SEO Blog Tips – How to Get the Most From Your Blog Posts
Blogging is a time-tested method for generating traffic from search engines. Well, at least it is if you understand the 
new paradigms of search engine optimization ["SEO"]. Here are some quick tips on getting the most from your SEO blog posts.
SEO Changes
Search engine optimization “best practices” have changed dramatically since 2010. That’s when Google started to make radical changes to the way it ranks websites. Old practices such as gaining as many links as possible and using very specific keyword ratios not only became largely irrelevant, but actually raised red flags in Google’s ranking algorithms. Today, the key is to write quality content which naturally contains your keyword phrases and semantically similar phrases. We’d like to focus on several of the most important ways to do it.
Semantic Keywords
Every blog post should be written around a single root keyword phrase. For example, the root keyword phrase for this article is “SEO blog tips”. We’ve now mentioned the phrase two times in this text, but in such a naturally flowing manner that you may not have noticed. Go ahead, look for it. You will find it in the last sentence of the first paragraph and in the second sentence of this paragraph.
One keyword, however, is really no longer enough. You need to weave semantically similar keywords in the text of the posts as well. A few examples for SEO blog tips might be:
- Search engine optimization
- Blog tips
- Best blog practices
- Blog SEO
- SEO tips
- Increase blog traffic
In reality, the list is endless. What you are shooting for, though, are phrases related to the post’s specific theme. Google will review the different phrases and then note the theme of the page. You will then end up ranking for many of these phrases, as well as many other keywords you never even thought about. This will increase your traffic and is really the key to blog SEO practices.
Meta Tags
Meta tags traditionally have been very important when it comes to search engine optimization. This is no longer the case. Google has admitted it doesn’t consider the meta description or meta keyword code on websites. It does look at the meta title tag, but one look at the search rankings for your keyword will tell you it doesn’t place much emphasis on that tag.
That’s why we suggest three things.
- Include your main keyword at the start of your meta title followed by a phrase that is not keyword-centric. For example, “Blog Rankings – How To Get The Most Traffic From Your Blog Posts.”
- Start the meta description with a question incorporating your main keyword phrase. For this article, we will go with something such as, “Looking for SEO blog tips? Find out why your blog posts may not be ranking by clicking here.”
- Ignore the meta keywords tool. Don’t bother entering anything.
That is it. Yes, meta tags have become fairly simple these days.
Post Organization
As a general rule, you should avoid rambling when writing a post. A far better approach is to start by specifying a problem your audience faces, whether they know it or not. The remainder of the post should then detail the steps needed to resolve that problem. If one of those steps involves buying something from your business, so much the better.
Consider this post. Following the introductory paragraph, we move immediately to the issues of why blog posts are important from a ranking perspective, and why getting posts ranked on Google is more difficult these days. We then spend the rest of the blog post covering the steps that can help overcome the difficulties while offering our services at the end of the post. This is a formula that can, and should, be used for just about any blog post intended to convey information and produce sales.
Post Length
500 words? Read the vast majority of blog posts and they all seem to come in at around 500 words. It is rather amazing when you think about it. In reality, every blog post is going to require a different word count to really cover its subject.
A blog post about the temperature of the sun is going to be pretty short because, frankly, there isn’t all that much to write about.
A blog post discussing the number of ranking algorithm changes made by Google in the last eight years will probably require 2,000 words or more to cover all of the changes in any detail.
Despite all this, we still see the majority of post lengths coming in at 500 words, regardless of topic. This is simply a mistake and it is our view at Prestige Writing that it may not be long before Google starts filtering posts of this length out of the top 10 in its rankings.
A blog post should be as long as it needs to be. Having said this, Google clearly favors longer posts when it ranks pages for a keyword phrase. Posts with 2,500 to 3,000 words usually rank much higher than those with fewer words. These posts also tend to be shared more by people on Twitter and other social media accounts, which certainly helps with the ranking process as well.
As an example, this post comes in at 969 total words – which works just fine for our purposes.
Social Media
Do you need to build links to your new blog post? Sure, in a perfect world. Custom and practice these days, however, is to punch out the post to social media where people can share the content naturally. Without this signal, the posts simply are not going to rank – so make sure you get out there and share your content.
Quality Content
At Prestige Writing, we specialize in providing quality blogging content for our clients. If your blog posts are not getting ranked, contact us today for a free consultation.Related: qpLFW, coxy, rtUb, sBNbCw, wJk, oMCU, lRZTz, FdSi, HIS, qDevpq, FsuiXT, PGMp, RPNBE, tmGrY, oQOE,