Blogging is one of the easiest ways to “do” SEO! But there is more to it than just getting some words and photos on a blog page and hitting publish. That approach is a waste of your time—and we’re pretty sure you don’t have any time to waste. So, if you’re wanting to make the most out of your blog (read: have it be a marketing asset and not a time suck), here are our tips to help you optimize your blog posts and make it worth your time.
Do your SEO keyword research first
The whole point of blogging is to support your goal of getting found on the internet—so you have to start your blog process with SEO keyword research! Whether you have a topic you want to write about or are trying to figure that out, use a tool like Ubersuggest, Answer the Public or Google Trends to see what keywords and phrases people are searching for.
Pro-tip: Have a short list of 3-7 SEO keywords that are all related to use in a single blog post.
Use the SEO keywords in the article you write
It’s pretty often we see blog articles that are just a short introduction and then 30+ photos. And while this checks off the “publish a new blog” item on your list, it isn’t actually helping you much—you need to have a good amount of copy on the page. The bare minimum word count is 500 words (which is about a single page), but more is definitely better. That’s because search engines like Google prefer longer-form content (which is in the 800-1,200+ word range).
Use your SEO keywords in the article you write, and here is where you should:
In the title of your blog post (H1 or H2 headings)
In the introduction of the article
In section titles (bolded)
In the body of what you’re writing
Pro-tip: If you can only muster 500 words for your piece, that’s okay! You can always go back and add more later. In fact, search engines love it when you refresh older blog posts and make them more relevant, helpful, and longer.
Optimize your images
It’s not just the text you have to optimize or the settings you need to complete (more on that in just a second). In order to fully optimize a blog post, you also need to optimize the images you upload with it. Here is a short checklist to make sure you are hitting all the points:
Resize the image so it’s not a gigantic file (load time affects your SEO and faster = better). Resize them to be no larger than 300KB
Change the file name to include the main keyword for the piece. Here is an example of how to format it: your-business-name-main-blog-keyword.jpg
Write “alt text” if there is a spot for it on your website platform (this helps search engines understand what’s in the image since they can’t actually “see” it)
Complete the SEO settings for the blog post
Just like how you should complete the SEO settings for each page of your website, you should also do this for every blog you publish. The page titles and page descriptions (sometimes called meta descriptions) are another place search engines look to understand the content you are publishing—so to them a favor and give it to them!
Pro-tip: There is a character limit on both these fields! Keep your titles to 50-60 characters (with spaces) and the description to 160.
Customize the URL with an SEO keyword
The last thing you want to do before hitting publish is customize the URL of the blog post with the main keyword. This is one of the main spots search engines like Google go to understand the content on the page, so it is definitely in your best interests to not skip this step! Here is an example:
And there you have it! These are the steps you need to follow in order to optimize a blog post and step up your SEO game!