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If you have been wondering how you can optimize your blog for SEO and get more organic traffic then you have come to the right place.
I made the huge mistake as a beginner of not paying any attention to Search Engine Optimization.
I just wanted to write about topics that I liked and hope that someone would stumble upon them in some way.
You know, if you build it they will come, right?
But if you build it and lay a bumpy road and no signs pointing to where people should drive, how are they going to find you?
This is what happened when you create a website or blog in today’s day and don’t optimize it for search engines.
It may actually never get found.
So in this article, instead of just giving you some broad ideas, I am going to tell you exactly what you need to do to start boosting your SEO today!
What Is Blog Optimization?
Blog optimization is the process of making your blog more capable of showing up higher in search results with the help of SEO.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a process that is used across all search engines.
The idea is that if you use the right keywords in the right places, your content will be able to rank higher and higher with time.
The key to success, in the beginning, is targeting keywords that have low competition and high volume.
Meaning that a lot of people are searching for it but not a lot of people are writing about it.
As a beginner, it may seem a bit intimidating so I recommend you read my full SEO guide to get a better understanding.
Why Is SEO Important For Your Business?
You may be wondering why you have to go through this process at all?
Writing articles and building websites already takes a lot of work so why put more on your plate?
Well, the truth is that if you want to be able to save money, put in less effort in the long run, and still grow your business, then SEO is that way to do it.
Getting organic traffic is the key to success for any online entrepreneur. You won’t need to spend money on an ad budget if you don’t want to.
You won’t need to constantly write new content and promote it on social media.
Plus, the longer your optimized content stays updated and online, the more views it will bring in.
SEO is what is going to bring you are targeted audience that will be more interested in what you have to offer because they are searching for it.
So the traffic you could get from it is unlimited.
11 Ways To Optimize Your Blog For Seo
There are a lot of articles out there that will only sell you the ideas of optimizing your content without actually showing you how to do it.
Trust me, I read through a lot of them myself when I was starting out. No one seemed to show me the actual steps that I needed to take to make my blog more optimized.
So here are 11 things that you can actually do on your blog articles today to boost your SEO.
1-Target The Right Keywords
One of the most important things that you can do is find the right keywords for your blog articles.
This is where I see a lot of beginners fail and it often pushes them to quit before they even really get started.
As I mentioned earlier, you want to target low-competition and high-volume keywords. Going after keywords that are too competitive is going to be difficult if your domain name or website is fairly new.
So in order to start gaining some traction and get your domain some authority, you need easier things to target.
Now you can use one of my favorite tools which is the Google Keyword Planner to filter out the right keywords for you.
With this tool, any keyword that has a volume of 100 or above is a good place for you to start. But of course, the higher the better.
It is very well hidden in the Google platform so you can watch my video to find how to get access to it.
You can also use a tool like Ubersuggest which has both free and paid plans. This tool will give you an SEO score for the keyword and even tell you the domain authority of the sites that rank the highest.
That way, if you see other domains that have a low authority, then you’ll know you have a better chance of ranking for that keyword.
2- Optimize Your Blog Titles
Once you have your keyword, you are going to want to write a good and catchy title. You may think that it is super easy but it actually takes a bit more reflection to write a good title.
Matter of fact, I write about 5-10 different titles before I am able to finally able to settle on one.
But did you know that there are also certain aspects that are essential for getting your titles optimized?
For example, titles perform best when they have around 9-12 words in them and around 40-55 characters.
Titles that are too long are a bit of a turn-off and the same goes for titles that are too short.
You also need to make sure you insert your keyword as close to the beginning of your title as possible.
You should also add power words and emotional words to make your title more clickable. I highly recommend that you use CoSchedule Headline Studio to analyze your headlines first.
They will give you all of the suggestions you need to improve your title and give you a score.
Plus they have a great list of words you can use to enhance your title.
3- Add Your Keywords In Your First Paragraph
The first paragraph of your blog post is going to play a big role in setting the tone for your audience.
Here is where you will need to capture their attention before they click off of your blog.
However, when it comes to the SEO algorithm, this is also where you will need to put your very first keyword.
To give your blog post a better chance at ranking, make sure you add your keyword in the first paragraph or first sentence of your post.
You can use this article as an example.
My keyword is: Optimize your blog for SEO
If you read my first paragraph, you will see that I also incorporated this keyword into the very first sentence.
The important thing is to make it sound natural and interesting enough so that the reader will want to continue reading.
You should also try to sprinkle your keywords a bit throughout your blog post but make sure you don’t overdo it because that will be a big red flag.
4- Put Your Keywords In Your H2 And H3 Tags
If you want the algorithm to really get a better understanding of what your content is about, then you need to use your keywords in your H2 and H3 subheadings.
After your titles, subheadings are the next part of your article that will get pulled by the algorithm. This is how a lot of people end up getting on the featured snippets part of Google.
We will cover that in another section.
What you want to do is make sure that you use the same keyword that you put in your title into your subheadings as well.
But you don’t want to add it in every subheading because Google will see that as keyword stuffing which is not good.
You also want to make it sound like a natural part of your article.
For example, if you look at the second H2 heading on this very article, you will see that I used the same keyword but made it sound a little different from the title.
5- Optimize Your Metadata
Metadata is simply data that provides information about a certain object.
