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4 Steps to better SEO for Blog Posts 

 May 19, 2020

By  Jeanette Giselle

4 Easy Steps to SEO for blog posts! Don't let your WordPress blog suffer by not implementing SEO. Read this post to start using SEO today! | Blogging for Beginners WordPress

If you are new to blogging then you have probably heard that SEO if important. But when starting out SEO can be so complicated. What is SEO anyway? Well for starters, it is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically what this does, is it makes your website searchable to people who are looking for content like yours.

When I first started optimization my website, I had to go back and forth so many times deleting and adding things to my posts. I had no clear path as to what I was doing. I took an entire day of just figuring out what is the best way to systemize my blog post process so that I didn’t ever have to do that again! I’m sure you are on that same position that I was in and that’s why you’re here.

The most important thing when creating a blog post is systemizing it. Or anything in your business for that matter. How can you do the same thing over and over for different content without the headache? Or feeling like you’re starting from scratch each time? Well it’s all here for you. I created a blog post system to ensure that they are rich in SEO EVERY TIME. So stick along and find out how you can learn SEO for blog posts.

For every blog post you need to have these four things:

  1. Keywords
  2. Images
  3. High Quality Content
  4. Links

If you haven’t started a blog yet and you want a technical guide, read my blog post “How to Start a Blog on a Budget”

Keywords

When you start to write a blog post, sit down first with a piece of paper (or your computer) and write down keywords. For the sake of this post we are going to be “writing” a blog posts on Fitness. So the blog post is going to be specifically on Yoga.

What are some keywords that people might be searching for when wanting more information on Yoga.

Some example are “Yoga for Beginners” “Yoga Back Stretches” or “Yoga for Weight loss.” The keywords here are “beginners, back stretches and weight loss”

My blog post is going to be “Yoga for Beginners” additionally I will add these extra keywords: Easy morning stretches you can do to improve flexibility.

Now I have added not only beginners but now I have “easy” “morning stretches” and “improve flexibility.” These are all things that people are searching for when wanting to learn Yoga.

So how do you find this for your own post? Well, you want to start with your main keywords AKA your “focus keyword.” In this example our focus keyword is “Yoga for Beginners.”

From there you want to root down to minor keywords (like “easy”).

Having around 3-4 minor keywords is a good amount.

Start with a Focus (Main) keyword and build on it with minor keywords

 

You will then want to post these strategically on your blog post. You will want to place them in four places:

  1. Blog post Title
  2. Body of your post
  3. Alternative text in your images
  4. Meta Descriptions (“snippets”)

Pro Tip: Download the YOAST plugin onto your WordPress site. YOAST will read every page on your website and indicate whether your SEO is good or not. Everything that I am telling you in this post is to ensure that you always have good SEO with YOAST.

Entering your keywords

Usually before beginning a post, you already have your blog post name down, right? Make sure it has your Focus Keywords in there. Automatically WordPress will make your blog post title into your URL. If it is too long or for some reason doesn’t match your title, make sure the focus keyword is your URL.

Next you will want to make sure that ALL your keywords are in your first paragraph! This is simple to do especially when highlighting what your post will be about. Usually your minor keywords are also the main points of your blog post. That’s a win win!

You get content for the blog post plus it’s rich in SEO. You will also want to make sure they are all scattered within your post.

Pro Tip: Make sure to add Headings and Subheadings into your posts. So if you are making a list posts of things, make sure each step is a heading in your post. Search engines mark this as “high quality” if you do this.

Images

Always make sure to change the alt text of your images before uploading them to your wordpress blog posts

I feel like this is something easily skimped over and not talked about enough.

Your images are part of your post! They must also be optimized. So before downloading images that you are creating, make sure to name of the image makes sense for the post. Even if the image is not yours, change the name.

If you are using stock images, make sure the name of the image also had your Focus Keyword in it. Do this for all images. I will make my image names accordingly for where they belong and their purpose.

