How to Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts

Writing for SEO purposes can be difficult and time consuming. However, it’s time well spent, as SEO helps us rank better in the search engines.

How do you write an SEO-friendly blog post, you might ask? Using a step-by-step SEO checklist, of course! By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how to write search engine friendly blog posts. So, give it a good read!
Writing



Setup Website/Blog

The first step in creating a well-optimized blog post is to make sure you website is correctly set for SEO. This is something that you will do only once, but it does depend on the platform you’re website is built on.

In the checklist, you can find this section in a separate sheet/tab, at the bottom of the screen. Make sure you take a look before you start writing.



Mobile Friendly:


Ensure your website is mobile friendly using the Google Mobile Friendly Test Tool. Google tends to rank sites lower if they are not optimized for mobile platforms, so make sure you fix this issue.

More than 50% of all web traffic has migrated to mobile devices in the past couple of years. This means that most of your readers will be on mobile devices as well.

Look for a responsive theme/template or use relative values instead of absolute ones in your code.




Site Is Indexable:

If your site can’t be found by Google and listed into the search engine results, you’re also wasting your time.

Problems that lead to bad indexing are usually related to the NoIndex meta tag, or the robots.txt file. Make sure the pages you want indexed are not blocked in any way. Also, ensure that extra pages you don’t really need in the search engine are blocked.

To block a page, simply edit your robots.txt file:


User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /~joe/
You can also use the following tag in your HTML on specific pages:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Check Site Speed:

The speed at which your website loads is very important for your business. If your users don’t see the content fast, they will abandon the page. There are two big factors that determine speed: the server on which the website runs, and the content that must be loaded.

Use Google PageSpeed Insights to determine if there are any issues with your website’s server and structure. Another great tool to do this is GT Metrix.

Try to fix those issues first. If your website loads very slowly, it won’t matter how well you write. Nobody will ever get to read it.



Install SEO Plugins:

If you’re using a popular CMS such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, you can make your site easy to optimize by installing a plugin. These plugins will help you optimize your content’s key elements (title, meta description) a lot easier. It will also fix some SEO issues commonly found on different platforms.

Some suggestions are: Yoast SEO and All in one SEO Pack for WordPress, Easy Frontend SEO for Joomla, and SEO Tools for Drupal.



Install Social Sharing Plugins:

Writing a good article is nothing without promotion. Chances of writing something that will go viral on its own are very small. If you’re using one of the popular CMS mentioned above, you should also install a social sharing plugin.

Some good examples are Fast Social Share for Joomla and WP Social Share for WordPress. There are many options out there, so make your pick based on design and user reviews.

These plugins will help readers share the content and make it more popular. As you probably know, social media is one of the biggest marketing channels out there. It would be a complete waste not to take advantage of it!



Readability:

Your blog posts should be easy to read. First, make sure your text is easy to understand. Have short sentences, and try to make the paragraphs shorter in width.

Ensure your background color doesn’t conflict with the font color. Some combinations make it harder for the user to read your posts.

The best combination for legibility is usually black text on white or light gray background. However, you can use different combinations to express different things.

We recommend that the paragraphs are 11-12 pixels in size. Also, keep a hierarchical structure in your headings. H1 should be the biggest, H2 smaller and so on.

Last but not least, place ads smartly, without spamming the user. Avoid random pop-ups or pop-ups that appear as soon as you access the page.




Customizable Elements and Meta-Tags:


The post title and meta tags are two important elements that display in Google’s search results.

Make sure you can easily edit these elements. The page/blog post should also display a H1 tag containing the title of the article. Usually it’s the same as the title tag, but this is not mandatory.

Just like the post title, it should include keywords and be captivating. There should only be one H1 tag on your page. Other important meta are rel=”canonical” and rel=”prev/next”.

Canonical tags are used to solve duplicate content issues . If your page has comments, for example, some platforms create separate URLs ending in “/?replytocom=123#”. This can create conflicts between pages in the SERPS.

The canonical tag should point out what page you want to be displayed in Google. If the page has a self-referencing canonical tag, then all the comments’ URLs will point to the main page.

