content writing
The internet is swarmed with endless content. A simple Google search can yield millions of results tailored to your searches. Amid this content surplus, one must look after the quality of sharing process of their work. Creating and publishing content is one thing, but effectively strategising the outreach is a rather overlooked activity. How you optimising blog content and scheme, the sharing really impacts your results. Search engine platforms have proposed certain rules and algorithms that clarify the favourable conditions for high-performing blogs.
This blog will take you through a step-by-step analysis of the meaning and importance of SEO-centred blog writing. We aim to inform readers of the practical and easy ways to incorporate optimisation rules into their writing. You may be a brand/business owner looking to generate sales and views from targeted audiences or a passionate writer wanting to connect with new readers. Regardless of the intent, it would be best to stay aware of the norms of optimised blog writing to uphold your content quality and make your work stand out.
What Is Blog Seo ?
Existing on the internet makes you familiar with certain buzzwords and acronyms. It is inevitable to get accustomed to these words. One such highly prevalent term is SEO or search engine optimisation. You may have heard people talking about optimising blog or website pages. But have you ever wondered what it means? What is so particular about blog SEO, and why is it so important? Let us go through a detailed breakdown of these concepts and their significance.
Let us dissect the phrase “blog SEO” in two parts: blog and SEO. As one may already be aware, a blog is a form of written content published online. It is an informal and conversational approach to writing, generally done with an attempt to communicate thoughts, inspirations, information or ideas. Regarding SEO, engine optimisation is adopting strategies that help you get organic traffic onto your webpage. Now let us combine the two and understand the phrase.
The core principle of blog SEO and optimising blog is to help your blog gain natural growth on search engines through algorithm-friendly tactics. Bloggers and creators must be subtle and seamless while assimilating these strategies into the content. There are various methods involved that get bloggers to achieve higher ranks. In addition to writing, keyword research, on-page optimisation and content hygiene are crucial factors for a healthy blog SEO strategy.
How is Optimising Blog Beneficial for Writing?
When people begin blogging, they dive right into writing with creativity as the sole inspiration. Many people live under the impression that the quality of writing determines their blog’s success. While this isn’t entirely false, it isn’t the complete truth either. How you write is only a small part of how well your blog performs.
An all-inclusive and effective approach to maintaining blog SEO is through search engine optimisation. By now, we know the main purpose of optimisation of blogs is to expand and support the content outreach. While it definitely is one of the biggest highlighting perks of it all, it isn’t the only one. You can reap numerous benefits by learning to optimise blogs in a search engine-friendly fashion. With the right SEO tactics, you can boost the performance of your blogs in the following ways:-
- You can reach out to the right target audience who will generate a higher engagement rate with your content.
- It is a low-budget and seamless way of promoting your content in the right direction.
- Adopting an optimised content writing style can bring about a qualitative uplift in your content creation.
- Witness an evident increase in your blog’s performing numbers and analytics by having a good outreach.
- Save efforts by having a relevant and niche content strategy that helps you avoid wasting time creating content you do not need.
- Have a competitive edge over your fellow creators from the same niche/industry.
All these benefits make blog SEO a highly relevant practice for all writers. If you are a budding blogger or an existing professional, incorporating optimisation strategies within your writing will provide fruitful products.
Six Tips to Optimise Blogs for Search Engines
Until now, we have discussed the meaning and importance of engine optimisation, blogging and SEO-centred blogging. In this section, we will apply the most widely practised and recommended strategies that help you optimise blogs and increase the share value of your written content. Professional digital marketers and seasoned writers swear by the following six steps to transform blogs into highly well-performing online searches.
Identify your Target Audience
When creating content, the main motto is to reach out to new audiences. However, the number of people searching for new content goes up to billions. Out of these billions, you must focus on catering to a targeted audience offering qualitative engagement. A target audience is defined as a group of consumers with certain commonalities who are likelier to engage with the published content. This group is also a major determiner of your blog’s reader persona. Following a “quality over quantity” approach when determining your niche target is essential for high professionalism.
A target audience can be determined on several bases, including demographics, interests, behaviours, lifestyles, and so on. When you formulate your content strategy, ask yourself which of the following domains you wish to serve. Conduct in-depth research about your chosen area and direct your content strategy accordingly. You can make use of online analytical tools to get an accurate idea about your readers’ nature. Doing so helps you tailor personalised and more human-like content, which has higher chances of successful engagement.
Let us understand this through an example. Suppose you want to start a food blog. The culinary industry is a broad industry with endless subdivisions and specialities. If you target cooks, you might get overwhelmed by the surplus of content ideas. However, watering down your niche to home cooks making vegan recipes is an easy way to be crisp and precise.
Do not Neglect the Importance of Keywords
If you seek a proven and effective way to optimise blog publishing, you must make keywords your best friend. In SEO, keyword research is held in the highest regard. Whether you have a large ecommerce website or an amateur blog, you must never neglect the importance of keyword usage.
