Bloggers, tighten up your seat belts because today, we will teach you how to write SEO-friendly articles for your blog. We will be covering topics like:
- What is SEO?
- Why should you write SEO-friendly articles?
- How to rank your website/blog on search engines by writing SEO-friendly articles?
Are you ready? Okay, let’s do it.
What is SEO?
You’ve probably heard about SEO before. It stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process or strategy that allows your content to rank on search engines like Google, Bing, YouTube, Yahoo, etc. SEO is essential for online content creators.
However, people are often mistaken that SEO is only applicable to popular search engines like Google or Bing. In today’s competitive online market, SEO is crucial in almost every online platform.
For example, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter; are all search engines. They all have a search box on their websites or apps. When you type a keyword or keyphrase in the search box, they provide a content list relevant to it.
So, if you are a business or an independent creator, you must understand SEO. It will help you rank better on search engines and enhance your social media game. Understand that SEO is one of the best forms of digital marketing for your business.
Why should you write SEO-friendly articles?
If you are a blogger, you must know about SEO. It can drive a lot of traffic to your articles and help grow your blog. As a result, you can reach out to more people and earn more money from your blog.
Consider SEO as a free marketing tool. Most people spend money to promote their websites, blogs, or businesses, with paid advertisements. Promoting your content does help you gain more audience. But what if you don’t have the privilege to spend money? What if you want organic traffic to your content?
That is where SEO comes in. It boosts your content organically to search engines.
What is the first thing people do when they want to know about something? Simple, they google it. (Or search on YouTube—the second most popular search engine today.)
So, if you could provide people with what they are searching for, you have a high chance to succeed. Your job is to find popular searches and write articles on them. That is how you use SEO.
How to rank your website/blog on search engines by writing SEO-friendly articles?
The first thing you need to understand is: SEO is a keywords game.
A keyword (or keyphrase) is something that people search for on search engines. For example, email marketing is a keyword. Similarly, other keywords relevant to email marketing are:
- email marketing strategy,
- email marketing tools,
- email marketing software,
- email marketing definition,
- email marketing course.
These relevant keywords are also known as LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords.
When writing an SEO-friendly article, you must focus on a particular keyword and also the LSI keywords. So, you should have a keyword in mind before you start your article. Your goal should be to rank your article for that particular keyword.
Here are four essential tips to write SEO-friendly articles for your blog.
1. Focus on keywords
We have already discussed the importance of keywords. But, how do you use keywords in your article?
Firstly, decide on the main keyword. For example, let’s say it is email marketing. Then, you must use this keyword in different places in your articles. However, you should not use it too often. You cannot insert it everywhere and expect your article to rank well. That will not work.
SEO experts say that the optimum keyword density is 1 – 2%. It means that, if your article contains 500 words, you can use the keyword five to ten times. However, we suggest you stick with 1%.
Important: You MUST use your keywords in the following places.
- The first sentence of your article
- Last paragraph of your article
- Title
- Meta description
You can use our free keyword suggestion tool to search for keywords.
2. Write long articles
Search engines prefer long articles over short ones. So, you must write long articles if you want them to rank better on search engines. It is good in terms of SEO.
What should be the length of your articles?
Your articles should be at least 1500 to 3000+ words.
It might be challenging to write long articles as it requires in-depth research. You must have all the information relevant to your topic.
Why would search engines want to rank your articles if they do not contain good information about the topic? So, make sure your articles have genuine content that is helpful to people.
3. Use LSI keywords
We have already discussed LSI keywords. They are keywords relevant to the primary keyword (see example above). Search engines are intelligent. So, they do not rely only on a single keyword. Instead, they make sure that your article (or content) contains all the relevant information about the keyword.
So, for example, if your primary keyword is email marketing, search engines will check if you have also written about email marketing tools, examples, strategies, software, courses, so forth. If they find it in your article, they will prioritize it over other articles without the LSI keywords.
Find LSI keywords in our free keyword suggestion tool.
4. Improve article structure
This is an important tip. Make sure your articles are well-structured. What does that mean?
Simply writing a 3000-word article will not rank it on Google. You must ensure that the article contains proper headings, sub-headings, images, links, tags, so forth.
# Heading and Sub-headings
Use the H1 tag only for the main title of your article. This process is usually automatic. After that, all your sub-headings should be tagged H2, H3, H4, and so on. Do not write more than 300 words inside a sub-heading.
# Images and Links
Use images in your articles. Do not forget to include your primary keyword in the ‘alt-text’ of the image. Furthermore, use inbound and outbound links in your article.
Inbound links link to a post or page inside the same website. On the other hand, outbound links link to a post or page of a different website.
# Tags and Meta description
Provide relevant tags on your article. You must include the primary and LSI keywords in the tags. Moreover, also write a meta description for your article. It is a short description of the article. Don’t forget to use the keywords in it.
Summary
As a blogger or online content creator, you must know SEO. It allows you to rank your content on search engines and social media platforms.
You must understand that SEO is a keywords game. To write SEO-friendly articles, first, you must conduct keyword research. There are multiple tools online for it. Then, use the keywords in your article. However, do not use it all over the place. Learn about LSI keywords too.
Write long-form articles that are at least 1500-3000 words. Long articles have a better chance to rank on search engines.
Lastly, improve your article structure. Use headings, subheadings, images, links, tags, meta descriptions, so forth.
If you have any queries related to SEO, feel free to reply in this post.
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