Search Engine Optimization

A business blog can rank in the search engines for branded searches alongside your company website and social profiles, while individual blog posts can rank extremely well for long-tail keywords. All of this helps build your overall online brand. However, in order for your blog to help your SEO, you need to take the time to properly optimize each post, just like you’ve optimized each page of your website.

Here are 3 tips to make your blog more SEO friendly:

Optimize the entire post.
You want your blog posts to rank well for related searches. In order for it to rank well, you have to optimize your individual blog posts just like you would a page of your company’s website. Once you’ve written your post, determine what keyword (or keywords) best fit the content and see if there is a way to incorporate that keyword into the post itself. You can try to write it into the main body of the post, but don’t forget about the URL structure and H1 or H2 tags. The key to optimizing a blog post for SEO is to make it natural. If the keyword doesn’t sound right in a particular sentence, don’t force it in.

Link related posts and service pages.
Once a visitor has arrived on your blog, you want to keep them there as long as possible. One way to entice visitors to stick around for a little while longer is to develop an internal linking structure for your blog. Link related posts together to provide your readers with a more in-depth look at a particular topic. Show your audience what an industry expert you are and encourage them to delve deeper into your blog! You should also try to link from your blog posts back to related product/service pages. Use your blog to drive traffic through to your website and focus on converting a well targeted audience.

You don’t want to incorporate so many links in each post that your readers have too many options (keep it simple and focused!), but a few useful links might be just the thing needed to convince them to convert.

Write unique Meta descriptions.
Many site owners don’t bother with Meta descriptions on their site, let alone on their blogs. Yes, Meta descriptions aren’t as important of a ranking factor as they used to be, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help your blog’s SEO! Think of your blog’s Meta descriptions like mini advertisements in the SERP. Those 150 characters have to convince a searcher to choose your blog post over every other listing in the SERP. Take an extra five minutes when writing your blog post and come up with a quick (and optimized!) meta description that will help your blog post stand out.

During this next video I review the best white hat blog post SEO techniques and best practices. Also, I discuss how to craft well written content that keeps a good visitor experience and is not written just for the search engines. Keeping your blog posts conversational and written for your visitors not just optimization efforts is always the best bet!

I hope you enjoy the blog post SEO video lesson below:

Blog posts have been all the craze for quite some time and they have many internet marketing benefits but they have to be approached correctly. There are many search engine optimization elements that should be present with each blog post and it is important to realize this if you want your blog posts to go the extra mile.

Here are several top blog SEO techniques to use:

URL Structures: Often times a blog post will use programming language that looks like a string of characters or the entire title of your blog post. Either one really doesn’t do much for your SEO. The entire title is better than the random characters but ultimately you want to pull out your most important words from your title or even use keywords tastefully if they apply to your post and use those for your URL structure.

Internal Linking: If your blog is located on the URL or domain as your main website you can gain a great advantage by hyper linking keywords and linking them to some of you main product or service pages.

Plugins: Most of the blogging platforms have a large variety of SEO related plugins that will complete some of the SEO work for you so you don’t have to think about it.

Images: Images have a variety of advantages, everything from user experience to search engine marketing. Image search is a popular place to be visible in as well and by utilizing images in your posts and tagging them with keyword rich phrases in the alt tags you increase your chances of being visible in the photo search area.

Meta Info: Many blogging platforms out there now allow you to write custom meta information for individual blog posts which is just another area you can entice the search engines to ping you into the search result space.

Blogging every week for all businesses is important but it is also important to blog correctly so you are always maximizing your efforts online. Take the time to go the extra step with your blog posts and over time you will see much more activity happening from your hard work.

A true dilemma for any aspiring business owner launching a new website, do I launch a blog, a website, both or just one? The reality is that every business should have a blog in today’s day of commerce. A blog gives your traffic a reason for repeat interest while giving you a tool to leverage your voice that ultimately leads to good things for your business.

Here are some reasons why a blog driven website can benefit any business:

1. Continuous Content: You instantly increase the potential to bring in repeat targeted traffic. Each time a visitor comes back to your blog to read what you have to say is another opportunity for that visitor to become a real lead. Your content will act like fishing rod to pull in whatever type of audience you are looking to attract just by shifting topics amongst your industry.

2. Personality: Writing is a great way to showcase your personality. It also gives your business a personality which often time’s people do gravitate towards. Some of the most successful businesses online come packed with loads of personality that can be felt through the readings of the company blog. A voice is something every business should have and a blog is a great way to share that voice in your industry.

3. Industry Reach: A blog allows you to spread your wings in your industry quite a bit. Each blog post can be used to leverage in your industry through means of social media, social bookmarking and a variety of other efforts. A blog is content that you can distribute in as many locations as you want. It also allows for future traffic to find you from blog posts that rank in search results for areas that you target to speak about.

Content has become a very powerful driving force in creating new business and leads for many businesses. Increase your website with good quality pages and content will over time lead to more visitors bumping into your website ultimately giving your company and brand name much wider industry recognition. A website without a blog will only get so much reach by itself. A website with a blog allows your visitor to be able to find your important service pages quickly because they are already on your website.