The Ultimate Guide to Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
Let’s talk about SEO-friendly blog posts and how to write posts that not only talk to your ideal client but also help Google put your blog post in front of your ideal client because one can’t exist optimally without the other. Want to listen to me chat all things blog posts and what to write in a blog post? Check out this episode of my podcast, Up In My Business— Episode 52: How to Actually Write a Blog Post.
In this blog post, we will talk about everything related to SEO-friendly blog posts including:
But first, what is SEO?
Let’s give a quick background on all things SEO.
SEO is short for search engine optimization. It is not just about Google, either. Lots of platforms including Amazon, Etsy, Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, etc. are their own search engines.
SEO optimization is an organic (and FREE!) way to reach more people that are quality leads for your business. It is the next logical step for word-of-mouth marketing and, if for nothing else, focusing on SEO optimization will allow you to create content in a methodical way (and also never run out of ideas)!
If you haven’t taken my SEO School, I recommend heading here to get on the waitlist. While I’ll go through lots of details here, if you want the full SEO experience, jump into SEO school where you’ll learn everything you’ll need to know about SEO.
Let’s start with an ideal client exercise that will help you write SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
In order to start blogging or optimize your current blog, we first have to focus on keywords (multi-word phrases that are specific to our ideal client).
Let’s do an exercise that will inform your keyword list. Download my ideal client exercise in full here. I highly recommend completing that exercise.
But, to start:
What are some problems that your ideal client has?
What are 5 things they might be searching for?
What words and phrases might they use to Google their problem(s) and find solutions?
Remember, you need to think like your consumer here— you’re not using your language, but rather, theirs. How do they talk? What words do they use for your services and their problems?
After you have the answers to those questions, let’s take it a step further. Keep that list handy.
Developing a keyword list
Let’s start by defining what a keyword is. While keyword implies one word (it is singular, not plural), keyword can also mean multiple words when it comees to SEO.
A keyword is an entire search phrase. Examples:
“Pelvic health physical therapy”
“Knee pain with running”
“Knee pain while squatting”
Types of keywords:
Short tail: 1-2 words, broad
The person typically doesn’t know exactly what they want
Difficult to rank for because there’s a lot of competition
Long tail: 3-5 words, specific
This can typically indicate exactly what someone wants
Much easier to rank for because there’s less competition
Easier to target your specific niche market and the needs of your ideal client
While you do need to target both, your main target should always be long-tail keywords, especially when you’re trying to optimize a blog and create an SEO-friendly blog post. This is simply because you need to gain credibility with Google. It will be incredibly difficult to rank for knee pain compared to “knee pain with crossfit”.
Think of it as it relates to supply and demand. With a keyword like “knee pain”, the supply of content available to answer the question is HIGH and the demand (people searching) is HIGH. In order to beat out those who are currently ranking for the term, you’d need to already have credibility for a lot of other keywords. Instead, we focus on long tail keywords because often the demand (people searching) is mediocre, not high, but the supply (amount of content available to answer the questions) is low.
Please note: this is NOT the extent of what we call “keyword research” and merely scratches the surface. I wanted to make sure you started with topics to write about that made sense for your business, and this is a great place to start.
Now that we’ve nailed down what types of keywords exist, let’s do a keyword dump. You’ll need the list of things you developed above: questions your ideal client asks, their needs, and what problems they face.
To do a keyword dump, you’re going to list out every possible word that relates to or speaks to your ideal client. We need to have both long- and short-tailed keywords on this list. Btw, this is discussed in full on my ideal client worksheet.
Separate these into categories such as:
Services
Locations served
Different niches you work with (ie runners, bikers, swimmers)
Let’s develop that list! Remember to include both long-tail and short-tail keywords.
Some reminders:
Look for synonyms
Consider the misspellings
Plurals (diagnosis/diagnoses)
Location-specific words
Your company name
What are the names your customers have for your services?
Differentiators (what makes you different from something else)
Acronyms, hyphens
Two things to keep in mind: People search for answers to problems. You have to use the keywords to show up for the keywords.
