How to Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts?

Blogging is a great way to maximize the reach of your business, build trust with your target audience, and increase revenue.

It’s an effective way to tell search engines like Google what your business is about, helping them rank your website.

But, how to write SEO-friendly blog posts is a question that needs a detailed answer.

In this article, we’ll be diving into the techniques that you should use to win first-page Google ranking. By the end of it, you’ll be able to create blog posts that Google loves.

Let’s get into the details of how to write SEO-friendly blog posts.

First thing first: Do Keyword Research

Before answering “How to write SEO-friendly blog posts”, let’s see how to do effective keyword research for it.

Keyword research is probably the most important part of the search engine optimization process. Your prospects can only find you on Google if you have used the terms in your content they are searching for.

An effective and free way of doing keyword research is by doing what your prospects are doing: Search Google.

Google auto-suggestion shows a list of keywords that people search for. These are the keywords you can target in your content without worrying. They are coming from the horse’s mouth, after all.

Don’t stop there. Hit enter and scroll down to the bottom of the search results page.

You now have a complete list of keywords for free to target in your blog post.

If you want to know the search volume and difficulty of a keyword, there is an awesome free tool for that too.

Ubersuggest is one of the most reliable keyword research tools out there. The best thing? You get 3 free searches per day.

Let’s see what does the tool fetches for “Keyword research”.

It tells you the search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and CPC (cost per click).

You may be inclined to think that the higher the search volume for a keyword the better. But, that’s not the case. You need to dig deeper to find if the keyword is worth targeting.

This is where SEO difficulty comes into play. The lower the SEO difficulty, the easier it is to rank that keyword.

In our case, “keyword research” has a difficulty of “31”, which is fairly low. So, we have a good chance of ranking our blog post for this keyword.

Not only that, but the tool also gives keyword suggestions.

You can even download the whole list as a CSV (Excel) file.

Keep in mind that longer keywords (long-tail keywords) are easier and quicker to rank than short keywords. So, if your website is relatively new, try to focus your blogging efforts on long-tail keywords.

Using multiple keywords in a blog post improves its exposure. Use 2 or 3 similar keywords so that more searchers can find the blog post.

Your main keyword will be a primary keyword and others will be secondary.

Now that you know how to find profitable keywords for your blog posts, let’s see how to write SEO-friendly blog posts.

Optimize the Title, URL, Meta Description

You have your primary and secondary keywords. It’s time to put them into action. Use your primary keyword in the title, URL, and meta description.

Make sure the URL isn’t too long. If your keyword is long, use its shorter version. For instance, use “SEO-friendly blog posts” instead of “How to write SEO-friendly blog posts”.

The meta description of your blog post is what users see on the search results page.

Here is an example:

It is a summary of your post. Meta descriptions should encourage the user to click on your link. It’s your best chance to maximize your CTR (click-through rate).

Write User-Centric Content

Write easy-to-digest content. Long sentences with fancy vocabulary can be a turn-off for most readers.

Your readers should be able to skim through your blog post. Use subheadings and transition words to help your content’s readability.

Headings are also good for search engine optimization. Google bots can more easily understand what your blog post is about, helping the search engine crawl and rank your posts.

Transition words like “however”, “lastly”, “to sum up”, help readers to scan through the text with ease.

Moreover, avoid text blocks. Include visuals to keep the reader hooked to the content. Long blocks of text reduce readability.

In short, keep your article easy-to-consume and visually-appealing so that the visitor doesn’t bounce back.

Dwell time is an important SEO factor; it’s the amount of time a visitor spends on your blog.

Use LSI Keywords Instead of Keyword Stuffing

Search engines are now smart and can detect keyword stuffing. Using a keyword over and over again isn’t helpful anymore.

It can hurt your website’s SEO. If you want your content to be found by the search engines easily, use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords instead.

One way to get a list of LSI keywords is the Google auto-complete.

Another great tool to find LSI keywords (related keywords) is LSI Graph.

LSIGraph generates a complete list of related keywords that you can use in your blog post. Using related keywords is not only good for SEO, but it also makes the content readable.

Plus, your blog post has better chances at ranking for more keywords, maximizing its search engine visibility.

Optimize the Length of the Blogpost

Longer blog posts perform well in search engines normally. The average word count of the top 5 blog posts in Google is 1800.

Blog posts with more than 2000 words tend to generate more social media shares. This is mainly because they are in-depth and provide good value. And, more social media shares mean more backlinks to your website.

According to Backlinko, the average first-page result contains 1447 words. So, you can take 1500 words as a reference point. And, make sure your blog posts are not less than 300 words.

That said, don’t rely too much on the word count. Provide as much value as possible to the readers without adding fluff. Keep your blog posts visually-appealing and easy-to-consume.

Use Internal Linking

Internal linking is linking different blog posts of your blog with each other. If your website/blog revolves around a specific niche, you’d be writing on similar topics.

So, link your new blog post with the existing and related content. It makes you appear as an authority in the niche in the eyes of Google.

Plus, these links help search engines crawl your website. Bots can easily travel from one link to another to understand your website structure, improving the chances of better Google ranking.

Not only that, but you can also use an already ranked blog post to rank your new posts using internal linking. This is called transferring the link juice.

Lastly, your visitors might also want to read other related topics. Using internal links helps them navigate your site and spend more time on it, improving your dwell time. And, longer dwell times help with search engine optimization.

Optimize Your Blog Graphics

Large chunks of text reduce readability. Images, videos, and gifs make your blog post easier and more fun to consume.

A great free tool for creating any type of graphics is Canva.

But, using large-sized images and videos can hurt your SEO as they slow down the page loading speed.

So, always optimize your graphics for size, maintaining the quality, of course.

Optimizilla is a free online image compressor you can use to optimize your images.

Plus, image alt tags and descriptions play an important role in letting the search engines know what the image is about.

Image alt text is primarily meant for screen readers helping visually-impaired people understand what the image is about.

Explaining your blog images with an alt tag and description can also help Google rank them for relevant searches.

Use Outbound Links

Outbound links, also called external links, are links to other blog posts/websites from your blog.

Incorporating external links in your blog helps Google identify your niche. It also builds trust with the search engines and increases the quality of your page.

But, make sure to link to authority sites that are relevant to what you are writing in your blog post.

Keep Your Blog Post Up-to-date

Updating a blog post regularly sends a signal to Google that your content is up to date. Search engines crawl that page more often, leading to better ranking.

Plus, recent posts are more attractive than old ones. Imagine two blog posts about the latest blog SEO techniques.

One is updated a few days ago and the other hasn’t been updated for 2 years. Which one would you click on?

Of course, SEO is an ever-changing phenomenon. You would want to know the latest developments.

Final Thoughts

Blogging is an effective way to reach potential customers. But, a lot goes into creating a blog post that reaches its target audience.

The article covers virtually every aspect of “how to write SEO-friendly blog posts”. So, make sure you implement them for better search engine visibility.

However, ranking a blog post in Google takes time. But, you can minimize this time by targeting low-competition, long-tail keywords.

So, now that you know the answer to “How to write SEO-friendly blog posts”, implement them and never lose patience. Understand that SEO is a rewarding yet time-consuming process.