Too many business blogs out there are done poorly - in a number of ways. Some are content braindumps while others are just sales promotion vehicles. While good content will get you found in search engines, a lot of business blogs aren’t optimized for some of the basic SEO factors that should increase your business’ online visibility. This post will show and explain 6 tips to optimize your blog posts so you can be found in search engines and bring in sales through the lucrative organic channel.
Source: Flickr
First, let’s look at the facts:
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People are more likely to click on organic (natural) results than paid ones.
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Searchers have queries and need answers to their questions and solutions to their problems.
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A great blog positions itself as the provider of these answers and solutions - as they pertain to their own industry.
What else makes a great blog? One that’s informative - not about your product per se, but about problems and issues that your ideal customers might have. A great blog also discusses other non-product or service related issues that matter to your visitors. Regardless, your company blog should be informational, educational and valuable.
But we can’t forget about the simple on-page SEO factors that blog posts should be optimized for. Otherwise you’ll be missing out on critical traffic. Here they are:
1. Optimize Your Headings/Subheadings
Before I get into the incredibly important SEO value of optimizing headers and subheaders, let me tell you this: Your headline should be optimized for the reader’s sake instead of purely for search engines - something many marketers get wrong. Don’t get me wrong - the SEO aspect is important and I’ll detail that shortly but Google is cutting down on keyword-stuffed content. In addition, your headline should be engaging and thought provoking. Moreover, it should tell the reader exactly what they should expect and should do nothing but get them to read the rest of your post.
For example, if your article talks about how to cut carrots and cook them, your headline could be “How To Cut And Cook Kale In Under 20 Minutes”. Furthermore, use subheadings to break up your content. This is for user experience. They’re not going to be as interested or engaged if they see a headline and a giant block of text.
So in terms of copywriting, your headline is extremely important in grabbing the reader’s attention and bringing them further down the page to read the rest of your blog post.
Now here comes the SEO value. <H1> to <H6> tags are used to define HTML headings.
Here is what these look like in HTML:
<h1>This is heading 1</h1>
<h2>This is heading 2</h2>
<h3>This is heading 3</h3>
<h4>This is heading 4</h4>
<h5>This is heading 5</h5>
<h6>This is heading 6</h6>
Fortunately for the average business owner, most Content Management Systems (CMS) have editors that allow header tags to be added with ease. Your headline, usually denoted by the <H1> tag, should contain your focus keyword(s) in it. There should be only one <H1> tag on the entire page. The aforementioned keywords should’ve been determined already through your keyword research. Essentially, you want to be targeting keywords that your ideal customers would search to find solutions to their problems. But with your headline, you’ll need to write it so that people are going to want to read the rest - and still include your keyword(s).
Your subheadings - usually using an <H2> to <H6> tag - should include your focus keyword(s) and variations of it as well. But again, use your subheadings to break up content and do your best to include your keyword in them when it makes sense to do so.
Remember: Your heading and subheadings help tell search engines what your page is about. So optimizing these are critical to getting ranked and having your blog posts found in search engine results pages (SERP).
2. Optimize Your Title Tags
Title tags describe an online document to search engines. Think of title tags as the chapters of a book. The chapters tell you in a few words what it’ll be about. Similarly, title tags tell search engines what the page is about.
According to Moz, title tags should be worded so that you have your primary and secondary keywords in there. Again, these should be relevant to what the page is about. For your individual blog posts, there should be enough room to include the title of the post.
With revised character/pixel limits (read below), there’s limited room for more than just your blog post title. For site pages, it’s important to use primary and secondary keywords so long as they represent what your page is about.
Here’s are some examples:
3 Keys To Digital Marketing In Healthcare
5 Tips For Choosing The Right Internet Marketing Agency
Inbound Insiders Articles | HubSpot Blog
Here are some additional title tag best practices:
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For site pages, try to have your keyword near the beginning of your title tag. Your blog posts should already have your main keyword in it
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Keep them to a maximum of 55-60 characters. Otherwise, Google will just cut out the remainder and leave it with a “...” This is as of March 20 as Dr. Pete from Moz uncovered his findings surrounding title tags. Thanks to Google’s new SERP font which is slightly bigger.
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For a preview of what your title tags will look like in the SERPs, use this free tool from SEOmofo.
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Some blogs like to include the business name in their title tags for branding purposes (like the HubSpot example above). Not a bad idea as this will show up in SERPs. But a drawback from doing this is that you’ll have less room for the whatever you want to include in the rest of your title tag.
3. Write An Engaging Meta Description
A meta description is a piece of HTML text that describes the contents of a particular webpage. It’s displayed in the SERPs underneath the URL.