In case you have paginated content (on a blog page for example), you should use the previous/next meta tag. This technique can be used for guides separated in multiple pages.






2. Perform Keyword Research


Doing keyword research before writing a blog post can maximize the potential organic traffic you get from search engines. First of all, think of what your readers might be searching in order to find your content.

You can use the Google Keyword Planner to get an idea of what people are searching for. Another thing you can do is start typing keywords in Google and get ideas from the suggestions shown there.

Or, you can take it a step further and use the cognitiveSEO Keyword Tool.

It will show you search volume, keyword difficulty and top competitors ranking for specific keywords. The keyword suggestions there are the most relevant to your main keyword from an SEO perspective.
You can combine some of those into a more complex SEO title that targets multiple keywords at the same time. You can use other search queries that don’t fit in the title in your body.




3. Check Competition

After you choose some keywords, check the top 10 results for them to make an idea on who you will competing with.

You can use the cognitiveSEO tool to compare your site with the competition. The tool will analyze some of the most important metrics (like referring domains and anchor texts) and will make it very easy for you to decide how tough the competition is.

If you feel like the competition is too high, consider targeting other keywords. Some indicators of a strong SEO competition are: keyword in title, old domain age, domain and page performance and a big number of backlinks pointing to the competitors’ URLs.





4. Gather Information for Writing

To be able to pile up a really good piece of content, you need to gather the right resources. You will need to find at least 3 to 5 well documented and trustworthy sources. If you are writing a personal story out of the top of your head, you can skip this step.

However, we recommend that you read your top ranking competitors and see if you can spot any gaps. Then, gather information about those gaps and try to cover them up. You can use search operators to find really reliable information sources that can backup statistics, such as numbers or case studies. Examples: site:.gov + keyword, site:.edu + keyword

Create your own footprints for finding sources by using this list of search operators.



5.Outline the Article


Outlining the article will make it a lot easier for you to write it. It saves you time and effort. If you have a proper outline, the structure of your article will be easier to digest by your readers. Your outline should consist of some key points you want to cover up.

A good trick is to turn those key points into questions, which you will answer below. Consider building the outline as your H2 and H3 tags. These tags tell Google that those phrases are a little more important.





6. Write Your Content


It’s finally time to start writing. There are many aspects to be considered in the process. I outlined them below, but they cannot be necessarily put in order.

Make sure you consider all of them! OnPage SEO is what you have full control over, so try to do your best. Make sure you use the cognitiveSEO Content Assistant for maximum results!

Bullets, Bolds, H2, H3: People like it when content is split up, because it is easier to read. Search engines like it as well. Use secondary keywords in the headings, and bold important words/phrases in your article. 

Use paragraphs: Use paragraphs and make them shorter, rather than longer. A paragraph should be around 5 sentences long. 


Use the main keyword in the first paragraph: Use the main keyword in the first paragraph of your blog post, and try to place it towards the beginning.

Use attention grabbers: Phrases like “here’s the deal”, “here’s what I did”, “listen up”, “if you want to find out xyz, keep reading” help keeping readers on your page. The longer they stay, the longer you will benefit, and in time, your rankings will improve. You can check out some interesting info on dwell time and how it can influence your rankings. 

 
Use the main keyword in the article body: Use your keyword throughout the article, once around the middle, and once towards the ending. 


Keyword density of maximum 5%: You shouldn’t use your keyword more than 5 times per 1000 words. Usually, some words will repeat more than that, but when your main keyword is in the title, the meta description, every heading and 100 times throughout the content, Google will see it as keyword stuffing. Keep the keyword density between 3% and 5% so you don’t risk anything. 


Include related keywords: This can become a very advanced procedure, but luckily, they can be found at the bottom of Google when searching for a term. 


Over 300 words: This highly depends on the web site type and how often you post, but Google absolutely loves longer articles. Make sure they are at least 300 words long, although we would recommend considering x10 that amount. 


Link internally: Does the blog post include 2-3 links to relevant pages on your website? If not, make sure you link to older