How to Write SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
If you want to pursue a career in content writing, knowing how to write SEO-friendly blog posts is a crucial skill.
But what do we mean by SEO-friendly? And how can your writing improve an article’s SEO?
Join us as we explore what SEO is and why it’s important, along with our four tips on writing SEO-friendly blog posts:
- Structuring for readability
- Researching keywords
- Using links effectively
- Paying attention to metadata
Keep reading if you’re ready to learn more.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization, abbreviated as SEO, can seem like a complicated subject if you’re new to content writing.
Put simply, SEO is the process of producing content in a way that will improve its chances of appearing higher on search engine results pages (or SERPs).
Each search engine relies on an algorithm to determine how relevant a page is to a search term or keyword, then ranks that page accordingly.
Writing for SEO involves understanding how these algorithms work and how to produce content that caters to them.
Why Is SEO Important for Freelance Writers?
SEO is important because the higher up a website or page appears in search results for a particular query, the more likely it is that people will click through and visit that page.
This results in increased traffic, which in turn can lead to:
- A larger blog audience
- A more recognized and respected brand
- More leads, conversions, and sales for businesses
Search algorithms tend to favor new and updated content, which is one reason why blog writing is such a sought-after skill in the content marketing industry.
And the more you know about SEO and writing optimized blog content, the more likely you’ll be able to land work as a freelance writer.
You’ll also be able to apply content optimization to your own business and reap the associated benefits.
How To Write SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
Now you know why SEO is important when it comes to writing blog posts, but how do you put that knowledge into practice?
Here are our top tips for writing high-quality, SEO-friendly blog posts.
Structure with Readability in Mind
The easier your article is to read, the more likely people are to finish reading it, interact with it, and create backlinks to it.
These all work toward improving a blog post’s SEO ranking.
To structure a post for readability, you should include:
- An introduction, where you introduce the topic and what the post will cover
- A body that is divided into clear headings and subheadings (which include keywords where possible and make use of header tags)
- A conclusion, where you summarize what has been discussed in the post
By using a structure that’s easy to read and navigate, you encourage people to spend more time on your post and boost SEO at the same time.
Perform Keyword Research
Keywords are the fingerprints that search engines use to identify what your content is about and how relevant it is to a search query.
Undertaking keyword research for your post can help you determine which short- and long-tail keywords you should be using.
You can use tools such as Semrush or Wordstream to identify keywords relevant to your post’s subject, discover which terms people are searching for, and determine which keywords have more competition.
Once you’ve identified your keywords, you can integrate them into your post via the title, introduction, subheadings, and wherever else is relevant. Just be careful to avoid keyword stuffing!
Have a Linking Strategy
The type and frequency of links you use in your blog posts will help determine their SEO ranking.
When it comes to blog writing, internal links (links that direct to another page within the same domain) are especially important. By strategically using internal links to refer back to relevant older posts and other areas of your client’s website, you can:
- Help search engines identify those pages and index them accordingly
- Direct traffic toward those pages
- Provide link authority to those pages
But it’s not just inbound links that contribute to a blog post’s SEO.
By providing links to external sources, further reading, and other relevant content, you can add greater value to your own posts and gain your audience’s trust. This will help search engines identify your writing as relevant and high quality, thus boosting its SEO ranking.
Perfect Your Metadata
Metadata is the information attached to a webpage that identifies and describes its content for web crawlers.
The metadata is usually the copy displayed on the results page when someone conducts a search. It’s also the text that appears when someone links to a site on social media.
Metadata can refer to:
- A meta title or title tag, usually the blog post’s title or a condensed form of it
- A meta description, a summary of what the blog post covers
- The URL slug, the unique part of a URL after the “/” that describes the post
When writing a blog post, you will usually focus on the meta description more than the other metadata elements. To craft a meta description that boosts your blog post’s SEO, you should:
- Include your post’s primary keyword(s)
- Adhere to the 155-character limit
- Create a summary that entices people to read further
- End with a call to action
Well-written metadata contributes to what is known as an indirect SEO benefit; while it has no direct effect on the search engine algorithm, it can increase a post’s click-through rate.
SEO Checklist for Blog Posts
Now that the technical part is out of the way, we’ve summarized everything into an easy-to-use list of SEO tactics.
So next time you’re writing an article for a client, you can refer back to this checklist to make sure you’re crafting SEO-friendly blog posts.
Have I…
- Made sure my post is easy to skim and read?
- Followed a logical structure?
- Separated my post into relevant headings and subheadings?
- Used appropriate header tags?
- Identified primary and secondary keywords for my post?
- Used the primary keyword(s) in the title, introduction, and some headings?
- Provided relevant internal links?
- Provided relevant external links?
- Written a meta description that accurately describes my post?
- Included the primary keyword(s) in the meta description?
- Included a call to action in the meta description
Becoming A Freelance Writer
If you’re passionate about blog posts or intrigued by the world of content writing, why not see what our Becoming A Freelance Writer course can offer?
Gain access to advice from industry-leading experts, 24/7 tutor support, and publishing opportunities for successful graduates.
Not sure if our courses are the right fit for you? No problem – you can try them out for free first.
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