You blog. You post to your blog often enough, but want to reach the widest audience possible to grow your readership… You just need to know HOW to optimize your blog post to get the most bang for your buck in terms of SEO. You don’t want to spend a lot of time worrying about it, you’re a blogger… you just want some simple steps to make sure each post is as SEO friendly as possible. Here’s your answer, a no-nonsense 5 Step approach to optimizing your blogs… Just remember your KILTS?!
KILTS – A 5 Step SEO Checklist For Blogging:
K)eywords – Are you using relevant keywords for your posts?
- Think about what your main focus is for the blog post (in as few words possible)… BAM, you’ve probably just stumbled upon your first keyword phrase. Are there more than a few keyword phrases that jump out at you? If so, you might want to break the post down into it’s parts and optimize each one for a particular phrase. Stay focused.
- So, you think you’ve identified in your head what the best keyword phrase is for the blog post… now you should take a minute and do some quick keyword research. Nothing fancy is needed for this and it doesn’t need to take all day.
- Go to www.ubersuggest.org if you are completely lost with either your keywords or what to even write about. This site lets you quickly drill down on phrases, returning the most popular search terms alphabetically. The one drawback is that the phrases returned are all verbatim… it doesn’t flip the order to show potentially more trafficked ways of phrasing something, it just spits it out the same way you type it in.
- Another quick way to research phrases is to take your initial keyword thought and start to type that into Google. As you type, you should see a drop down menu fly out with suggested search terms. Use these suggestions to hone in on the best phrase to optimize your blog post. I like using this method because it shows you at that moment what people are searching/clicking on. The drop down suggestions do affect search traffic and should be considered when posting. Yes, there are more in depth ways to research keywords, but this is not intended to make you an SEO guru… you’re a blogger after all.
I)mages – Adding media to your blog increases visual appeal and can make a normal post a buzzing sensation. When thinking about images in terms of how to optimize them, you should be thinking about
- How many
- How big
- What the images describe (ALT tags).
The first two elements deal with load time. Adding too many images or large file sizes will negatively affect load speed which will affect the SEO of your blog post. The ALT tag describes your image with text… So, when you’re adding images, optimize them by including your blog post keywords in the ALT tags.
L)inks – When you’re writing your post and thinking in terms of the overall “blog SEO strategy”, don’t forget about those old, archived posts that might relate to your current posts. If you are mentioning a key point that was delved into deeper on a previous post, link to it. If you can, and if it doesn’t read poorly, link to that old post using a keyword phrase that best describes that post (or that you previously optimized for).
T)itles (and Metas) – You’ve done your keyword research, and you’re using the keyword phrases properly in your post… don’t forget about them in your post title. Having a creative title is catchy and cool, but if you’re not including your main points (keywords), you’re going to be leaving it up to chance that Google will be able to figure out what the page is talking about. Keep your titles focused and include your main keyword phrase. Be creative, but keep the keyword theme aligned.
S)lug – The slug is probably not what first jumps out at you when you’re thinking about how to optimize a blog, but it does play a role in aligning your keyword phrase to a post. You’ve used keywords in the title (and meta tags), the content is rich with it, image ALT tags…. finish the alignment and optimize your post slug using the same keyword phrase.
If you want more readers visiting your blog, you don’t need to be an SEO guru, you just need to know how to optimize your posts – quickly and efficiently. Just remember your KILTS when you post and you will be well on your way! And when you’re ready to take your blog to that next level, contact Mannix Marketing for a free site review and strategy session!
