Your blog is a crucial medium for driving traffic to your site and ultimately attracting new customers. Enhance SEO visibility to maximize success.
To achieve your goals for a blog post, you need to use actionable techniques that boost SEO visibility. Here are five ways you can accomplish this.
1. Use long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are focus phrases that include three or more words. Since they’re more specific than one- or two-word search phrases, they’re more effective in attracting a “niche” audience, those looking for a specific answer, product or service.
Make sure you use long-tail keywords in your content that align with the audience you want to attract. If you need help deciding which long-tail keywords to use, take advantage of free research tools like Google Chrome’s Ubersuggest extension. Look for keywords with low SEO difficulty and high monthly search volume. Other free tools include KWfinder and Ahrefs.
2. Supplement long-tail keywords with LSI keywords
LSI keywords are keywords that Google and other search engines see as semantically related to your main keyword. Think of them as “synonyms” of your focus keyword.
Use the same research tools mentioned above (as well as the handy list of “Related Searches” at the bottom of Google’s results page) to identify some LSI keywords you can incorporate in your content. Include as many as you naturally can, but be sure not to “stuff” your content with keywords since Google may actually penalize your blog post for this tactic.
3. Write an attention-grabbing title
Your blog post’s title is the introduction to your content and can immediately create a favorable (or unfavorable) impression. Make sure each post you upload has a strong title that will entice searchers to click and read more.
Here are some factors to keep in mind:
- Don’t make your title too long. Research shows that 8-12 words is the “sweet spot” for high-performing titles.
- Be accurate in your title. If your title mentions five ways to boost SEO visibility but the content only discusses four, you’ll lose credibility in the eyes of your readers.
- Appeal to emotion. Consider using strong, even hyperbolic words like “love,” “hate,” “brilliant,” “terrible” and so on.
4. Include internal links to other pieces of content
Back-linking is still a powerful way to boost your content’s SEO scores. Be sure to add at least a few links to older pieces of content in each new blog post. In addition, consider using a “pillar page” strategy, in which one page provides an overview of a particular subject and other pages branch out from that main post by discussing certain aspects of the subject in greater detail. Again, with each new blog post you publish, link back to the main pillar page to drive SEO.
5. Add a meta description to your blog post
A meta description is a short summary of the post that shows up under the main search result in Google. It’s useful for two reasons:
- It serves as a form of “advertising copy” for human searchers.
- It helps search engine crawlers more accurately classify and index the content.
Meta descriptions should generally be less than 160 characters long and should clearly and concisely summarize the content in the most appealing way possible.
In summary
Your blog posts are an important component of your overall content marketing strategy. When you implement these five techniques, you’ll boost SEO visibility, draw more traffic to your site and ultimately drive growth for your company.
Need help?
If you have a content marketing program or are planning one, download our e-book 100 Mistakes Businesses Make When Starting, Optimizing and Scaling Content Marketing Programs.
This e-book will walk you through the mistakes of hundreds of other companies and the challenges they faced in implementing their content marketing programs. To learn more about how Tempesta Media can help you streamline your content creation process and deliver quality content at scale, contact us today.