Before I briefly dissect and detail what an effective meta description should look like, it’s good to know why optimizing your meta descriptions are important. In 2009, Google announced that simply having a meta description was not a ranking factor. We optimize meta descriptions to maximize click-through rates. A meta description is one of your last opportunities to get people to click-through to your website from the search. This means you’ll have to write like a salesperson.
So what makes a great meta description?
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It has action-inducing copy. Do everything you can in under 140 - characters to get the searcher to click-through. I say 140 rather than 155 because you’ll need enough space to include a published-on date and the entire meta description. Use emotion in your copy. Ask a question searchers might be asking and provide a solution.
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It tells the searcher a benefit from clicking. Give them a reason to click-through. Remember that any queried keywords will be bolded in the SERPs. So if you provide a solution to the searcher’s question or a benefit from clicking, you’ll have a better rate of success in getting them to click-through to your site. Warning: Do NOT deceive the searcher with meta description text irrelevant to the page. It could thin the level of trust they have with you.
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It’s under 140 characters in length. Just like title tags, meta descriptions have length constraints. Google doesn’t measure it by characters, but by pixels. Generally speaking, if we’re going by characters, we advise to keep your meta descriptions under 140 (so we can include the published-on date - and that can fluctuate. Wider letters take up more space and therefore, more pixels. So stay on the safe side of meta description length.
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It’s a unique meta description. There’s nothing worse to the searcher than seeing the same meta description twice. Now, in their mind, they might not remember seeing a duplicate meta description but they may remember the URL and this could have a poor effect on your branding. Google won’t penalize you for this but it’s a reckless practice nonetheless.
4. Edit Your Image Alt Text
Image alt text has one purpose - to describe the image to users without the ability to view images. Alt text should be optimized for user experience but this shouldn’t preclude you from including a keyword related to your business.
Here are 3 main things to consider when creating alt tags:
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Have your keywords there but don’t keyword stuff.
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Keep them short and concise.
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Make sure it’s relevant.
Consider this: Images appear in Google regular text searches and of course, image searches. You want to rank for these but you can’t be obvious with your alt text keyword insertion. So play it safe - don’t stuff, keep it short and make sure it’s relevant.
5. Keep Your Keyword Density At Bay
I’ve seen quality blog content - AND I’ve seen horrible blog content. Usually, a differentiating factor between the two is keyword density - that is, how often a keyword appears. If it appears too often, Google will consider it keyword-stuffing and penalize you, as a result. If it doesn’t appear enough, you won’t rank for it.
If you’re writing naturally, your focus keyword will come naturally - at around 1-5% of your word total for the post. This is the optimal range. Below 1 and it’ll be too little. Above 5 and it’s considered spammy.
So ultimately, your optimization efforts for keyword density should only come as a last resort.
6. Write To Educate
Just as I mentioned in the last section, if you’re writing naturally about a topic, your focus keywords will come naturally. Again, to reiterate an important point, stuffing keywords in your blog posts is a bad idea and your site may suffer because of it. Remember that Google’s Panda update (and recent Panda 4.0 update) was intended to make sure websites provided quality content and a great user experience.
With that said, the ultimate on-page SEO tip for a business blog is to write for users. Your ultimate goal should be to answer people’s questions and solve their problems with your blog content. Searchers have different kinds of queries - they might want to find out about a product, learn how to perform a specific task, or discover information on a topic. Your job (with your blog) is to be the educator. Be the provider of valuable information that brings them closer to you each time you satisfy their queries and solve their problems.
This means research and data-driven content should be your priority. This isn’t necessarily an SEO tip as it is a user experience tip. But again, if you’re writing for users, your focus keywords will come naturally and you’ll be able to rank for them eventually.
Lastly…
In reading this article, you’ll probably find a common theme: Great blogging isn’t just about targeting keywords - it’s also about user experience. They will be the ones who come back to your website, interact with you and purchase your offerings. Sure, you’ll encounter challenges - writer’s block, poor formatting, generic content and more - but you’ll find a way to overcome.
But overall, there’s an emphasis on quality content and in order for your blog posts to be found, these 6 tips will help get you in front of the people you want to target.
About the Author:
Ramesh Ranjan is the Inbound Marketing Specialist at LocalTrifecta Internet Marketing, where he helps businesses across Metro Vancouver increase sales and revenue through Inbound Marketing. His marketing heroes are Marcus Sheridan, John Caples and John Carlton. In his off time, he can be found playing roller hockey in Richmond, blogging on his personal website, and at the top of the office hockey pool. You can follow and connect with Ramesh over Twitter and Google+
