We can't say it enough: to generate traffic to your website, you must optimize your blogYour company or e-commerce blog is the main source of fresh content. It's what will lift your website in Google search. But to climb the SERP and effectively promote your business, you'll need to go through essential SEO steps…
Why optimize your blog?
Today promoting a business primarily happens through its website. However, many entrepreneurs still haven't added a blog and miss out on a powerful SEO lever.
Having a blog has simply become essential to the success of your marketing strategy because it will boost your SEO results.
Concretely, the more you optimize your blog, the higher your web pages will rise in search engine results pages.
And achieving a good ranking in Google's listings will of course impact your website results and ultimately your revenue.
Still doubt it? Here are some advantages of optimize your blog.
With an optimized blog, you will:
- Generate qualified traffic and increase your conversion rate.
- Convert your prospects into loyal customers through inbound marketing.
- Improve your brand image.
- Share your expertise and become a reference in your field of activity.
- Earn backlinks.
But beware, optimizing a blog obviously involves content production, but also SEO techniques you absolutely must know. So, before we talk about blog posts, let's take a detour through the technical SEO ranking criteria.
How to optimize your blog in 5 steps?
Rest assured, the term technical SEO can be intimidating, but here it refers to simple improvements for better organic ranking of your blog pages.
1/ Polish your blog design
Your blog's design is just as important as your SEO. To provide a unique experience for your readers, here are some tips:
- Polish your visual and interactive content.
- Aim for simplicity with layouts consistent with the rest of your site.
- Choose colors that match your style guide.
- Choose a readable font for everyone and for all screens.
2/ Always think responsive
More and more users browse primarily from their smartphones. Your blog (and your entire site) must be responsive, meaning it should display perfectly on desktop, tablet, and mobile.
While some CMSs like WordPress handle the responsive design of your pages, not all do. Before publishing your article, always check that it is readable at any screen resolution.
In particular, check the size of your CTAs so they are easy to tap on a smartphone.
3/ Speed up your page loading time
Again, it is essential to optimize the loading speed of your blog pages. You can write the best blog post possible, but if your page doesn’t load within 5 seconds, visitors will look for the information elsewhere (in short, with your competitors).
- To avoid a high bounce rate, here are some tips to implement:
- Choose a high-performance hosting provider.
- Optimize the file size of your blog images.
- Reduce the size of your code files (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript).
4/ Optimize your URLs
URL optimization is often neglected, yet it is an undeniable asset for your web SEO and for the user experience. A good URL structure will make it easier to index your page while giving users precise information about the page’s content. In practice, your URL should:
- Be short: between 50 and 60 characters max after the domain name.
- Contain your main keyword.
- Use only the hyphen (-) to separate words.
- Be written in lowercase and without accents.
5/ Configure your structured data
Your structured data will tell Google what your web pages are about: whether it’s a sales page, an archive page, a blog post… and what its attributes are (publication date, title, category…).
The more information you give to crawling bots, the better algorithms will be able to understand your page content and rank it appropriately.
Configuring your data may seem complicated, but you will find plenty of information on Schema.org to create your markup schema.
Why optimize your blog posts?
Optimizing a blog also means optimizing its content. But why? Two main reasons:
- As we’ve seen, a blog lets you add fresh content to your site. Not only will your visitors not feel like they’re browsing a ghost site, but you’ll also meet their need for information.
- The more you publish, the more you rank for different keywords, and that’s excellent for a site’s SEO. This gives you a better position in the SERPs, and better visibility means increased traffic!
How to optimize a blog post in 8 steps
But to reap all these benefits, you must start at the beginning: know how to optimize a blog post with excellence!
1/ Determine the article's marketing objectives
In content marketing, an article’s objective should correspond to a stage in your conversion funnel. Your keywords and topics will differ depending on:
- Attract visitors.
- Convert your leads.
- Retain your customers.
- Promote a new product or service.
- Inform your audience about an upcoming event…
2/ Find the right keywords
Keyword research is the crucial step of your SEO. Your keywords will have the important task of matching users’ search intent and helping you stand out from the competition.
