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Wondering how to write SEO-friendly Blog Posts? Certainly, there are many articles out there discussing what SEO-friendliness is supposed to be. This article, however, gives you the structure that you can implement to ensure the success of your Blog Post.
Although we’re a brand new company with a brand new website (created in July 2021), our posts get INSTANT visits from the SERPs. How come?
This article is about writing SEO-focused blog posts that will rank better.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the manipulation of online content to help Search Engines (like Google) to better understand our pages and posts, so it can deliver the right information to online searchers.
Google, for example, is a Search Engine that uses over 500 variables to rank pages in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Google Crawlers are software robots that scan all pages and create a map of your domain, and how it links to all the websites in the world!
Pretty amazing and complex is the world of Search Engines. You also need to know that the algorithm used is being updated daily using Machine Learning techniques that help the Search Engine “learn” what people like and serve the content that would be the most relevant to the searcher. Also, keep in mind that searchers are using Google Voice Search, and Image Search to find what they are looking for.
Therefore, your content must account for all these little nuances that will help you rank higher than your competition, and thereby, win more traffic and more sales!
Everyone is searching for something online, and when you find it, you’re very happy!
1. Begin Your Journey with KW Research
Having great writing skills mounts to nothing if you’re writing about something that only you and your best friend talk about… You need to conduct a thorough KW research first and see what people are searching for.
1.1. Use SEM Rush or a similar SEO Comprehensive tool
SEM Rush allows you to research a Keyword quite thoroughly. Alternatively, you can use Ahrefs, or Moz. All of them offer a wide range of tools that can do exactly what you’ll learn in this blog post.
Let’s take for example this very blog post you’re reading.
1.1.1. KW Research and Formulating the Topic
We start the Research by checking the Keyword “write SEO”:
1.1.2. KW Research and Formulating the Topic
Now, you will need to choose a KW that people ACTUALLY use when searching the net for this topic:
As you can see, SEM Rush provides you with Traffic Volume and Competition Difficulty for each Searched KW.
We have chosen “how to write seo friendly blog posts” as this makes sense for what we do here at Aleph Website.
1.1.3. Related Search to your Keyword
Now, it’s important that you check the related Searches. This is so because not everyone will use the exact same keyword to get to this keyword.
So, if someone is searching for ‘how to make SEO friendly Blog‘, or ‘how to write an SEO friendly blog‘, while the difference is small, you still need to account for it.
Instead of capturing only the 110 USA traffic, you’ll be able to score even more coming from Related Search.
1.2. Check Google SERP to see what ‘people also ask’
While for the most part SEM Rush gets you covered pretty well, that doesn’t prevent you from checking the REAL results from SERPs:
You can see here that people are also asking:
- What is SEO writing?
- How do you write SEO in writing?
- Can I do SEO on my own?
- How do I write SEO-rich content?
This is important because it represents extra traffic for you. Most of it comes from voice search on mobile or Google Home, or Alexa, etc.
Not only that, but this piece of snippets goes on the 1st page of SERP, making it super valuable for Websites like Aleph Website with low domain ranking. Basically, we get to be featured on the first page even though we’re way down somewhere on Page 5 or 6.
1.3. Formulating a subject line for your blog post topic
Using the selected Keyword, you need to create an eye-catching and clickable subject line for your blog post topic.
One of the best free tools out there is Header Analyzer. What it does is simply analyze whatever header you come up with, and suggest what type of words to add to juice it up and make the headline more appealing to users coming across your article.
This is very important as good headlines get 5x more traffic than bad headlines. So make sure to optimize it correctly.
1.4. Blog Post Type/Category of the article
There is a pattern to the most read online articles. They all fall under 5 major categories:
- Best of… – Best in class of a certain product, service, tools, etc.
- Comparison (vs.) – a concrete comparison between 2 products that are highly competitive.
- How-To – A detailed description of how to do something, or use something.
- What-Is – A detailed definition explaining something, or a product, or a trend.
- Review (Pros and Cons) – An article breaking down a product, service, tool or approach, to provide the User with a comprehensive review.
2. How to structure and write the Article to make the blog posts SEO friendly
Here at Aleph Website, we’re big advocates of WordPress Technology and SEO Yoast. The two together make writing SEO friendly blog posts so easy that we want to show How to do it using these tools. Maybe we can convince to switch too!
Each blog post must contain:
- Blog Post Topic Headline (H1)
- Sub-headers (H2, H3, etc.)
- Images with alternative tags
- Paragraphs as text body
- Internal links to your pages and posts
- External links to higher authority domains or valuable resources
2.1. Blog Structure – Header, paragraph, image
The depiction below is the actual structure of this blog post:
This is how to write SEO-friendly Blog Posts.
