8 Tips to Write the Perfect Blog Post

26 Jun 8 Tips to Write the Perfect Blog Post

8 Tips to Write the Perfect Blog Post – when you’re writing a blog post, even if it’s in your field of expertise, it can be difficult to know exactly where to start. SEO is an increasingly important part of any digital marketing strategy. But when you’re looking at a blank page, how do you know what to write? What makes people click on your post and not a competitor’s? To help answer these questions and more, let’s look at eight tips for how professional writers approach SEO content creation:

1. Write long content for your blog post

The content should be long, but not too long. It’s important to remember that users don’t read every word of your site. They scan the page, looking for the information they need. So if you have a lot of great information in your post, that’s good! But if you cram it in there with lots of words and sentences and paragraphs—well, people won’t like that either.

Keep in mind that search engines seek out sites with relevant content based on keywords and phrases searched by users (the “keywords” or “search terms”). Longer posts give you more opportunity to use these keywords throughout the piece. This means it shows up higher in Google’s results pages when someone searches for something related to what you wrote about.

400-600 words: These are considered smaller blog posts and should be referenced as “the minimum length”. These are not educational posts, more just bite-size, digestive reads for those less invested. They are pretty good for social shares and engagement, however, too short to drive website traffic or affect SEO.

600-1,000 words: These are considered educational posts with a journalistic style. These posts are great for including influencers, reference links and building SEO slowly.

1,000-1,500 words: Depending on your audience, these longer articles can really make an impact on your lead conversion. If you write valuable content, the length is considered a powerful tool to drive organic website traffic through link building, partnerships and calls to action.

1,500-2,500 words: These articles are known as “Google go-getters” because the search engines love longer posts! (Apparently the highest-ranking posts are 2,450, so that may be Google’s sweet spot). If you are looking to gain organic search traffic, include a lot of valuable reference links to influencers, educate your audience and include downloadable content – go long to write the perfect blog post!

2. Include hyperlinks in your text

Hyperlinks allow readers to navigate to other pages on your site. This makes content more engaging for that user and helps search engines find the page where you’ve linked. Linking from an internal page on your website to another internal page is a great way to keep users on your site while they read through your content. As well as letting them know that there are other interesting pieces of information close by. For example, if you’re writing about how red lipstick can improve self-esteem, it might be helpful for users who want more information about this topic (and who want their lips looking good) if you also link out somewhere else where people can find tips about wearing red lipstick or buying new ones!

3. Use external links

Link out to other relevant content!

You should be using the rest of your website to promote the blog post, so use internal links to link back and forth between pages on your site. If you do this, you’re already helping Google understand that your content is related, even if it doesn’t recognise what the specific topic is yet.

Don’t forget about external links! You can link to other high-quality websites or even books in your industry (but not just any book). This is a great way for people who are new readers of yours to find out more information they may be interested in reading or buying. You might also be able to get some exposure by linking up with someone else’s blog post if it’s related enough; this could mean more traffic for both sides!

4. Target long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific and more relevant to your audience. They’re easy to rank for, optimise and to build links. They also increase the chances of conversion because they are so closely aligned with what people are searching for.

Here’s an example: if you sell dog leashes on Amazon, people who search for “leashes” or even “dog leashes” may not be interested in buying yours—they’re probably looking for something cheaper or different than what you’re selling. On the other hand if someone searches for “red leather leash” then that person is likely interested in buying exactly what you’re selling!

So how do we find long-tail keywords? Well there are a few tools out there like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest or SEMRush which have free versions (and yes you can still get results from free tools).

5. Identify Your Target Audience

You want to make sure that you’re writing a blog that your audience will want to read. The easiest way to do this is by identifying who your target audience is, and how they’ll use it.

“Defining your target audience” should be something you’ve already done in the planning phase of your content strategy, but it’s worth reiterating here because it will help shape the rest of your blog post. If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach with a particular piece of content, then how can you expect them to find it?

6. Don’t neglect your on-page SEO elements.

• Use keywords in the title, meta description and H1 tag.
• Use keywords in the URL.
• Use keywords in the first paragraph of your blog post (if applicable to your content).
• Use keywords in the last paragraph of your blog post (if applicable to your content).
• If you use an opening image on your blog posts, add a few words of alt text with a keyword or two so that search engines can correctly identify what this image is about.

Do the same thing for closing images: add some alt text with relevant keywords so that they can be indexed properly by search engines.

7. Use LSI keywords.

LSI keywords are search terms related to the main keyword you are targeting. They help to support your content and add more context to make it easier for both users and search engines to know what your content is about. They help to improve the relevance of your content, because Google uses them to improve search results. You should use LSI keywords in the title, body and tags of your blog post.

Here is an example: Let’s say that I am writing about “advice for new bloggers”. The keyword here is “bloggers”, but if I want more traffic from Google searches then I should add some LSI keywords like “how to write a blog”. A good way to understand the difference between synonyms and related keywords is to perform a Google search. The suggested searches that appear in the drop-down menu are LSI keywords:

This way when people search for “how to write a blog” they will see the article as one of the top results!

8. Optimise blog posts for search engine by focusing on the user experience.

There are many ways to optimise your blog posts for search engines, but the most powerful method is to focus on making sure that your content meets a need of your target audience. You can do this by using long-tail keywords and LSI keywords in your titles and meta descriptions. Use hyperlinks in your text, external links, video and audio content and internal links (links within other pages of your own website). Your blog posts should be long form (over 600 words) so that you provide more information than other competitors who might not take the time to write at length. Finally, if possible, make sure that you have social media buttons at the bottom of every page so that users can share it with their friends!

The bottom line is focus on the user experience and make sure your content is doing what it’s supposed to do. If it relates to your target audience and is engaging, informative and a good length, then you will have a blog post that converts readers into customers.

Want to know more or need help writing the perfect blog post? Get in touch with me here.