When writing a blog post you should always consider how your readers will find you. Google and other search engines are the most common method for people looking for an answer to their questions. If you utilize SEO then Google will understand your post and will rank it higher to help their users answer questions. There are several ways to optimize your writing so Google can understand and rank your content higher.
Choosing a Topic for your Blog Post
When choosing a topic for your blog post make sure it is within the niche of your blog. For example, a blog about Farming should only write blog posts that cover this topic. An important ranking factor for Google is E.A.T. which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Building content within your niche will help raise your E.A.T.
Pro Tip: To build topical authority faster within your niche start by creating posts on a small sub-topic within the niche. Keep writing posts until you have answered all questions about that topic. Here is a short 1 minute video of Matt Digity explaining how to find questions around a given topic.
Start Researching Keywords
Once you have an idea for the topic of the blog post begin searching for keywords that people would use to find the blog post you are going to write.
There are several theories about the titles you should use for a blog post. Some SEO experts say you should only write a title with search traffic. This can be seen by entering a keyword or sentence into Google Adsense or using a free tool such as the Surfer SEO plugin. There are many other tools that allow you to search for and see approximate traffic for a certain keyword.
The opposing theory that I have seen promoted by The Income School is no tool gives data that is accurate regarding Google search. They prove this by typing a keyword into Google. They then use “The people also ask” and place these questions into these tools. There are many questions that will show 0 search volume. Google blatantly shares searches it is receiving, but even its own Adsense tool will show this question has no searches.
My recommendation is to take the keyword volume with a grain of salt. I believe these tools are useful for getting a sense of keywords that have a larger volume, but not the exact volume of the search. If a query only has 1k searches per month out of the billions daily then it will probably not show up in these tools. This means that 1k will likely not be targetted and opens the door for new bloggers to capitalize on the so-called “low-hanging fruit”.
How I decide to write a piece is if I believe the piece will be valuable to a reader. I discuss ways to create and market a blog. So if I believe the title is something worth knowing for my readers then I will publish the content.
Optimize On-Page Content for Google
After watching multiple videos of Kyle Roof it is clear that there are multiple places Google will look to decide what a page is about. He lists the most important places to have keywords you would like to rank for in:
- URL
- Title (he recommends matching the meta title to the h1 title)
- Headings
After numerous case studies and research, he found that Google will look at these areas the closest to decide what the page is about.
Another step to optimizing your content is to see what Google has already ranked in the first page. Look at the page for your title and see what the first 5 positions have done. Questions you should ask yourself is:
- On average how long are the articles in the top 5 positions for my title? (Take the average and write your article the same length)
- What types of posts are in the top 5 positions? (List, How to, Videos, Pictures)
- What is the user intent? (Think about why someone would put that query into Google and what types of content Google is showing for that query).
- What is already being covered? (Make a Google Doc and take all the subheadings for the first 5 results. Then with that list, you will have a basic idea of what Google is expecting to see within your content.)
Looking at these four concepts will allow you to see exactly how much and what type of content Google is currently ranking. I recommend using this as a guide when creating your post.
Consider Off-Site SEO
Another important consideration when creating your post is how you will gain exposure and links from content. There are several concepts that should be considered when creating the post.
- Is the content link-worthy? (Do other websites have a reason to link to this content)
- Does the content share works of other people? (For example in this post I recommended Matt Diggity, Kyle Roof, and The Income School it may be beneficial for me to let these creators know I mentioned them in this post. They may end up sharing it on social media or linking to it.)
- Is my content worth linking to over other content? (If I believed this post was better than a post already created I could share it with the people who linked to the previous post.)
If you are interested in building links to a post you have written one of the best methods is guest posting.
Conclusion
These are only a fraction of the things you should consider when performing SEO on your blog post. It will be beneficial to consider the things that will rank you well with Google, but do not let these SEO concepts inhibit your content creation. Remember that you are creating content for people and not for search engines. If you find yourself spending more time focusing on what search engines need rather than what would help your readers then you will fail.
What do you believe is the biggest factor for SEO on a blog post?