2.2. Meaningful Links to high authority web pages
Internal and External links are very important. You need to create links to pages that actually offer something to the user.
Our external links in this article lead to:
- Most powerful tools in the industry
- Free SEO tools to get the job done for you
- WordPress which is the best Blogging technology
- SEO Yoast which is the best SEO plugin for WordPress
- Google Schema Markup (next section)
- Schema.org (next section)
Get it?
Link to websites where people will want to go. If no one is pressing your link, you’re literally breaking the internet!
Additionally, link internally to pages where people might want to click.
For example:
- Why you should not use Free Website Templates?
- How much does it cost to make a website?
- Why WordPress technology is the best CMS?
- How to block a Website?
- Why is My Website Down?
- 5 steps to make a website
- Small Business In need of a New Website Design?
You’re likely to find something useful and decide to continue journeying through our website.
Anyway, we’ll know that from Google analytics and remove the links nobody cares about!
2.3. Keyword use across headers, paragraphs, image tags for example ‘how to write seo friendly blog posts’
Our keyword is ‘how to write SEO-friendly blog posts’ and we’re using it in H1, H2, H3, paragraph, and image alternative tags.
The image alternative tag helps Search Engines identify what the image is about. Use the exact match keyword to describe the image. Also, make sure the image is actually relevant and High quality.
Aleph Pro Tip:
Use optimization tools for your images. You want to make sure that your images comply with the standards for web content to avoid having large media files. As you start the process of optimization, always use the minimal number of plugins you can. Plugins are heavy on your CMS (Content Management System) and will slow down your website.
Slow-loading websites rank lower. So make sure that you do On-Page SEO (the optimization of your online content), but also Off-Page SEO (technical optimization of your website and backlink management).
2.4. Use SEO Yoast (or similar) as an SEO Checklist
SEO Yoast gives you green lights if all is good. Additionally, you have a checklist of 25 points you need to check to be in the green. This is super useful because it helps you free up your mind to think about the actual writing!
3. Schema Markup
Alright, if you made up till here, WELL DONE! The following section is where the real SEO specialists shine and the newbies get scared…
Schema Markup a.k.a. Structured data helps Search Engines understand the content of your page very quickly. Each blog post belongs to a certain category of topics. It can be:
- Best of…
- Comparison
- How-To
- What-Is
To help the Search Engine deliver your content through snippets, it is useful that you classify the content using Schema Markup.
A very useful source of all markups is Schema.org.
3.1. Implementing the HTML code into your Page
This article is not really really a ‘How-To’ article. Our steps are not fixed, you can mix ’em up. There’s in no lock-step order. In fact, these are not the only steps possible, nor the only way to write an SEO-friendly Blog Post. For that reason, we are choosing a simple Schema Markup called FAQ Schema.
You can use Gutenberg Tool to create How-To or FAQ Markups. However, we do it using an Html code simply because it goes to the background and communicates the message ONLY to Search Engines.
You can copy/paste the HTML code from Google Markup, or Schema.org.
Below is a snippet of how the code looks inside the WordPress Editor:
Once you’ve edited the ‘Question’ and ‘Answer’ inside the HTML code. You’re done. It’s time to test if this is working!
3.2. Schema Markup for SERP ImageS
Let’s also add AN ORIGINAL Image to the snippet. This way we grab the attention of the Searcher by providing unique value quickly and smoothly.
Here’s how to write the code:
- <script type=”application/ld+json”>
- {
- “@context”: “https://schema.org”,
- “@type”: “ImageObject”,
- “author”: “Aleph Website”,
- “contentUrl”: “https://alephwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Blog-Post-Structure-Aleph-Website.jpg”,
- “datePublished”: “2021-07-23”,
- “description”: “SEO-Friendly Blog Post – how to structure your Article for Higher Ranking”,
- “name”: “SEO-Friendly Blog Post”
- }
- </script>
3.3. Structured Data Testing with Google
In the world of development, odds are always against you. You must test and de-bug everything prior to publishing and going live with the page.
For this reason, we use Google Structured Data Testing Tool.
The Gif below shows the results for this blog post:
As you can see we have 11 items labeled ‘Structured data.’ Each of these helps the search engine scan our pages and generally the sitemap and the whole website.
Under the FAQ Item; you see the ‘How to write an SEO-friendly Blog Post’ Question and the following Answer.
That’s it. You’re all set. If you create such blog posts, you’ll no doubt dominate the SERPs with each blog post you write! 🙂
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