Creating Better Blogs for SEO

Blogs are valuable tools used to boost website traffic and showcase your products, services and capabilities. Go to any website and you’ll usually find a “blog” section in the navigation menu. Many are seeking the benefits of blogging. But in a sea of posts, how can you make your blog stand out?

SEO. That’s how.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used to rank higher in organic search results. It’s the practice of search engines, like Google, “crawling” through content to find the best result for the searcher.

Blogs that follow SEO best practices have a greater chance of showing up first on a search engine’s results page. If you want this for your content, then you’ll need to meet specific standards such as word count, frequency of posts, keywords, and linking.

Longer Blogs Get Better Results 

Search engines, like Google, pay close attention to the word count of blogs. The more information on the page, the more search engines will trust it.

In the past, it was assumed that smaller blogs had higher success rates. Average blogs between 2014 and 2015 were 500 to 1000 words, with 500 to 700 being the agreed upon “sweet spot” (Blue Kite). It was assumed smaller blogs were easier for the reader to digest and that what readers wanted was to be provided quick facts.

And while small blogs can be great as conversation starters, they’re not optimal for SEO.

Now, it’s agreed that the best blogs for SEO are about 2,100 to 2,400 words (Hubspot) with the average length of blogs being 900 words or more (Blue Kite). That’s because longer blogs have a better chance of being noticed while search engines crawl. Longer blogs also succeed because search engines have more to work with while indexing information.
 

What Is Indexing? 

Indexing is Google’s process of analyzing information found after bots finish crawling. While indexing, the search engine makes sense of what the page is about. It reviews all the content, images, and media on the page. Once done, the information is stored in Google’s database, known as the Google Index (Semrush).

Creating content with more information for search engines to index is better for optimizing your content’s SEO. It will help you rank higher on the results pages, leading you to get that coveted first page spot on Google.

Consistent Schedules Are Better For SEO

Another step to getting better SEO results from blogging is to post consistently. Depending on your schedule and employee count, this could mean anything from once a month to once a week.

Consistent blogging is important as SEO can be cyclical in nature. The more you post, the more your content will show up for people. The more people are viewing your content, the more shares you’ll get, which will help bring even more organic traffic to your site.

Whether you feel like you’re getting the best results by posting once a month or once a week, the best thing you can do is to keep things consistent.

Don’t miss a month or a week if you can help it.

Keywords Unlock Your SEO Potential

To master SEO for your blogs, the one thing you must understand is your reader’s intent.

Intent, more specifically keyword intent, is one of the most important elements of SEO. Keywords and phrases are what your future reader types into search engines like Google.

Aligning your content to your future reader’s intent by performing keyword research will ensure your posts rank higher. This will bring organic traffic to your site and encourage readers to share your content. 

Present the Facts, Get Rewarded with Backlinks

While you’re busy creating blogs that meet your set deadlines and provide readers with quality information, you might forget that fellow bloggers might use your information too someday.

Content creators, marketing teams, and other reputable websites are just some of the people who might find your content inspiring or educational. Reaching these audiences might get you a backlink!

What Is A Backlink? 

Backlinking is the process of having another site share links in their content that brings readers back to your site. Having information that you’ve created shared by a reputable source will help boost your blog’s views and the reputation of your own content.

There’s some backlinking you should try to avoid, however. This includes:

• Backlinks to untrustworthy sites
• Buying links
• Over-linking
  
  

What you really want is to get a backlink from a high-authority site, which will encourage more traffic to your site while proving your content is reliable.

Proper link building like this can strengthen your reputation and authority in your industry. Backlinks prove to Google that you're a trustworthy and helpful site, which has a profound positive impact on your SEO.

Create Your Next Blog

Following these SEO best practices could make your blog the “go-to” source. Creating well-written and well-researched content encourages search engines to trust your site, bringing more organic traffic with it.

Need help creating quality content? Contact us today!