We’ve covered the benefits of search engine optimization and why you need it for your website. But it’s important to remember that SEO extends to the blogosphere as well. When writing a blog, you need to ensure you’re using the right SEO tactics to get your posts high on the search engine results page. For a successful blog, strong SEO is necessary to gain new readers, sell products, and engage your audience.
Check out some of our tips about SEO for blogs below to find out how to get your blog posts on the first page of Google!
How to Use SEO for Blogging
1. Social Media Presence
Search engines have long been using social media as part of their algorithms when creating search results. We’ve blogged the importance of social media for small business before. Google checks if blog posts have been Tweeted or mentioned repeatedly on social media and that lends credibility to your page and your ranking can be increased.
If you post your blog and blog posts on social media, the more people will talk about it, the more clicks you’ll get, and the more reliable your website will be seen by Google.
2. Mobile-Friendly
Make sure your blog is mobile friendly. Google tries to provide the searcher with the best results possible. Many users are searching on mobile, and Google won’t return a blog in the search results that isn’t mobile-friendly to them.
To accommodate both your desktop and mobile users, ensure your blog is a responsive website. This is when the website detects whether the visitor is on a mobile device or a desktop or laptop computer, and provides the correct version of the website. This way, you can increase rankings on both types of devices.
3. Check Your Strategy and Success
You can’t have a successful SEO strategy by just guessing what will work. There are many different programs you can use to find out what will give your blog the best SEO results.
Yoast is an SEO plugin that helps you focus your keywords, meta information, readability, and much more for each of your blog posts. You can edit and tweak your content to improve your focus and see what search engines will respond to best.
Using Google Analytics is also necessary for successful SEO for bloggers. You can track your users, and see what SEO strategies are working and which are not. It’s useless to employ a variety of strategies and then not track which are successful. If you aren’t using Google Analytics for your blog yet, start right now!
4. Creating Backlinks
Backlinks are an easy way to improve your visibility and search engine ranking. They refer to your content being linked by another page. This could be links from a different website, or from your own blog.
A good way to improve your backlinks is through linking on your own posts on other pages or commenting on other blogs. To adhere to Google best practices, it’s important that you never purchase backlinks – this can seem appealing, but it’s not worth being banned from Google. Building backlinks on reputable websites is key for increasing ranking safely.
5. Choosing the Right Keywords
Keywords are one of the easiest and most important SEO tools for a successful blog. Each of your posts needs to have a focus on 1-2 specific long-tail keywords. Too many keywords can seem like you’re ‘keyword stuffing’ – something else against Google’s Best Practices.
You should include these keywords at about a 1-2% frequency in your post, including in the title, headers, first paragraph, URL, and meta description. Targeting the same specific keywords in this area show search engines that your page is focused and relevant, and your visitors can use the information if they use the same or similar search terms.
6. Your Own Domain and Hosting
Having your blog with its own domain and own hosting also works in your favour. Google favours blogs that are individually hosted because it makes them seem more trustworthy. Hosting can seem like a big step, especially if you don’t have a lot of technical experience, but there are many packages available that are easy to set up and use.
If you’re interested in setting up hosting for your blog, check out our partners Just Hosting for some great deals!
Remember, SEO is a long term process. Organic improvements can take months to provide tangible results. The important thing about SEO for blogs is to keep at it. Maintain your best practices and in time, you’ll see an increase in your ranking and a boost in your audience.
Need SEO for your Blog?
VivosWeb knows digital marketing and search engine optimization. We can help your blog gain new followers, more shares on social media, and a higher place on the search engine results page.
Contact us today to learn how we can help your blog’s SEO.
Phone: 1 (905) 574-1010
Email: contact@vivosweb.com
What are you SEO for blogging tips? Leave us a comment below!
