How to write SEO friendly blog posts 202412 min read
Content is the king, but only when you know how to write SEO-friendly blog posts. But the question is, how to write SEO-friendly blogs?
According to Letter.ly, 7.5 million blog posts get published every day.
But how many of them get ranked? About 1% only. Now think, what about the rest of the blogs?
Yes, you guessed right, they never get traffic. But writing SEO friendly blog posts can be your trump card and the only way to get traffic.
Some easy and simple steps can make your content optimized for search engines. But you have to maintain all of them and do them in an accurate way.
So, to give you a proper and complete guide on how to make SEO friendly blog, we are here.
Before diving into the topic, for beginners here’s an overview about what “SEO friendly blog” actually means.
Table of Contents
- How to write SEO friendly blog posts
- 1. Start with Keyword research
- 2. SEO friendly blog titles- Important!
- 3. Write a Perfect Introduction
- 4. Create H2, H3 & H4 Properly
- 5. Write Meta description property
- 6.Informative Contents rank better
- 7. Readability Score( How to increase readability score: Pro tips)
- 8. Originality of Content
- 9. Add Internal Links
- 10. Add External links
- 11. Optimize your feature photo
- Never Do these things!
- SEO like a pro
What is SEO friendly blog
We read so many things everyday, like books, social media posts and other writings. But there are some basic differences between regular writing and web content. Web content should be optimized for search engines.
But why, and how?
First think about how the search engine works. When a user searches for something, an information or products, the search engine shows relevant results in the SERP page.
But how does the search engine define which blog will be in the first page/search result? When you optimize your blog for search engines properly, search engine crawlers rank the page in the first page.
So, An SEO friendly blog is a blog where the keywords, page, context is well optimized for search Engine.
When you know how to write SEO friendly blogs, half of your task is done (other half includes technical and off page SEO).
Blog without SEO- How it impacts?
Blog without SEO will bring no impact on your website.
Whether your target is sales, brand promotion or anything else – you need to make your content optimized. We get a question so many times:
Does a blog rank without SEO?
Is a blog without SEO effective?
Are there any negative effects of blogs without SEO?
Well, firstly, a blog can rank without doing SEO properly. But without any kind of optimization, it is quite impossible to rank and when you write about a topic in which enough content are not available, then Google ranks the content even if the content is not well optimized.
A blog without SEO is not effective. Because it does not rank, does not bring traffic, does not help you to sell and ultimately your ROI will be 0. No matter how many contents your website has, it can be 10, or 100- if it is not optimized you cannot expect anything from it.
When you do not know how to write SEO friendly blog posts, it may affect negatively on your site.
Let me explain. When you continuously publish contents that are not ranking, search engine defines your site as less authoritative.
So the site authority goes down. There is no direct negative effect like penalty, but it has far reaching impact on your website.
How to write SEO friendly blog posts
1. Start with Keyword research
When you think about the SEO optimization in your content, the first thing you should consider is relevant keywords research. Now let me answer, Why is keyword research important for SEO?
There are multiple reasons. But when your content consists of the popular keywords, search engines rank it for that query. Here is an example:
Look for closure on both of the keywords. The search intent is the same in both cases, that is- looking for some tools for SEO optimized content writing.
Now, if you enrich your writing with the first one, you may rank for that keyword.
Even if the second keyword’s search intent is the same, this keyword is not going to help because people are not searching this way, the search volume is referring so.
To learn more about it, read our following content:
how to use keywords in Content?
2. SEO friendly blog titles- Important!
Optimized blog post includes everything, from title to meta description, you have to write everything well.
Blog title is a part of on page SEO, and this SEO tips is vastly used.
There are some best practices for writing SEO friendly blog titles.
Here is a checklist for writing SEO friendly blog titles:
- Title should be within 55 characters, it is the best practice. However, there are always exceptions. There are so many
- Use numbers, like “10 free tools for SEO” instead of Free tools for SEO, it works better.
- Avoid click bites, but use existing titles, as like “Don’t miss the latest Google core updates”.
- The title must contain your focus keyword, and it will be better if you use it in the first part of the title.
This short checklist is fine, if you follow it properly, your title can be called “SEO optimized”. It’s one of the most significant part of On-Page SEO.
3. Write a Perfect Introduction
The starting is a significant part of SEO, because if you cannot attract your reader in the first paragraph, the percentage of bounce rate increases. There are many suggested writing methods for introduction writing. But we will share the unique one that we use on our own. We follow some common, easy rules too, but in our own way.
- We use the Main keyword in the first 100 words, and we try to use it just in the first line. It works, always. After
- The introduction includes some data, researched based, that is a sign that your content is well researched.
- Avoid making internal and external links in the first paragraph, it increases the bounce rate.
- The introduction should contain what you are writing about, a basic overview of the topic.
4. Create H2, H3 & H4 Properly
There is no alternative to maintain the proper hierarchy of H2, H3, H4.
Search Engine Signifies the factor very much. However there are some advance tips that you must use.
The answer of how to write SEO friendly content includes the heading writing also. Here is the checklist for Heading making:
- Use the Title/ main keyword in H2 for once.
- Besides, Use the keyword in H3/H4 also in couple of times.
- The Heading should be relevant to the context, Do not use unnecessary headings.
- Use at least 1 heading in between 300 words, If you cannot use H3/h4, then use bullet point. Otherwise it affects the readability.
5. Write Meta description property
Meta description writing is easy, and important. Just maintain some basic rules, your meta description will be optimized. The meta description checklist is here:
- The meta description will be within 160 characters, and do not exceed the limit.
