Crafting blog posts is an art that requires skillful execution. To captivate your readers, it’s essential to thoughtfully structure your content and ensure it remains engaging. If readers find an article enjoyable and comprehensible, they are more inclined to share it with others, which can subsequently enhance your rankings. Therefore, if you aspire to refine your writing skills and boost your rankings, embark on this journey with these tips on composing SEO-friendly blog articles!
For some, writing for SEO purposes may seem at odds with the goal of attracting and enchanting an audience. In an SEO-friendly blog post, it’s crucial that your desired keywords are prominently placed. However, overusing keywords can severely compromise the readability of your text, which is something you definitely want to avoid. In fact, a high keyword density could signal to Google that you’ve crammed keywords into your text, potentially harming your rankings.
This article offers tips for writing blog posts that are both SEO-friendly and readable. We believe these two objectives should always go hand in hand, as writing in an understandable language will attract more visitors and keep them on your site.
You can obtain professional support for both blog and entire website SEO processes by consulting with Bigbang Digital’s expert SEO and content specialists.
Before You Begin Conduct Keyword Research
Before you start writing, conducting keyword research is imperative. If you aim to dominate search results, you must discover what your audience is truly searching for. These are the topics you should use in your articles and the keywords you should employ while crafting your text.
Once you’ve completed your keyword research and have a list of focus keywords to write about, it’s time to begin. Here are 10 tips to help you produce an excellent blog post!
Tips for SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
Firstly, your blog post must be well-written. When starting a new blog post, many bloggers simply begin writing, pouring out everything that comes to mind. This approach may work for some people with natural writing abilities, but others may need a bit of assistance.
1- Think Before You Write!
Before you start, carefully consider the message of your article. What do you want to convey to your readers, or which central question do you wish to answer? What is the purpose of your article? And what do you want your readers to do at the end of the page? Write down the answers to these questions before you begin, and think about what someone’s search intent might be. An easy way to get a clue is to look at the search results for the search term you want to rank for.
2- Create a Structure for Your Post
To write a readable and SEO-friendly blog post, you need to create a clear structure. This means that every post should include:
an introduction (where you introduce your topic); a body (where the main message is written); a conclusion (where you summarize the main ideas or draw a conclusion). Write down what you want to say in all three sections in a few sentences. You’ve now created an outline for your post, which will help you make a structured and readable blog post. Now you can start the actual writing.
3- Use Paragraphs and Headings
Everyone uses paragraphs, but not everyone uses them well. Don’t start a new sentence on a new line just because it looks nice. Also, try not to make your paragraphs too long. Think about the main idea of each paragraph. You should be able to summarize that main idea in one sentence. If you can’t, and you need more sentences to explain the main idea, you simply need to use more paragraphs.
Proper headings also help your readers understand what a particular part of your text is about. If you want people to find their way through your article, use subheadings to guide them. Subheadings help readers scan your page and clarify the structure of your articles. They’re important for readability as well as for SEO. That’s why we recommend using your keyword in a few subheadings. However, using your keyword in every heading will make the text tedious and unnatural, so we suggest using it in only some of them.
4- Use Transition Words
Transition words help people understand the relationship between sentences and paragraphs in your text by scanning them. For example, let’s say there are three reasons for people to buy your product. You should use signal words like ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, and ‘finally’. Words like ‘however’, ‘similarly’, and ‘for example’ also give clear signals to your readers. Readers immediately understand that a conclusion will follow words like ‘to summarize’ or ‘in short’. Transition words are very important for adding structure to your text.
5- Use Related Keywords
Stuffing your article with your focus keyword reduces its readability and can also affect your ranking. Google is getting smarter and wants you to write content that users will love. It doesn’t want you to use your keyword in every other sentence, and it has other ways of understanding the topic of your text. One way Google understands the topic of your text is by recognizing synonyms and other related keywords for your focus keyword. Therefore, you should use synonyms and related keywords throughout your text.
Synonyms are relatively easy to think of. However, thinking of the right related keywords can be a bit more challenging. That’s why we introduced a new feature in our plugin that generates a set of related keywords based on your focus keyword with the click of a button! Along with how often your keyword is searched for and what the search trend looks like.
6- Optimizing the Length of Your Article
Ensure your blog posts are at least 300 words, but maintain a balance in the length of your article. Google favors longer articles, but if your article is too lengthy, it may intimidate users. Demanding readers to peruse your entire lengthy article can be excessive. If you’re uncertain about the optimal length for a blog post, consider researching the topic. Remember, to make your text an SEO-friendly blog post, continue to use your focus keyword throughout the text!
7- Linking to Existing Content
If you’ve already written content on the same topic as your current post, don’t forget to link to these posts. It will strengthen both your new blog post and your existing ones, as it demonstrates your authority on the subject. Moreover, your link structure is important for your ranking on Google. Let’s not forget, linking to other content about a topic is fantastic for your readers. Transitioning to content related to the researched topic can be highly beneficial for users.
We call this internal linking, and both your readers and Google will thank you for it. It helps your readers navigate your content and understand the relationships between different contents on your site, so take some time to link to your previous content. Our internal linking tool can assist you by suggesting relevant pages and posts on your site.
8- Have Others Read Your Post
Before publishing your post, ensure that someone else has read it. Make sure they understand the main concept of your post and ask them to correct any spelling or grammar mistakes. This can provide an objective view of the readability and appeal of your text. If you have an expert on the topic you’ve written about on your team, passing your post to them is crucial. They can check if you’ve covered everything necessary and offer suggestions to further improve your post.
9- Regularly Add Content
Adding new blog posts to your website regularly tells Google that your site is alive. This is important because if your site is not active, Google will crawl it less often, which could negatively affect your ranking. However, don’t just post for the sake of posting. Ensure that everything you post is high-quality content: informative, well-written articles that entertain readers and meet search intents.
If you struggle to post regularly, creating a publication schedule for your blog can be a great idea. It allows you to structure this process in a way that suits you and your team. Additionally, updating your outdated posts from time to time is a good practice.
10- Use an SEO Plugin
In this item related to possibilities, you can use SEO plugins that allow you to conduct extensive keyword and topic research. Each SEO plugin has its unique features, but you can choose the one that best suits your blog writing style and create flawless content. Alternatively, you can contact Bigbang Digital Agency, which uses all SEO tools for you, to manage your SEO and blog process professionally.
Author: Hakan Karaman