Now, let’s talk about writing an SEO-friendly blog post
Here’s the rundown of what you need to do in order to write a blog that is SEO-friendly:
Always optimize for ONE keyword per post. Therefore, if your title for the blog is “knee pain with squatting”, that is going to be the main keyword we attempt to insert into the blog 4-5 times.
The keyword must be in the title— the actual title of the blog itself, but also in the blog’s SEO title.
Place the keyword in the first two sentences of the introduction of the blog.
Have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion: include the keyword throughout (in meaningful places, do not keyword stuff and just toss the keyword into spots with hopes that the more you use it the better it will rank.
Your title needs to be in H1 (heading one). This is usually automatic for most blogs.
Include subheadings to split the content up. They need to be in H2/H3 and include the keyword if you can make it happen.
Add in SEO-friendly content:
Lists (bulleted and/or numbered)
Infographics inside the post
Steps that show a process/steps to do something
Make sure you avoid text walls and keep sentences short. Blogs shouldn’t look like a novel.
Have internal links (links to pages on your website) as well as external links (links to your content on someone else’s site or someone else’s content) that complement your content and are referenced in your content.
Optimize your blog URL for each blog post and include the title if you can. Try to keep your title between 5-8 words.
Write for the human, and insert keywords and related keywords when you can. Don’t write “for Google”. Period.
I’ll label the sections I used here in this post below so that you can use them as a model as you write your own blog posts.
The title below is in H1, subheadings in H2, and text is in P2.
Blog titles, page titles meta descriptions, and URLs
Lastly, we need to look at the things that aren’t necessarily in the content portion of the blog post. That’s the URL, title, and meta description.
Title of the blog iteself
This is literally the title of the blog. It’s sometimes longer than the title of the page (more descriptive)
Titles of pages
This is the title of the page on the backend of the blog. It can be the same as the title of the blog if the title is short enough. If not, you need to optimize it.
The title of the page:
Tells the user what they are going to find in the article
Tells Google what the article is about and allows your article to come up when someone searches for what your article is about
Meta descriptions
The function of meta descriptions is to increase the click-through rate for the post/page. It should be intriguing and draw in the user. It should give users an insight to what the post/blog/etc. is about and be different than the title since they are shown together. See below.
SEO Title Rules
Character limit of 50-60.
It should contain your keyword
Place the important words first if you can
Write for the person and lead with the “what’s in it for them” content
Unique to that post/page/and previously existing content
It should shed light on what the blog is about
Make it entertaining and/or be very specific specific
How to…
Step-by-step process…
The best…
If you don’t optimize it, it will auto-populate as your blog title
SEO Description Rules
Less than 200 characters, I would aim for less than 150 to be safe. More is not always better
Use your keyword, more important words first, just like the title
Include a call to action for the user
Check out this blog
Do these exercises
Get your questions answered!
No duplicates (between blogs and pages)
Discuss your solution and what this post will deliver
If you don’t optimize it, it will typically auto-populate as your blog/page content
Blog logistics
You need to make sure you can read the fonts you use
No script font or fancy letters
Font size should be 14-16px at minimum
Blog length doesn’t really matter (it does, but it doesn’t.)
Needs to be longer than 300 words, “ideal” is 1500 to 2000 words
BUT quality trumps word count, and that’s straight from Google!
Blogging Checklist
Write the content out in full in your voice, forget about keywords at first!
Go back and insert keywords accordingly: add them into headings/subheadings, make sure they are toward the top of the page
Include an image or a video (can you make an infographic?)— optimize the images (title, description, link)
Use bullet points and lists if you can
Always have a call-to-action (CTA)
Provide tangible “try-it-yourself” solutions
Use bold/italics accordingly, don’t overload it
300 words is the absolute minimum, ~1500 is ideal
Always keep paragraphs short! 3-5 sentences max.
Make sure you spell check (Grammarly is great to use to do this)
If you paste from Microsoft Word, you NEED to paste plain text (the shortcut is command+shift+v for Mac, control+shift+v for windows) and then reformat on your website.
Make a layout for your blog thumbnail (I recommend a square) on Canva and then use that over and over again for each blog post, rather than a photo. It makes it easier to navigate as a user. See my blog for an example.
Alright! That’s all I have for you. This was exactly how you can create and write SEO-friendly blog posts.
Happy writing!