Essentially, keywords are the words and phrases people search for to find relevant results. The correct use of keywords in the right density can provide a desirable outcome in terms of search engine ranks. If search engine crawlers can tell if you are strategic in your approach with keyword research, they will prefer your links for the higher positions.
There are many ways to search and incorporate the right keywords in your SEO content writing practice. You can find various tools and software that help you track the high-performing keywords and the latest demands in your specific niche. Please take note of the trending keywords and observe your competitors’ performance on them. This strategy gives you a fair and practical idea about what your readers are looking for and how you can fulfil their desires.
While correctly using keywords is important, a writer must stay mindful not to stuff or overuse them. Search engines discourage keyword stuffing and heavily penalise such practices by not ranking their searches.
Keep your Readers Engaged with Compelling Factors
A typical reader’s attention span is extremely short-lived and transient. They are always in search of something new and engaging. If they are unsatisfied with what they are delivered, switching and finding something new is very easy. To retain your readers and have them engage with your blog, you must stand out from the usual. While all writers pay special attention to the quality of their writing, words alone aren’t enough to suffice the need of the hour.
If you are looking for a compelling way to have your readers’ attention, you must play on some additional factors. A large variety of components are available to make your content more reader-friendly. You can use visual media like photos, videos, GIFs, charts, and tables to have an eye-catching appeal to your content. Additionally, interlinking is a seamless and beneficial way to keep your blog interactive and outreach.
How you present your blog is also a key factor in determining how your audience interprets your content quality. Having crammed up and lump sum writing may repulse your readers. On the other hand, if you divide your content into paragraphs and bullets, it will keep your content hygiene intact.
Make a Strong Impression in the SERPs
The overall display of your content isn’t just limited to what you write. When you publish a blog, there are several aspects to your results. These results are known as search engine result pages (SERPs). It is how your blogs are presented when people look after search results. If you want to keep your searches organically generated, keeping your SERP components SEO-friendly is important. Some of the most blog-relevant SERP areas are:
- Meta description
- Title
- Title tags
- Blog outline
- Alt tags
- Slug
- Blog URL
Many people ignore the importance of these components while framing their optimisation. However, consider optimising these aspects to maintain a good organic traffic inflow to your blog. It keeps your blog more personalised to your blog searches.
Strategise the Use of the Right Tools & Plug-ins
If you are unsure how to go about your SEO publishing strategy, get help from pre-designed SEO plug-ins. These tools are designed to help bloggers and website owners optimise their content. They provide optimisation inputs based on your specific content, making your search engine journey customised per convenience. These plug-ins also offer a smoother user experience by adding convenient features that further boost your optimisation.
While having an optimised content writing style can be helpful, the additional use of plug-ins can have more fruitful benefits. They optimise your content following search engine algorithms to give you the best results. An endless variety of SEO plug-ins are available, designed for different SEO needs.
To help you ease into the process of using SEO plug-ins, we have listed some of the best and most widely used SEO plug-ins among bloggers.
- Yoast SEO
- SEO Press
- Broken Link Checker
- SEOquake
- The SEO Framework
- Squirrly SEO
- SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant
Focus on Mobile Responsiveness
A good percentage of readers search for content on their mobiles. The user interface of mobile phones functions differently from that of a desktop. 60% of organic searches come from mobiles, hence, a creator mustn’t ignore the importance of the mobile-friendliness of their blogs. Therefore, if your blog is not optimised for mobiles, you risk losing traffic and potential readers.
Whether you have your own website or are publishing blogs on a third-party host, it is important to make sure that they function well on mobiles. Websites optimised for mobiles offer easier navigation on a smaller screen. They also provide various other functions, such as longer dwell times, lower bounce rates, and increased engagement. All these functions are important to give your phone-using audience a better user experience.
With better use of mobile responsiveness in blogging, there is also an increase in shareability. This feature is also an important contributor to increasing the organic traffic results. Google algorithms also prefer mobile indexing for the primary implementation of better search optimisation results.
There are numerous ways to make your website highly engaging and responsive for mobile users. Use plug-ins, software and tests to test and implement a mobile-friendly user experience for all your readers.
Conclusion
To wrap up our discussion, we can conclude that there is a dire need to optimise blogs in today’s competitive digital world. Many people are creating content on similar topics, but the highlighting difference between a well-performing content piece and a typical blog is that of the optimisation settings. We have gone over the meaning and significance of search engine optimisation, particularly in the context of blogging. In more detail, we have also reviewed the six most widely practised and recommended tips for developing optimised content writing habits. These tips have been curated by experts who are well-versed in social media and optimisation. Incorporate them in your daily blogging practice to have your content reach the right audience through strategised techniques.
