12-point SEO checklist for blogs
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for driving traffic to your website or blog. But it seems SEO is becoming more technical and more challenging as new best practices and technologies emerge. But, there are some simple ways to optimize each blog post to make sure it’s found by the right people.
Blogging is a fantastic content marketing tactic to further optimize your site for SEO outside of your core pages, like your homepage, about us, contact us, or product-related pages. It can also build up your site’s E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) which Google looks at when determining your site’s ranking. Blogging also helps build up your site’s backlink profile by having other sites link to yours as a reference or source of information.
Through blogging, you can also provide the search engines with fresh, original content to index and serve to searchers. So all-in-all, blogging is a wonderful way to improve your site’s SEO and bring in visitors looking for unique content.
But before developing your blog’s content or publishing it, be sure to go through this blogging SEO checklist!
12 ways to add SEO to your blog
1. Use keywords
Take the time to do your keyword research to ensure you’re targeting the right terms for your blog’s topic to draw interest and clicks to your post. You’ll have a primary term you’re optimizing your post for, but you’ll also want variants of that term and long-tail keyword options to narrow down your targeted term.
Don’t oversaturate your blog’s content by repeating the keyword term in every paragraph or it’ll look obvious what you’re optimizing your content for. The best keyword optimization is when the content doesn’t read like it’s been optimized. Aim for a keyword density of 1-3% to not annoy your human readers or flag your content as spam by the search engine crawlers.
2. Utilize your headings
You have several opportunities to further optimize your content for your keywords by getting the most out of your headings or H1s through H5s. Break up your content with your headings and get your keywords worked into them.
Another great option for using your headings to their fullest is to ask questions. For example, I’m writing a post for a client about things to do in Denver. My headings could look something like:
H1: The 10 best things to do in Denver in summer
H2: What are the top 10 things to do in Denver?
H3: What to expect in Denver in the summer
H4: What are the best free things to do in Denver?
People expect keywords in headings as it calls their attention to the information they’re looking for and is a great way to optimize your content and make it more valuable for your website visitors.
3. Create quality content
You can add the right keywords to your content all you want but if it’s not valuable or relevant, it’s not going to rank. It’s also not going to rank if it’s thin content, or blogs that are less than 300 words.
Take into account the search intent when developing your content, meaning understand what your readers want to know more about and build that intent into your content. This is another reason questions in headings work so well as it really shows what you’re trying to answer for your visitors.
Search queries are often keywords or questions so your content should include those keywords and answer the questions those searchers are typing in.
4. Link your content
Links are just as important as your keywords and your content needs a strong mix of internal and external links. The search engines have gotten smarter at recognizing keyword and anchor text spam so make sure the words you’re linking and what pages you’re directing people to are related and relevant.
Many WordPress themes or web design allows you to use related content blocks, an easy way to link content on your site or you can always add your own manual related reading list to get your internal links in there.
Of course you’ll also want to include Calls to Action (CTAs) in your content to tell your readers what they should do next after reading your post. That could be reading another blog, downloading a free guide, or visiting your social media channels to join a conversation about the topic. Many marketers also use this area to drive sales by encouraging people to sign up for a demo or trial or contact sales directly.
Now, a word of caution – be careful with being too self-promotional in your content or readers will start skipping over your links or CTAs directing people to sales demos. I’ve seen posts where between every heading or main point there’s a CTA telling me to contact sales or start a trial and I start skimming the content more quickly as that’s not what I’m there for. Use CTAs sparingly, perhaps at the beginning and at the end or in the middle and the end.
Finally, if you’re referencing information from other sources or websites, include links to those sources to add credibility to your information and properly give credit where it’s due.
5. Optimize your blog’s meta data
Your meta data is another opportunity to further optimize your content with keywords and specifically tell the search engines what your blog post is about. Many CMS systems or plugins let you customize your meta data like your page title and meta description. Keep your meta descriptions around 150 characters and get your primary keyword term worked in there!
6. Structure your URL
Your URL structure can help the search engines better understand your content. Which of the two URLs look more informative?
www.brand.com/blog/post-01-27-2020
www.brand.com/blog/seo-tips-for-marketers
I’m betting the second one. Get more SEO juice out of your blog content by creating stronger URLs. Your keyword or targeted term should be included in your URL but don’t go overboard and stuff keywords in there. If your keyword is in your title tag and page title, it’ll most likely be pulled over into your URL by most CMS-built sites.
7. Drop breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs show the search engine crawlers how the pages of your website content are related and what pages have the most importance. My site has breadcrumbs:
It also plays a role in helping users navigate your site or get back to the previous page easily.
8. Responsive design
Okay, this one is a bit out of a blogger’s hands if they have no control over the web design. Fortunately, most of today’s website builders and CMS options default to a responsive design so your blog post is laid out in the best way for the screen the person is reading it on. Responsive design improves the user experience and signals to the search engines that you’re following web design best practices.
9. Images and alt text
Alt text is the only way you can tell the search engines what your site’s images are about, as well as comply with accessibility laws. If it’ll fit organically, add a keyword term to your image’s alt text, otherwise plainly explain what the picture or image is about. Do not try to game the system by adding multiple keywords to your images or your site could be penalized.
When it comes to images you’ll also want to compress your images to make sure your site loads as quickly as possible.
10. Improve your backlink profile
Secure backlinks to your blog by sharing it on social media, sending it to industry influencers, and including social sharing options on your blog to make it as easy as possible for readers to share the blog as soon as they’re done reading it.
11. Submit the blog to Google Search Console
With Google Search Console you can tell the search engine giant that you’ve added new content to your site that should be crawled and indexed. Once your blog post is live go to your Search Console account and submit your new blog post.
Google Search Console can also alert you to any potential problems the search engines have crawling your site or any technical issues you need to address.
12. Use Google Analytics for further optimization
Finally, track the performance of your blog posts in Google Analytics. Pay attention to your sessions, bounce rate, and time on site as these engagement metrics can tell you if your content is optimized and providing value. If people are landing on your page and then leaving right away, obviously your content isn’t answering their question or providing enough information.
After a few months, you can also do some additional keyword research to re-optimize older posts with new keyword terms to give old posts a boost.
Do you have an SEO checklist for your blogging efforts? Is there anything I missed from mine? Tell me in the comments below or on Twitter!
