SEO Tips for Your Blog Posts

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Blog SEO

Blogs are one of the most significant parts of content marketing and off-page SEO.
According to statistics:

Sites that also feature an active blog have 434% higher indexed pages. These sites also get 97% more links owing to the blog.
Each month WordPress users publish almost 70 million new blog posts.

These stats affirm the effectiveness of blog posts. However, SEO plays a crucial role in the success of your blog posts. And so, here we list down some surveyed and actionable tips for your blog SEO.
Read on to learn:

10 SEO Tips for Your Blog Posts
The Best Blog SEO Tools
Top Rated SEO Tools
Blog SEO FAQs

10 SEO Tips for Your Blog Posts

1. Start with Informed Topic Research

An essential part of your decision-making goes into choosing the suitable blog topics for your business. Unfortunately, many businesses still choose blog topics based on their random guesses. However, there are abounding ways to find the right blog topic for your business. Some of the effective methods include:

Using your SEO Data to Study User Interests

You might create a blog post relevant to your topic, but does it attract users? Or are the users searching for this topic?
You should know the interest of your target audience. And your SEO data offers you copious insights into what your visitors would like to read.
You can leverage Google Search Console to find the pages that are performing the best on your site. Moreover, look at the queries for which your pages are getting the highest no. of impressions and clicks.
It shows the users are searching for topics in proximity to these keywords.
These search queries also reflect users' interests and what they are searching for in your niche industry. So, gather blog topic ideas and keywords from this SEO data and start creating blogs.

Using tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs

When you start afresh with your blog and have fewer SEO data to back up your choices, you can use competitor analysis. Use tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs to analyze the blog pages that are performing for your competitors.
Moreover, these tools allow you to find the trending queries and topics related to a keyword. Tools like BuzzSumo also show you individual social shares for trending blog posts. It is abounding data for creating viral blog topics.

Following Niche Blogs and Blog Sharing Sites

No one expects you to know every nitty-gritty about your industry. And so, you must not shy away from taking inspiration from other blogs. Find the niche blog sites in your industry and follow them for trending topic ideas.
There are many community platforms where users share their new blog posts. These communities allow you to subscribe or follow niches you like and notify when topics are discussed.
Blog sharing sites like Medium and Growth Hackers also help you check trending topics.

2. Optimize Your Blogs with Well-researched Keywords

It is a no-brainer, but I still witness many people ignoring keyword optimization for their blogs. Finding keywords for your blog post is far simpler than creating the post.
You can start with using your SEO data to check the keywords that bring you the highest traffic.
Use Google Search Console to find these keywords by following navigation tabs :–

Performance > Queries

You can then sort the queries that offer you the highest no. of impressions and clicks. Use these keywords in your relevant blog posts.
Perform keyword research on Ahrefs to get trending keyword ideas to update your existing blog pages or new ones.
You can use features like competitor analysis and keyword position tracking on SEMRush. It will offer you abounding valuable keywords for your blog posts.
It is advisable to use keywords in your introduction, subheadings, and body text. However, the use of keywords should look natural without hindering the readability.
An efficient way is to align your keyword research with your blog topic research.

3. Make a Highly Relevant and Click-worthy Post Title

Your post title mostly forms your title tag, and it forms your preview snippet in the SERPs. It must be catchy, click-worthy, and must give a clear idea about the post's content.
If you’re confused or find it complex to draft a catchy headline, you can use any free headline-generating tools to get catchy title ideas.
You need to make sure that your post title is also SEO-friendly.

It should have your focus keyword.
Keep the length of the title less than or up to 70 characters.
Try to use a long-tail keyword in the title.

You may also use different post titles and meta titles for your blog post. In this case, you can easily cover long-tail keywords in any one of these titles.
Furthermore, you should work on enhancing the click-worthiness of your post title. It must reflect the proper intent of the post and include intent-based keywords. It can have a number or a title modifier like – Best, How to, Easy, Tips, Guide, Steps, etc.

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4. Define Your Focus Keyword Long-tail and LSI Keywords

So, when you finalize the keywords for your blog post, you must define your focus keyword. SEOs recommend choosing a focus keyword that has high volume and low competition.
You can also set the focus keyword in your WordPress blog if you use Yoast plugin. It will hint at the areas and the density of usage of the focus keyword.
Now, you must not overuse your focus keyword in your blog post. Instead, support it with the use of relevant LSI keywords and long-tail keywords.
You can use a tool like LSIGraph or KeywordTool.io to find these LSI keywords. You have to enter the focus keyword, and the tool will generate LSI and long-tail terms.
One can also find LSI keywords by using Google Suggested Searches. The suggestions displayed when you type the focus keyword in the search represent the LSI keywords.

The "Related Searches" section in the SERP also includes LSI keywords.
The use of these keywords elevates the relevancy of your blog posts. Your blog posts appear for more relevant searches and attract high-quality traffic. Moreover, your blog posts will have higher search visibility and higher conversions.

5. Ensure that You Add a Meta Description to the Post

Now, some experts may say that meta description no longer affects your SEO. But, many still believe it is relevant, and you must always include a meta description.
A meta description tag defines what your article is about to the users and search engines. Moreover, it forms a part of your preview snippet in the SERPs.
The users give equal importance to it as they give headline-generating titles.
So, it is a chance to grow the CTR for your post result in the SERPs. Make it informational, relevant, and appealing enough to convince the viewer to click.
The meta description is also visible for an article when you share it on social media.
It is advisable to include your focus keyword (at least once) in your meta title. And you must use it early in the description.
An important consideration is to keep your meta description length under 155 characters. Any words above it are not visible in the preview snippet.

