A simple guide to SEO for bloggers. Learn how to optimize your blog
The purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is to get your blog rank high in the search results of search engines like Google or Bing when people search for something online by typing particular keywords.
Doing SEO using long tail keywords will help you rank higher rather than using only a generic keyword.
Why?
Because long tail keywords are more specific and there’s less competition around them.
So, how do you make your blog SEO-friendly?
A SIMPLE GUIDE TO SEO FOR BLOGGERS
1) KEYWORD RESEARCH
When you optimize your blog, you’re increasing the chances for your blog to be discovered by more and more people during their online research.
That’s why doing accurate keywords research is extremely important.
You need to know exactly what keywords people type in the search bars when searching online.
For each post you’ll write, you’ll have to pick a long-tail keyword, related to your niche, that will help you be more visible online.
A long-tail keyword is a longer keyword that users are most likely to type in the search bar when researching for something online. The reasons why you should use long-tail keywords (for example: lose weight for women after 40) rather than a short keyword (lose weight) is because long-tail keywords are more specific.
By being more specific, finding a long-tail keyword related specifically to your niche, you’ll increase your chance to rank higher in the search results.
Always remember who you’re writing for. Choose keywords that people in your niche are most likely to type.
2) INCLUDE LONG-TAIL KEYWORD IN THE RIGHT PLACES.
For a long-tail keyword to be effective, it needs to be placed in the right places.
TITLE
Try to include your long tail keyword in your blog post’s title (REMEMBER: it doesn’t necessarily need to be put in the exact same order), for example: How to rapidly lose weight for women after 40 / How these women after 40 learnt to lose weight.
PARAGRAPHS AND HEADINGS
Make sure your long-tail keyword appears in the first paragraph of your blog and possibly in your concluding paragraph too.
Make also sure to include it in one Heading 2 and Heading 3 at least once.
PERMALINK
A permalink is the URL of your blog post:
How to rapidly lose weight for women after 40 / yourblog.com/rapidly-lose-weight-women-after-40.
Make sure you Permalink contains your long-tail keyword. If you can, try to avoid stop words (the, to, a, who, how).
META DESCRIPTION
Always provide a meta description of your article, including your long-tail keyword. Meta descriptions should not be longer than 155 characters.
ALT TEXT
You should always put at least one or two images in your blog posts and make sure their alt-text contains your keyword.
Useful tip: to help you remember all the places where you should put your keywords, install plug-ins like Yaost SEO.
IMPORTANT: Don’t fill up your blog post with too many keywords. You don’t need to keep repeating your keyword during the entire post. Too many repetitions will actually be bad for your SEO.
OFF-PAGE SEO
Once you’ve optimized your blog, it’s time to optimize it ”off-page”, which means outside the blog itself. Share your blog posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, using the keywords and hashtags related to your blog post.
RESPONSIVE
This has nothing to do with keywords but it’s hugely important still.
This is one of the key rules of SEO for bloggers: make sure your blog (and the theme you choose) are RESPONSIVE.
In other words, your blog MUST be mobile-friendly. Search engines penalise websites that are not mobile-friendly as it would be difficult for readers using smartphones or tablets to view your blog and read your articles.
You can check if your blog is mobile-friendly using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
SELF PROMOTION
Last but not least, don’t forget to promote yourself. Use your articles to engage with your audience by using call-to-action and never miss the opportunity to get them to subscribe to your mailing list.
BEST TOOLS FOR SEO FOR BLOGGERS.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Install Google Analytics to keep track of your traffic data and see if the keywords you chose are working and getting traffic to your blog.
Other helpful websites are Semrush, MajesticSEO and Ahrefs.
GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER
Google’s keyword planner is one of the best things for SEO for bloggers. It is a great tool to measure the performance of specific keywords: it allows you to see how many research for that specific keywords there are and how competitive it is. Always aim to use less competitive keywords (around 1000 to 5000 research per month, instead of using keywords with millions of research per month)
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
This console will tell you if there are any errors or problems with your website.
GOOGLE PAGESPEED INSIGHT
Google penalizes websites that are slow to load. And so do people.
If your website is slow to load, people are most likely to get frustrated and leave it.
This Google tool checks your website’s speed.
If you are using WordPress, I suggest you install this useful plug-in.
READY TO START YOUR OWN BLOG?
Blogging is a great way to build an audience of loyal readers who could turn into customers and make you earn money online and it takes just a small initial investment. For example, with SiteGround (the provider that I’m currently using) you can start a WordPress blog for just as little as £2.75 per month!
4 Comments
Tola
These are such great tips, really trying to up my seo. Is good ad words are free service?
Alessandro
Thanks 😉
With Google Adwords, you only pay when you publish an ad and someone clicks on it.
Danny Lew
This was some really great information on boosting your website ranking for Google. Thanks for the info.
Alessandro
Hey, thanks! 😉