Want to find out how you can improve your blog’s SEO? Read our 5 tips to improve the search ranking of your blogs and increase traffic to your website.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is used to improve a webpage’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

1. Importance of Keywords For Blog SEO

Let’s start with the basics… Keywords act as the foundation to your Blog SEO strategy and content and are extremely important for helping you rank high on SERPs. These words tell Google what your content is about and can help you rank higher if your keywords and content match the terms that your potential readers are searching for.

Another thing to consider is the search intent of your keywords. There are 4 types of search intent: informational, commercial, transactional, navigational. Informational searches are the least specific and are in search of information. Commercial searches are investigative and look to compare goods and services before someone is ready to make a purchase. The next type of search intent, transactional, is representative of the next step in the customer journey as these searches look to complete a transaction. Finally, navigational searches are the most specific and look to direct someone to an exact URL or brand.

Most blogs have informational or commercial intent as readers look to compare ‘the best birthday presents for men’ or want to find out ‘how to make bespoke birthday cards’. Therefore, when planning your blog content thing about your topic then decide a title that will fit your readers intent.

2. How to Optimise the Title Tag, Meta Description and H1

The title tag, meta description and H1 of a blog are crucial to Google to help it determine the key points of your content. ‘But where can I find this information?’ and ‘what should I include in these descriptions?’ I hear you ask.

All these descriptions can be found by inspecting your blog page and using Ctrl+F to search for ‘title’ for the title tag, ‘description’ to find the meta description under the <meta name= “description” html tag and ‘H1’to find the H1 tag.

Now you’ve found your way around your blog post’s code, let’s go into what should be included in your description to get you ranking high on those SERPs.

Title Tag

Your title tag should be no more than 66 characters as a longer title will be cut off on a SERP. It should also integrate your keywords naturally and your brand name should be used only where necessary.

Meta Description

The next blog SEO tip shows you how to optimise your meta descriptions. Some key advice for your meta descriptions are:

• Keep the text under 155 characters.
• Make the description relevant to the blog’s content.
• Focus on what would compel your user to click through to your page from a SERP.
• Provide a call to action such as ‘read now’ or a USP such as ‘free 30-day subscription available’.

H1

The H1 gives Google extra information about the content of blogs. The H1 should be the main heading that is visible when a user clicks your webpage. It is important that this title is different from the title tag. It should also include a variation of your target keyword for the blog.

3. Don’t Forget the Images!

Images are a component of blogs that are often overlooked when it comes to SEO. Google can only read text and not images and hence, it is crucial that information is added to your images so that Google’s AI can better understand your blog posts.

A few ways to improve the visibility of your images is to:

• Add alt text which describes the image – this also improves the accessibility of your images as this description is read aloud for users who are visually impaired.
• Upload the image with a filename that reflects the image, avoiding something vague and unoriginal.
• Take photos yourself to keep content unique.
• Make sure photos are high quality and compressed to avoid them becoming blurry or pixelated.

4. Internal and External Links Can Improve Your Blog’s SEO

Internal Links

These links go from one webpage to another webpage on your site and provide Google with more information about your page content by connecting it to related topics. Internal links can also help improve your overall website traffic as the reader of your blog can find out more information about a specific topic you have written about without having to leave your website.

But be careful, linking to a page that is not related to your blog on a whim that it is of some interest to your readers will harm your SEO ranking. SEO is about creating content that is useful and engaging for users. It is not a means to simply increase pageviews.

External Links

External links connect your webpage to a page on another website and are important for your blog’s SEO. There are three R’s to follow when choosing another webpage to link to. Make sure your external links are:

• Reputable– This is the most important thing to remember when choosing an external link. The link must be from a trustworthy and accurate source so that your readers find the link useful. Just as your reputation would be damaged if you recommended a faulty good or poor service provider, your SEO ranking will be damaged by linking to substandard content.
• Relevant– The content of the page you link to should be similar to your blog post topic. It should also give your readers extra information on a specific aspect of your topic that was not covered in your blog.
• Root domains– The number of root domains already linking to a site you wish to link to act as a guide for how beneficial the content is for SEO. You can check how many root domain or ‘backlinks’ a website has through tools such as Moz’s link explorer.

5. Review Your Posts to Keep Your Blogs Optimised

Think you’re done, think again! Google’s algorithms are regularly updated and it’s good practice to review your blog posts at least every 3 months to ensure that your pages are fully optimised. It is also useful to use SEO tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console and MozBar to gain greater insight into your website’s traffic, keywords and visibility.

Found this useful and want some expert help? Allotts can assist you with website development and maintenance to get your webpages and blog posts ranking on Google.