It is something that is painfully overlooked by a lot of bloggers because it is actually quite small. Metadata includes things like:
- Image file names
- Audio file names
- Video file names
- Table names
This means instead of leaving your png files as 136548.png, you should actually rewrite it with your keyword in it.
So it could look something like this: optimize_your_blog_for_seo_thumbnail.png.
The algorithm won’t know what your content is without you telling it what it is.
This leads me to the next part.
6- Add Alt Text To Your Images
If you have any images on your site at all (which you should have a lot of), you need to make sure that you add your keywords in your alt text.
Alt-text is what would appear for an image if you were to see the script for the website.
Web browsers and search engines read scripts, not the actual images themselves. So posting an image with keywords in the alt text can be great for boosting your SEO.
Not to mention, Google search also has images. Meaning if you optimize your images, you could show up in search.
If you are a WordPress user, it is super easy to change the alt text via the Images Block. I use Stackable which allows you to change the alt text from the sidebar.
7- Aim To Get The Featured Snippet
The featured snippet on Google is like that last slice of pizza at a party.
Everyone wants it.
So making sure that you have optimized your blog to be able to rank and get featured on Google snippet is going to be an amazing way to get views.
One thing you can do is by what some people call “answer targets.” Answer targets are questions where people are searching for answers for on Google.
For example, some people are looking for: How much do affiliate marketers make?
If you want to answer this question, you can make a blog post about it. In that blog post, have one paragraph of 2-3 sentences that will give the exact answer to that question. Make sure you also put the right keywords in that answer and you have a good chance of winning the snippet on Google.
Another thing you can do is make a listicle, like this blog post.
Making a list of things that will answer the question that the viewer is asking for is a great way to get featured as well.
Make sure it is numbered in the subheadings that way Google can pull the titles from the headings.
8- Use Proper Categories And Tags
If you do not have proper categories on your website then you are missing out on a great way to boost your SEO.
Categories are an amazing way to keep your content organized for your viewers. But they also help the algorithm to know what kind of topics your website covers.
It basically helps your site to get indexed correctly.
Another great way to make sure that you are getting ranked in search is by using the correct tags. Blog tags are keywords that you add to your article to help the algorithm know what your article is about.
It also helps viewers if they make any searches on your website as well.
From personal experience, I have ranked for several of the tags that I have on my different articles. One thing you want to keep in mind, however, is that you should not overdo it when it comes to tags.
Try to keep them at a maximum of 10-15 tags per article.
9- Use Optimized Permalinks
Another part of the blogging SEO process that people tend to overlook is the permalink.
The permalink is the URL that leads to your article.
They are automatically created from the blog post title that you enter. However, it is not always the best format in regards to SEO.
You want to make sure that your link is simple and easy to understand. But at the same time, you want to make sure your keyword is in it.
You also want to make sure that the link will fit your article to matter what changes you may make to the article in the future.
For example, this article’s original link was:
“…/11-awesome-tips-to-optimize-your-blog-for-seo-new.”
However, because I know that I will be updating this in the future, I changed it to:
“…/tips-to-optimize-your-blog-for-seo.”
Since this is a listicle, the number could change so this new link will make sure that it will fit whatever I write.
10- Download A WordPress SEO Plugin
Keeping track of all of the things that you have to do to optimize your website can be a bit of a task.
However, you can save a lot of time and effort by downloading an SEO plugin.
There are 3 main ones that you will want to choose from:
These are the 3 top-ranked SEO tools for WordPress. What they will do is tell you how well your post is optimized for SEO.
You will also be able to enter all of your metadata for your website and even change how your information shows up across the internet and social media.
If you are looking for the best SEO plugin for WordPress, I highly recommend that you use AIOSEO (All In One SEO).
It is very easy to use and even has a built-in headline and title analyzer to help you write catchy titles that get clicks.
It will help you with all of the things that I covered in this article.
However, one thing that you need to keep in mind is that these tools do not give you an SEO score for your keywords.
They score you based on how well you optimized your website.
So just because your optimization score is high, doesn’t mean that your keyword score is good. This is why you need to have tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, SemRush, or Ahrefs to look at your keyword scores first.
11- Bonus Tip: The Easy SEO Checklist
Keeping all of these aspects in mind at all times can be a task.
So to make life easier for you, you should probably have some kind of checklist that you can look at every time you make an article.
If you want a simple checklist that you can follow then you can download my free Easy SEO checklist.
In just a few steps, you can go through everything you need to optimize your blog post quickly and easily.
Enter your email above and you will get access to my Drive folder.
From there, you can download the checklist or even save it onto your own Drive if you want to. The choice is yours.
Final Thoughts
When you are first starting out as a blogger, the idea och SEO can be very intimidating. Not only does it sound complicated but it also has a lot of steps that are needed.
I remember it took me a long time before I finally started to feel like I knew what I was doing. And even now, I am still learning new things.
However, SEO has to become a vital part of your blogging journey.
Optimizing your blog for SEO is going to be one of the most important things that you can do for your growth.
The only thing that can be a little discouraging is that it can take some time for it to kick in. But once it kicks in, it can do real magic on your website.
SEO took my website from a couple of hundred visitors to a couple thousand in only a few months. To this day, it is my greatest source of traffic.
So if you are looking for a way to be able to get organic traffic, then SEO is the way to go.
