6 Blog Post SEO Tips to Improve Content Ranking

Let's face it, business owners are busy and sometimes do not have the time to stay up to date with the changing trends. Luckily, even with all the current SEO trends and algorithm updates, there are some simple tips you can use to create blog posts that can help you target relevant keywords that will drive more traffic to your website.

Before utilizing these tips, first you need to determine what keywords will help bring qualified traffic to your website. One way to achieve this is to research long tail keywords. After determining what keywords will work best, you will want to create your blog posts around these keywords.

Since most business owners don't fully optimize their blog posts, they are not taking full advantage of organic traffic possibilities. You can even use these SEO tips to go back and optimize your older posts, as well as make sure that all of your future posts are fully optimized.

Below are the six parts of your blog posts that you will want to optimize for your business's targeted keywords.

Title

The title of your blog post(s) can affect the search results and click-through-rate. You should shoot for your titles to be under 60 characters and to include at least one target keyword – preferably near the beginning. However, you should only do this if it is natural because you don't want your writing to seem "spammy." Having a keyword in your title can entice visitors to click on your post because it will contain the word they used in their query.

Description

Writing a good description for your blog content has the ability to pull the meta description of your post. Even though this does not affect your post's search results, a good description can successfully pull up a higher CTR. Moreover, if your meta description uses target keywords (or related keywords) then it will drive up the appeal of your blog to the individual who performed the search. Like your title, you should also write your description organically and not stuff keywords into the meta description. Keyword stuffing has zero SEO benefits.

Heading

Headings are important to your writing as well because they tell your visitors what your content is about. In addition, as long as it's done organically, including keywords in your heading can be an added SEO benefit. This doesn't mean simply use keywords in a heading just to use a keyword – make sure it fits.

Post Content

Keywords found in your post content determine how search engines rank your content. While this is important, you also want to make that you don't over-optimize your content. This means that using keywords too densely within your content can drop your organic ranking as it will be viewed as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing can also be off-putting to your readers. People aren't going to want to continue reading blog posts that feature poor content (especially if it reads like spam). For this reason, you should always write for your audience first and foremost.

Images

Images can greatly improve your website's content. It's also a good idea to include an SEO friendly title and description with your images. Writing very descriptive blog titles means that you can use the title in your blog post image as well. One reason this is becoming more important is that image search is becoming more popular.

URL

Consider creating a URL structure so that each of your site's posts has a custom URL rather than being random. Using your content's title as the URL extension can also help with your CTR. If someone searches and discovers two posts – one with a generic URL and another with a keyword – chances are people will click on the post with the target keyword URL.

These six tips are just a few of the more basic SEO techniques for blog development. While they are easy to accomplish, they can significantly help you produce more effective content for your blog.

Even more important is that these tips are quick and easy to implement. Not everyone has time to learn SEO, plan an internet marketing strategy and then execute it; however, individuals producing blog content can easily incorporate these tips.

If you're just beginning to incorporate SEO into your marketing plan, SEO Advantage can help by offering various Professional Copywriting services.

Contact us today to get started. In addition, our case studies and Knowledge Center can provide further information.

About SEO Advantage^®

Led by Stone Reuning, SEO Advantage®, Inc. is an online marketing and search engine optimization firm that helps businesses turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation medium. Our clients enjoy dominance on Google, Yahoo and Bing through a suite of unique pay-for-performance search engine optimization and online marketing services implemented by a multidisciplinary team of SEO engineers, copywriters and web designers. You'll find us referenced in books such as "Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale" and the BusinessWeek bestseller "The New Rules of Marketing & PR," as well as the popular ebook "The Small Business Blogging Blueprint." Find out more today by calling us at 1-800-366-1639 or email us here.