4 years ago when I started blogging I had no idea what SEO was, let alone seeing it as something important to do for every post I wrote. I simply wrote it and shared it! I definitely never imagined back then that a few years down the line I would actually be writing a post on it! But, here we are – we live and learn. And anyone who has a website and shares content online needs to know the basics of SEO if you want your site to perform well and to gain traffic from search engines!
So, in order to assist any newbie bloggers out there, or those who want to get into blogging, or simply bloggers and website owners that want their site to perform better, here are the basics I do on every one of my blog posts to ensure it has good, or even excellent SEO! Here are the basics to SEO in collaboration with https://www.click.co.uk/services/paid-search-ppc/ newest campaign – #SEOYourBlog!
What is SEO and why is it important?
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and it is very important if you want your blog content to rate well on search engines. It refers to the methods used (which I will explain) to increase a sites position on search engines!
People trust search engines and the sites you see at the top of the pages, that contain the key words you have searched for, are the ones most likely to get clicked on, and therefore the ones most likely to have increased traffic. Therefore having good SEO practice on your blog or website, means that you will appear in a better position on a search engine and consequently are more likely to have extra traffic to your blog.
Here’s how to do that…
Word Count
First and foremost is word count. As I am someone who always has a lot to say, this is never an issue for me! But also too many words can be an issue for Google when directing to a landing page with a lot of content!
As a minimum I would say 300+ when creating content, but I always try to stick between 500 to 1500! Some of my posts have been lengthy, but content is often less about how much or little there is, and more so focusing on the core topic and key words within what you are writing.
Key Words
Once your post is written/as you are writing it, think about the key words of it. If it is about “Family Holiday’s” or “Marriage” do these words appear firstly in the title? In the Snippet review for search engines? The first paragraph? And then periodically elsewhere in the the post?
If the answer is “YES” to theses then the likelihood is that your post is on track to having good SEO!
Alt Text on Images
The Alt Text on images is there first and foremost to improve web accessibility (Visually impaired people using screen readers wont pick up on images, but can pic up on Alt Text to understand what the image is of). I am really rubbish at this part of content creation, but if done well, it will not only help your readers, but will also improve your blog or websites SEO.
When you a apply Alt text to your images, it creates an HTML attribute for it, which means it is a text alternative for search engines to find. This will positively impact your search engine performance.
Internal Linking
In almost all of my posts I will find key words or “Anchor words” and insert a link to a similar blog post(s) relating to that phrase or word. The reason I do this is because internal linking (or hyperlinking) pointing to other web pages are important for creating a strong internal structure to your blog/website!
Getting links from other sites or linking to other sites, again increases SEO performance too as it helps your blog perform better.
Tagging
Finally, before publishing a post, I always add Tags to it. Tagging it, again is about focusing on the key words within the content and focusing on the topic of that post.
Here are the tag examples I am using for this one:
- SEO
- Blogging
- Blog
- Traffic
- Tagging
- Key Words
- Internal Linking
- ALT Text
Each tag is a key word about what I have written about within that post and they make the post indexable and therefore rankable on a search engine.
Whilst all of this may sound quite baffling to you, stick with it! – #SEOYour blog and I assure you that it will get easier. It is now just habit for me and second nature. The majority of my posts SEO comes out as good or excellent!
*Collaborative Post
