Optimizing blog posts for search engines

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a crucial issue for any business on the internet. Applied to web pages and blog posts, it increases the visibility of a website on search engines like Google.

Continuous updates to Google’s algorithm require constantly updating the approaches. Today, SEO best practices meet two principles: relevance and intent. 

For that, it is essential to know how to determine the relevance of a content and to know the tactics recommended or those which are obsolete.

The digital marketing sector is the place for rapid and complex evolutions. For the sake of simplicity, this article explains how to optimize blog posts around targeted keywords, and provides some general optimization tips.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it is about identifying fundamental on-page SEO practices, which lay the foundation for a relevant optimization strategy.

5 SEO tips to optimize the content of a blog

Target one or two long-tail keywords to suit the ideal reader

Optimizing a blog article is not about citing as many keywords as possible. This filling practice is also penalized by search engines.

In order to give privilege to the quality of the user experience, they are now focused on satisfying the visitor’s intention. The keywords must therefore be inserted in a natural and relevant way into the content created.

In this perspective, it is recommended to target one or two long-tail keywords per article. It is perfectly possible to mention several keywords in the same article. Nevertheless, the optimization must remain focused on one or two main terms.

Long-tail keywords, usually constructed in response to a question, center the article on the needs of the target audience. In addition, visitors looking for these types of keywords are more likely to read the full article, to be interested in the company’s offer, and thus to generate conversions. In other words, long-tail keywords can generate quality traffic.

Optimize the alternative text of images

It is recommended to add images to blog posts, or to be indexed by the search engines, they must include alternative text.

Indeed, the search engines cannot see an image, they rely on the text of the <alt> tag to decrypt the content. It’s also this text that allows Google Images to rank the results. This text also optimizes the user experience in two ways: it is displayed instead of the image in case of malfunction, and it can be processed by screen readers used by visually impaired visitors, thus improving accessibility of the web page.

Adding keywords to alternate text images may have a marginal impact on SEO, but it’s important to take a few seconds to replace “IMG23940”, for example, with a clear and precise description such as “desktop with iMac”.

Avoid redundant tags

Tags are used to organize the content of a blog. However, do not overdo it. Search engines penalize blogs that have too many similar tags.

Indeed, each tag created is associated with a new site page listing all items related to this tag. If different content is assigned equivalent tags, the search engines conclude that the site publishes duplicate content. For example, tags as similar as “blog,” “blogging,” and “blog post” should not be added to the same article.

Structuring URLs to help the visitor navigate

The overall structure of a website’s URLs should allow visitors to understand the organization of the site and the context of the content viewed. Search engines favor URLs that identify the content of a page.

The structure of the URLs facilitates the exploration of a website by categorizing and organizing its content. Search engines reward this optimization effort.

Generate relevant incoming links

Inbound links, as well as internal links, are proof of the validity and relevance of the content of a website to search engines. A good practice is to include blog posts with links to other articles, e-books and web pages about the same topic on your site.

These SEO best practices above can be incorporated gradually over the course of building a website. As the authority and SEO of the site grows, it becomes easier to generate inbound links.

Identifying the goals and intentions of the target audience remains the best way to produce naturally relevant content.

If you would like to have an SEO optimized website or SEO optimized blog posts, you can also build a website using a website builder like hPage.com where website content is optimized for search right from creation.