine what the image shows, and helps it rank in epitome results pages. Also, the image can be described to users with slow internet connections or screen readers.

In the introduction to this characteristic, we linked to some other article on Tom's Guide. There are two reasons to practice this. Starting time, it allows readers to discover other content on the site that may exist relevant to them. The other reason is SEO-related.

Search engines can tell if an article is linked to and from other spider web pages. To the algorithm, this makes the commodity seem more than valid and relevant, so it will be moved upwardly in the search results. It'southward useful to include internal links wherever possible in your web log posts—your pages will support each other'south SEO scores.

Summary

SEO involves a certain amount of technical agreement of keywords, meta descriptions, image alt text, and how search engine algorithms translate all this data. However, about of it is about simple readability. The more engaging your content is to readers, the college your search engine ranking will exist.

If yous follow all the tips and tricks that nosotros've listed here on how to write a blog post, you should exist able to significantly ameliorate your blog post's standing in the search results, and attract big numbers of new readers in no fourth dimension.

How to write a blog post with optimal SEO