Using SEO Effectively in Blog Posts
By Kate Webster on 10/21/2015
Search engine optimization is crucial for the success of your website, improving your ranking on search engines, and driving more traffic to your site. Using SEO effectively isn’t complicated, yet many fail to optimize their posts, and as such, miss out on search engine hits. Black Bear Design has a few pointers to help you improve your SEO score right away and help we’ll help break them down.
Research
This first step is especially critical to your SEO success. Using SEO effectively means putting in some time to figure out what keywords are best for your purposes. Utilizing the right keywords in the best way possible is the goal here. There are a few ways to complete the research phase of search engine optimization.
Some free options: You can search your keywords in quotation marks and look for the number of results to determine the level of competition for traffic. It’s a good idea to include both low, medium, and high competition keywords in your blog post. You may also use Google’s free tool, Trends (found here) to gather more insight.
There are also paid tools to aid in your keyword research. One such tool that is praised for its usefulness is Wordtracker (found here). Wordtracker offers a ton of features to speed up your SEO tasks and make you a more effective marketer.
Keywords
In the past, it was not uncommon to read a blog post whose author awkwardly scattered the target keyword phrase throughout the article. This practice is disappearing, and a more streamlined way of using keywords has emerged.
For best SEO practices, use the main keyword you have chosen in the post title, title tags, and the URL. It is a good idea to use it early in the content as well. Also, include it in the meta description tags for maximum effect.
Images
Utilize alt text to your advantage. Google Images can be a source of high quality traffic, and alt text helps get you there by telling the search engines what your image involves. Search engines cannot tell the difference between pictures, and must rely on us for accurate image data.
Also, don’t forget that your images should always add value to your post.
URL
Your blog post’s page should contain your target keyword phrase. However, keep it as simple as possible: free from numbers, symbols, and other distracting characters. Overall, these simple steps can greatly increase your chances of being found on a search engine such as Google. Most of these tips don’t take much time at all to implement, and are well worth the effort.