For example, my blog post banners are always named:

“BB-NAME-OF-POST”

BB standing for Blog Banner along with the name of the post. I will change the beginning to what the purpose of the image is. Lastly, you will want to add an “alternative text.” This is important for two reason. The first is that your images’ text is also searchable.

So if you add an description of your image (filled with keywords) people can find your post on Google! The second and most important (in my opinion), is that your alt text will be the automatic description on your image if it is pinned.

If you have pinable images on your post and someone decides to pin it, the description on your alt text will transfer over to Pinterest. So what does that mean for you? People will find your pins easily and therefore you will be receiving organic traffic onto your website! SCORE!

Okay, so the last thing you want to do with your keywords is add a meta description. YOAST has an amazing feature that allows you to edit your meta description. What this does is, allows you to modify the “preview” of your post.

So when someone searches on Google, the paragraph underneath your title is your meta description. Also, if you have a business Pinterest account and have Rich Pins enabled, the meta will be the preview on the Pin!

Always make sure to edit your blog post Meta Descriptions to ensure maximum SEO benefits from the plugin.

High Quality Content

We skimmed over this a little by adding headings into our post but what else can you do? And what the heck is high quality content? Because there are so many websites nowadays, Google and other search engines (like Pinterest) are only using what they consider high quality. There are a couple things you can do to make sure your posts are actually being seen.

First, checking off all these SEO steps make your website high quality. Why? Because you are taking the extra step to make sure that your website in it’s entirety is efficient. In Google’s attempt to get rid of spam, they will mark websites as spam for many reasons.

A couple can be that your website content is too short. The minimum blog post word count should be 1000 words.

Large blog posts make search engines think you have a lot of useful information. But don’t just add words to meet that thousand word goal. If you truly believe you are giving quality information then that’s enough! (You can also supplement low word count with videos or additional resources).

With that said, make sure what you’re writing is relevant. If you are writing about Yoga then it doesn’t make sense to throw in something about Weightlifting. Stay on topic and focus on your keywords.

Pro Tip: You can also have a high quality website by adding an SSL Certificate. SSL Certificates protect your reader’s sensitive information such as credit card information, usernames, passwords etc.

Overall, this makes your website look better by having your URL “Secure.”

If you are insure about how to get one for your blog, you can get one for FREE by using Bluehost. Bluehost is the #1 Recommended web hosting site for bloggers. I am currently using Bluehost and I am using their FREE SSL Certificate on my website.

Read more about their pricing plans and features here.

Links

The final thing you should do to improve your SEO is adding links to your posts. More importantly adding internal links. Meaning, links that make the reader stay on your website. This goes along with creating high quality. If you have links you can add to other relevant posts then this will improve your SEO.

The main point of all this is to prove that you have exactly what someone is looking for. Not only do you have what they are looking for but you know what they will need next or as a foundation. Creating a series of blog posts and update your posts with links to those posts. If you are just starting out link your about page and invite them to learn a little bit more about yourself!

And those are the 4 simple steps you can take today to improve your SEO. I know this was a lot of information so let’s do a recap. You’re going to want to create a keyword plan for each blog posts and then strategically place them throughout your post.

After you have finished with your post, you can add images to your site. These images will have keyword filled titles and alternative text. Then you’ll want to make sure it is high quality content that include internal links! You can do all these things by downloading the YOAST plugin.

Let that do it’s magic and all you have to do after is make the necessary changes (if any!).

Whew! That was a lot even for me. I know it was really hard to get started but it doesn’t have to be. Using these steps will ensure that all your blog posts are ready to be searched and pinned. Pinterest is by far most bloggers number 1 source of traffic.

So making sure to have your pins ready to be saved and seen is important.

For a full in depth guide I recommend watching Miles Beckler’s (from milesbeckler.com) YouTube video: Learn SEO! Free SEO Training Course Created In December 2017 And Updated For 2018

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Jeanette Giselle


Jeanette is a mom of three kids and full time entrepreneur. She is a certified Professional House Cleaner by the AHCA. It is her passion to help overwhelmed mothers simplify their home duties so that they can spend their time doing the things they love. 

Jeanette Giselle

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