Blogs are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to engage online, as well as show off their writing skills. However, many people have difficulties driving traffic to their blogs simply because others cannot find them through search engines. Fortunately, there are some good tips for blog writing for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.
Writing Habits
- Title – The title of your blog post is an important factor that draws potential readers into your writing piece. The title of your blog post should be the only <H1> formatted text on the page (meaning it is Header 1), that way the search engine can categorize and display your blog post when people search for similar topics. The title of your blog post becomes the title of your web page as it is indexed by the search engine.
- All Caps – The only times that capitalized letters should be used (except for the first word of a sentence and proper nouns) is in a subheader formatting (heading 2 or heading 3) when you want to emphasize something in the blog. Otherwise, all caps should be avoided because it is considered to be yelling.
- Subheaders – Using subheaders in your blog is important because it increases readability and allows readers to better understand the point of the blog post. Writing engaging content that is easily understood by readers is the ultimate key to blog writing for SEO.
Image Habits
- Importing Images – When you import or embed pictures in your blog post it is important to include text describing the picture in the “alt” field. This allows the search engine to again categorize your page based off the description and it also helps auto-screen readers qualify the image for visually impaired individuals.
- Attachment Page – If you are using WordPress for your blog site, you can also take advantage of the Attachment Page for Images. This allows you to dedicate a separate page to each particular photo and for SEO purposes it allows you to add another page to the search engine index.
Web Habits
- URL – Make sure the URL of your website/blog post contains descriptive information about the topic you are writing on. Incorporate a few keywords that a person might search if they wanted to know something about the topic you are writing about. A good URL improves SEO and also helps readers understand what the blog post is about. Check out this link (http://www.nfn4good.org/2012/03/getting-search-engine-luv-via-wp-permalinks/) for more information on how to enable optimized permalinks for a WordPress blog.
- Links – Your blog should have links back to your social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. Always send out links for new blog posts over your social media because that will greatly help SEO efforts.
- Plugins – Incorporate the All in One SEO Pack if you have a blog on WordPress. This will allow you to easily optimize your blog for search engines, all in one place.
Writing a blog is a great way to get yourself or your business noticed. However, if no one can find your blog because you aren’t using any search engine optimization tools, your blog won’t get you very far. Blog writing for SEO is easy and effective with the tips above. Implementing SEO practices for your site will drive readers and potential customers to your blog over the long run.
As a full service marketing agency, The Belford Group creates branding, websites, marketing, social media and search engine optimization solutions to assist our clients in finding and reaching their ideal audience.
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