To reach the first page of search results, use long-tail keywords (at least 3 words) and expand the semantic field of your article as much as possible. The more secondary keywords you include in your blog post, the better Google will understand the topic and place it in the right category.
Remember that one article = one main keyword. Also respect the recommended keyword density (2 to 5% of the text’s word count) so as not to over-optimize your article.
3/ Write blog posts for SEO
Optimizing an article for search engines involves adding a bit of technical work, even within On-Page SEO.
Follow these tips and your article will be perfect for Google indexing:
- Its structure : H1, H2, H3, etc., introduction, paragraphs, conclusion. Respect the correct hierarchy of your content, don’t jump from an H1 to an H3 for example.
- Its size: the length of your text will depend on your strategy. While some topics can rank very well with 200 words, others require long-form content. On average, the highest-ranking articles in the SERP contain between 2,250 and 2,500 words. The ideal for good SEO is to alternate short formats and long texts.
- Its markup: don’t forget to fill in your various tags. Your meta description tag isn’t essential for SEO, but it attracts clicks. However, don’t neglect your title tag! It should be clear, concise, attractive, and include your primary keyword. Also remember to fill in the Alt attribute of your images to describe their content to Google.
- Its readability: avoid heavy, hard-to-read blocks; use short paragraphs and space out your content as much as possible, notably with bullet lists. Your sentences should be short and pleasant to read, and spelling must be flawless. Also consider bolding important words to draw your reader’s eye.
4/ Write relevant, unique content
The quality of your content is as important for your audience as it is for Google. By analyzing user behavior, the search engine can distinguish quality content from poor content.
One of Google's relevance criteria will be the uniqueness of your article. Even if it doesn't always penalize duplicate content, plagiarized material can make you lose positions in the SERP. Google also values useful, information-rich sites. Keyword stuffing to try to reach the top position has been obsolete for a long time. Take the time to write interesting articles and remember to cite your sources.
5/ Work on internal linking and outbound links
Your links, whether internal or external, are extremely important for optimizing your blog. Internal links connect your pages and direct readers to another article in the same category or to your product pages. They also have an SEO benefit, as they help crawlers better understand your content. Be careful to respect your thematic silo; don't link between two different topics.
As for your external links, they are a sign of authority for Google. But here too, the search engine favors quality and reputable sites. And the best way to acquire quality backlinks is to publish quality articles…
6/ Set up an editorial calendar and stick to it
Now that you know how to optimize a blog and its content, all that remains is to set up a publishing schedule.
Your editorial calendar will help you publish the right article at the right time. This will improve content creation as well as the organization of your silos and therefore your internal linking.
- To do this, prepare your keyword list, your topic ideas, and your prospect’s engagement cycle.
- Then organize that information to write the article that matches your target and their position in the buying cycle.
- Finally, try to schedule article writing so you are at least 15 days ahead to handle unforeseen events.
7/ Analyze the results
Don't launch a blog without analyzing its ROI! To evaluate an article's impact on your SEO, start by defining your KPIs (key performance indicators) and, in particular, its ability to:
- Improve the site's search ranking.
- Generate traffic.
- Convert your leads into customers.
Then check whether your organic traffic has increased, whether you've gained backlinks, new blog subscribers, whether your articles have been shared on social networks, or whether they've been commented on. Also analyze your bounce rate and your conversion rate.
8/ Perform an SEO audit
If you're not satisfied with your blog's results, carry out an SEO audit. The audit will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your content marketing strategy. All you'll have to do then is improve your content strategy!
Our tip for optimizing a blog post
Knowing how to optimize a blog and how to optimize a blog post is one thing. But having the time to do it is another!
Fortunately, our web writers are available to write all your site content, and they meet the deadlines specified when ordering. And if you want SEO-optimized articles, with us Redactor.com you can also take advantage of our various options: HTML formatting, SEO optimization, proofreading by an editorial expert, personalized support…