6. Exercise Two-way Internal Linking for Your Blogs

Internal linking between blog posts helps enhance the value and context between them. You must link to your relevant old blog posts to add value to your current blog. Moreover, linking to your old blogs help you pass the link juice to these blogs. An important practice is to make the internal linking two-way. So, you should also link back to the new blogs from relevant old blogs. It helps the newer blogs index faster. And if the old blogs are ranking, it brings initial traffic to the new blogs.
Use free internal link checking tools to know if you have given a reasonable number of internal links in your blog posts.
WordPress post editor makes internal linking seamless between blogs. You can click on the link tab and start searching for the old article in the popup search bar. After finding the article title, directly click on it to add the internal link.
Make sure you don't overdo internal linking and do not include more than 2-4 internal links.

7. Start Including Outbound Links and Gain High-Authority Inbound Links

A practice that many beginners ignore is including important outbound links to the posts. Relevant outbound links increase the value of your blog posts both for the users and Google. And you should include highly relevant outbound links only to reputable sites.
However, frequent outbound links can increase the exit rate on your posts. Therefore, make sure you add outbound links only at places where they add value.

High-authority Inbound Links

An effective way to grow your blog's SEO presence is by gaining inbound links. Most of you might already be aware of how backlinks are crucial for your site's authority. However, you must remember to focus on the quality of the inbound links over quantity.
Marketers use multiple ways to gain quality inbound links. Some of these ways include:

Analyze competitor backlinks and pitching relevant linking deals to their referring domains. Use Ahrefs link intersect to find the domains linking to your multiple competitors except you and pitch them to add your resource link.
Search for dead links on competitors' sites and pitch relevant posts that they can use as replacements.
Pitching two-way linking deals to highly relevant external sites.
Sending your blog post to influencers or famous bloggers who would love to link back to it.
Produce long-form blogs with exclusive data that people would want to share.

8. Try to Rank as the Featured Snippet

Google allows you to rank as the featured snippet which appears on the top of result pages. It appears as a highlighted result or precise answer to a user query.
It’s the most liked feature by the users as they get answers instantly.
The featured snippet is one of the best positions to rank on Google as it earns the highest CTR. So, if you can rank for position zero, you get great visibility for your blog post. And you can attract increased traffic to it.
To rank for the featured snippet, you must follow a well-defined blog post structure. Use clear subheadings that allow the readers to navigate through the content easily.
Moreover, include precise information as answers to related queries. Google must believe you offer a clear and accurate answer to a particular query. Thus, showing your post content in the featured snippet section.
Make sure your blog page has good authority and you have backlinks from reputable sites.

9. Optimize Blog Post for Mobile Users

54.18% of the global online traffic comes through mobile devices. With that said, it is crucial to optimize your blog for smartphone users.
Now, some of you may limit your mobile optimization to a responsive website. However, you need to go further and see how your blog appears on the mobile screen.
For example, Neil Patel’sheadline-generating blog is responsive, has informative content, but is trying to market their product and services rather than letting the users read by covering half of the content with CTA.
Mobile users would not like to read long paragraphs and would bounce back. So, compress your paragraphs to 3-4 sentences with bullet points.
Most users would prefer to navigate through your content just by reading the subheading. So, make sure you add subheadings that offer enough value to the readers. Make these subheadings clear and relevant, such that they offer the crux of the content.
Use white spaces and media to allow the readers to breathe through the content. Relevant media also improves the value of your blog posts and makes them more engaging.

10. Create Comprehensive and Long-form Content

Many marketers press against the point that long-form blog posts work better. Posts over 2000+ words generally rank higher in the SERPs than the ones below this count. Some marketers may advise producing posts over 3000 words.
Furthermore, Buzzsumo researched that long-form content gets shared a lot more than shorter content on social media.
However, it is not just about the word count but also about the depth of the article. Your blog post must go deeper into the topic it features. It should cover the various aspects of the topic comprehensively.
The value you add through your blog remains a crucial factor in deciding its ranking.
A smart way to make your blog post more comprehensive is to cover the LSI keywords. The LSI keywords that are most relevant to your blog topic can help you analyze the important aspects to cover. Moreover, the use of LSI keywords makes the blog more relevant for specific searches.

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The Best Blog SEO Tools

1. Google Analytics and Google Search Console

These tools generate adequate SEO data to help you optimize your blog's SEO performance. Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console form a complete SEO suite for your blog. Moreover, Google allows you to access these tools without any charge.

Google Analytics:

You can check blog page performance, traffic, bounce rate, average time on page, etc.
Can check the traffic sources, real-time user journey, and user metrics
You can generate detailed SEO reports based on custom parameters

Google Search Console:

You can check all the crawlability issues on your blog site and resolve them for fast indexing
You can check the various search queries and blog pages that are working for you
You can also check the different links to your blog
In case there is a Manual penalty on your blog site, you can check it here

Above are some actions that bloggers regularly perform to optimize their blogs.

2. SEMRush

SEMRush helps you plan an across-the-board SEO strategy for your blog site. The deeper you dive into the tool, the more data you have to back your blog SEO plan. From planning your blog topics to promoting them in the search, the tool is all you would need.
Some SEMRush features that you would wish to use as a blogger include: