There are over 600 million blogs online today according to this article written by ahref. Out of all these blogs created, I ask myself – can I write a blog post and optimize it for SEO?
It’s already really difficult to even get noticed by the search engine google, but is there a simple methodology or format that I can follow to actually get noticed by google?
What’s the most important thing google looks at?
Can I drive traffic organically through the content I write and get people to see what I have to say?
I wanted to know for myself and this is what I found.
I discovered a few resources that can be easily applied and I’m going to explain and test how this method works.
This very post will be the experiment to discover if my research findings hold true.[In fact you are reading the very research right now]
This article consists of 3 parts
- Keyword research
- How to write a blog post
- 10 Tips to optimize for SEO
With these three sections I believe to have found how to easily find, format, and write a blog post. My goal in writing this is to find patterns and systems I can follow and replicate. I believe this has been one of those systems I can easily iterate every time.
How To Research For Keywords
Keyword research can be time consuming and trying to find the perfect keyword is a daunting task. That’s why I want to know what is a simple method I can implement.
What are the most important factors that will give me the ability to focus on whats most important.
This method focuses on one main aspect and utilizing that for constructing a blog post on your interest rather than just creating content based on keyword research.
It’s a combination on writing on subjects I want to know but structuring it in a way to gain organic traffic through google search.
The Method
The first question to ask is – “What is the very first thing google looks at on a website?” (probably the most important thing right)
It’s The Title Tag.
This should tell what your page is all about.
Therefore we can take a different approach when it comes to keyword research for specific terms.
Google has things called modifiers where you can search the web for specific things.
An example of this would be the “in title” modifier.
ex: intitle: “insert keyword or phrase here”
This allows you to find results and web pages that has specific terms in the title.
This will help to see really who your competition is and how you can rank, possibly faster, than other terms just by adding specific terms within the title.
An initial search will show you how many results (how many pages are indexed) but not how many pages actually have the keyword in the title.
without Modifier
with Modifier
This method can help you to rank really fast [within a few weeks] due to lower competition and keyword.
Potentially if your under 100 results the keyword will be easy to rank for.
So how can you use this to your advantage writing on topics your interested in and not just searching for topics to rank for.
- Come up with the idea/the main topic you want to write about
- look up that topic on google and see what terms and question come up
- Try to use those terms or question within the title
How to Write A Blog Post
Structure and systemization is the aim of the game and with this framework it makes constructing a blog post fairly easy.
At the same time it gives you the ability to communicate your ideas and thoughts effectively. It’s a way to get a birds eye view of what you want to write about before even writing the first word.
It’s planning at its best.
The 3 Things You Need To Write A Blog Post
1. A list of ideas of the topics
Having a list of ideas of topics is a great way to get started before you even begin writing.
A great source of ideas are questions that you probably had about certain topics or frustrations on products or systems you think suck or could be improved.
2. Quick Keyword Research for SEO
Based on the new research method described above, see if you can create your article based on the research you found.
Remember you don’t have to stick strictly to this method if you want to just write, but if you want to try and rank on Google try to implement these tips.
3. Create An Outline
An outline is the best way to structure and plan out your blog. It has helped me to see what areas I want to focus on and create more readable content for others.
The basic structure of your outline should look something like this…
- Intro
- Subheadings (3-5)
- Conclusion
Along with the outline there are some key factors that should be included in the different sections.
The introduction:
your introduction must consist of 3 things:
- Proof: does it exist, why its important (this could be statistics or a common problem)
- Hook: attention grabbing
- Being direct: what they’ll get from the article
The subheadings:
Your subheadings can be based on questions you’ve had on the main topic.
The conclusion:
This is a quick synopsis of the whole article and a call to action what you would like the reader to do.
Once you have the outline and begun to write the article it is now time to really put in the work.
Optimizing to get ranked by google.
10 Tips To Optimize A Blog Post
Although these 10 tips come after the 3 things you need to write a blog post, these 10 tips are what you need to implement when writing the post.
These 10 tips are to help get a good ranking score.The plugins yoast or rank math can help to ensure that you have met the requirements for ranking higher on google.
It also just helps with the layout of the blog post
1. Set the focus keyword
The focus keyword is what will be included in the title of your post and sprinkled throughout. It also helps to let google know what your article is about
2. Use H1 tag for the title
If your using WordPress then the title will already be set to H1, but if not check your settings and make sure its set to H1.
Remember to include your focus keyword here as well.
3. Use H2 tag for subheadings
Main subheadings should be in H2 tags and any subsections within that subheading should be H3. Think of it as a hierarchy system and it all depends how you layout the content out.
Its good to use the focus keyword in the subheadings in various ways. Warning though do not go overboard and start keyword stuffing everywhere. You want the article to be read naturally.
4. Mention the focus keyword multiple times in the article
Again you want the search engine to know that the blog post main idea is. mentioning the focus keyword throughout is a great way to accomplish this. Think of this is your target.
5. Use internal and external links
This means you should have links pointing to other related articles within your own website (internal) and to outside resources (external) related to the content.
6. Optimize the title
Do you remember when I said this is the main factor that google checks, so it’s pretty important.
You want to make your title the ultimate hook and It should one of these…
- command attention
- drive curiosity
- and create desire
It should give an incentive to have the reader want to read the article and find out what it’s about.
A good score for an optimized title is 70 or above.
If you use WordPress there is a plugin from monster insights that can help you rank your title and they also give tips how to improve the title.
7. Use Yoast SEO or Rank Math to optimize your post
If you’re not already using these WordPress plugins this will help to point out the missing elements you should add to your article.
8. Optimize the URL
The URL is known as the link to the blog post – other wise known as the slug
Best practices are to keep it short and include the focus keyword
So for example, the focus keyword for this post was “write a blog post“.
so the slug would look like…
coureywong.com/how-to-write-a-blog-post-optimized-for-seo
If you use WordPress it usually is created from the title of the article but you can easily edit it separately.
9. Add images and graphics
This is another great option to drive SEO as images can be found by the title of the image as well as the alt text (a way to describe what the image is about)
With the alt text you can place the focus keyword there.
Graphics are also a great way to break up your article and have illustrations to drive your point home.
Ultimately it can create a greater user experience.
To space you can convert your images from jpeg to webp which is a smaller file size
10. Final check and publish
Finally you want to revise your article one last time and use the seo plugins to see if there are any other ways you can optimize your article before publishing
It’s also good to add a featured image. This is another form of creating a hook for anyone that comes across your content.
Once you have done a final look through you are now ready to publish.
Conclusion
That’s it.
The basic layout and methodology how to write a blog post and optimize it for SEO.
The goal of this article was to highlight the most important factor for optimizing your blog post – The Title.
If you could find the keywords around your subject you want to write about with the research method then create a simple outline based on the terms and follow the 10 tips…
- Set the focus keyword
- Use H1 tag for the title
- Use H2 tags for subheadings
- Mention focus keyword multiple times in the article
- Use internal and external links
- Optimize the title
- Use yoast seo or rank math to optimize your post
- Optimize the URL
- Add images and graphics
- Final optimize and publish
you will have a better chance of ranking on the first page for these terms.
Let’s see how this post will work based on the methodology I just used.
if you found this helpful and want to learn how to create your own blog with wordpress then check this article here.