- It should contain your main keyword or focus keyword.
That’s all! Follow it step by step and this will be enough. There’s no alternative to writing in an attractive way to make a position in the search engine result page (SERP), so don’t miss it.
6.Informative Contents rank better
Yes, this is not a regular SEO tactic, but when we are talking about quality content, there is no alternative to informative content.
You may use the target keyword in the information, and it works better.
Find out research and you can do your own research to give the information to the readers.
7. Readability Score( How to increase readability score: Pro tips)
Readability matters, the more readable your content is, the better user can relate.
Remember, the reader does not come to your site to read hard research papers, they come for easy understanding information.
That’s in an easy way. Here are some pro tips about how to increase readability score.
- Use short sentences, do not exceed 20 words in a sentence.
- Do not use passive voice more than 10 percent.
- Use easier synonyms.
8. Originality of Content
Originality of a content is important because the copy content does not rank and is harmful for SEO.
You may take ideas for the content from the websites or YouTube, but do not copy them, keep it original.
This content strategy is significant.
9. Add Internal Links
Internal link building is important, because your visitors do not always come from Google search.
They may come to read one article and find relevant articles, and go to it also.
It helps to rank your web Contents. That creates a link of pages on your website.
10. Add External links
Not only your own content link, putting relevant links of your competitors can be helpful!
However, not only competitors ,you can add any relevant external links as anchor text that may help the reader to understand a topic well.
11. Optimize your feature photo
Using relevant feature photos is important, and so many blogs miss it.
There are multiple websites like freepik, where you can find photos for free.
But we suggest making featured photos on your own, and we suggest using a static style for each feature photo.
Never Do these things!
- Copy Content
- Keyword Stuffing
SEO like a pro
Best tools you may use to write SEO friendly blog : Free Tools, Paid Tools
Now come to the pro tips part. I have shared how you can optimize your content for SEO. But when you want to compete with the best quality content worldwide, you need much more than just regular one. In that case, you must use tools, both free and premium.
Now question on your mind, what tool should I use for content writing? Well if you want to do SEO like a pro, first you need a good keyword research tool.
You can find keywords from one of the most reliable tools with updated data. Most importantly, you will get this keyword research tool free. Already curious?
Yes, it is Google Keyword Planner! This is a game changing tool where you can get accurate data.
Besides, there are popular premium keyword research tools. If you ask me, which keyword research tool is the best in 2024, there are several actually. From our experience we can suggest you the top 3 (the crown belongs to the first one):
- SEMRush
- Ahrefs
- Uber suggest
Each of them is one of the best. Yet you will get some special benefits in SEMRush. Not only keyword research, for comprehensive content writing, SEMRush is the best ever.
Here is how SEMRush can help you to find how to write good blogs for SEO.
- You can create a content template in a couple of minutes using the tool.
- With template, you can see the semantically related keywords that you should include in your content.
- You can find your competitors, and from where you can get backlinks.
- It will suggest the content length as well.
- The template includes the reading materials, so that you do not need to put effort on searching things all over the internet.
Now you can ask, Is SEMRush Enough? Yes, it is enough for optimization but you may need some other tools as a writer, to make your content better. As like, grammar and plagiarism checkers.
Grammar Checking tools: Grammatical mistakes create a bad impression, but to err is human. So, using a grammar checker is a safe option.
There are both paid and free grammar checkers. In recent years, the best grammar checker is grammarly.
If you are looking for a free one, go for ProWritingAid.
Plagiarism Checker tools: To check originality, you must use a premium tool.
This is highly recommended because from my real experience I always get disappointed by free plagiarism checkers.
So go for premium checkers. In recent years, the best plagiarism checkers are copyscape and quetext. You can use any of them.
AI generated Content : Should you use it?
Nowadays, its a popular question. Should I use AI generated contents?
Because they are ranking!
Well, AI was made to make our life easier and better. In every case, it’s the same.
Writing content with manual effort is time consuming, needs attention and research.
On the other hand, when you use AI, you can do these works even in a minute.
So here you can ask the question, is AI a better option than manual SEO friendly writing?
There are some pros and cons of AI generated content. Read them and decide on your own if you should use AI or not.
Pros of AI:
- Less time consuming
- 100% Grammar accuracy and tone
- Works well on creating informative posts
Cons of AI:
- AI generated contents are not in depth, and they just sum up the available information on the internet.
- This is a Threat to the quality of SERP pages, because users often won’t get accurate news or related things.
- AI generated review blogs are fake in true sense.
- Without proper guidance, even AI cannot write content that is good enough for SEO.
- Most of the time, AI generated content does not rank, because of its low quality.
- There are only a few AI software available that provides good quality writing.
So, our suggestion will always be:
Mix both.
Well this opinion may sound contradictory to so many SEO experts. But we believe technology is not our enemy, they makes our life easier. So if you already know how to do SEO like a pro and how to write SEO friendly blog, then AI will make your task easier. Its just a complementary helping hand, not alternative to human.
Wrapping Up
The process is easy, yet you have to make sure that you are following all the steps in a proper way.
When you know how to write good blogs for SEO, the possibility of ranking is the highest.
We started the blog with the line, content is the king, and do not forget to utilize this chance.
You cannot always maintain the other factors about SEO, because SEO is a mysterious puzzle.
But when you know how to make an SEO friendly blog, your task becomes much easier because writing content maintaining the optimization factors is the easiest option ever.
Do not forget to share your opinion or query about how to write SEO friendly blog. And if you need Content writing Service, feel free to Take our :
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