How Do You Optimise a Blog Post?

You’ve just finished your latest blog post. After hours of tapping away at your laptop, you go to hit publish – but hang on, have you made sure your post is SEO-ready?

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation, otherwise known as SEO, is crucial for increasing your website’s visibility online. When your content is properly optimised, it has a much better chance of reaching your target audience and driving traffic to your site.

Gone are the days when a single keyword would have your content ranking on Google within hours. Yes, you could trust in the quality of your writing and and hit publish without a second thought, but doing so risks your post getting buried. Your website is not special unless search engines say so, no matter how often your mum raves to her friends about your blog.

So how do you optimise a blog post? There are many factors that can affect the SEO of your site.

Research Your Keywords

You don’t need to guess what your target audience is searching for online. Keyword research helps you pinpoint the words and phrases people are typing into search engines. This research shapes your content strategy and ensures you’re writing about topics that genuinely interest your audience.

We recommend using tools like SEMRush to help you find the right keywords. Make sure you’re using search terms that are relevant to your content and likely to attract readers.

Semantic Keywords and Latent Semantic Indexing

Once you’ve done your research, narrow it down to a focus keyword – one with low competition but decent search volume. This should be a phrase or word your audience is likely to search for.

It’s also worth looking at related terms or latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords. These are phrases connected to your main keyword that help search engines understand the context of your content. You can find these by Googling your keyword and scrolling down to the “People also ask” or “Related searches” sections.

While it’s important to include relevant keywords, avoid over-stuffing them into your content. Search engines are smart enough to detect it and it makes your writing look awkward and unnatural.

Effective Blog Titles

Choosing a catchy and click-worthy title for your blog post can be tricky, but it’s hugely important for SEO. It’s best to keep the title short and include your focus keyword if you can. A clean, straightforward URL that matches your title also helps search engines understand what your post is about.

Internal and External Linking

After you’ve been blogging for a while, your website may start to gain traction. Internal links are a great way to help visitors explore more of your content. They also make it easier for search engines to crawl your site and understand its structure.

External links matter too. Linking to reputable sources shows you’ve done your research and gives readers useful references. Aim for at least one relevant external link per post.

Rewrite and Optimise

It’s worth going back and optimising old blog posts regularly. Rewriting older posts is especially important if your content covers fast-moving industries like tech or software.

Freshen things up by adding new keywords and rewriting awkward paragraphs. Don’t forget to add new internal and external links and remove any broken ones.

Imagery and Videos

As much as it stings us writers to admit, images and videos tend to grab attention more than large blurbs of text. People are drawn to visuals and search engines are paying attention to that. Pages with a mix of well-placed visuals and text are more likely to perform well, so breaking up your blog posts with images or videos is expected.

When adding images, make sure you’re careful with copyright. If you don’t have permission to use an image, you could end up in legal trouble. There are plenty of websites offering free stock photography if you don’t have your own photos to use.  If you’d like to add a video, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo first then embed it in your post. Uploading directly to your website can cause slow download speeds.

Metadata

Have you ever searched for something online and seen those snippets of text underneath the website titles? That’s a meta description.

Metadata is an HTML meta tag you can attach to any webpage or post on your site. They help search engines and readers understand what your post is about. Make sure your metadata, including both your meta description and title, includes your focus keyword and accurately describes your content.

Readability

Articles that are easier to read will rank higher on search engines. Most visitors to your blog will only spend a few seconds before deciding whether to stay or leave. If they’re faced with dense, complicated text, they’re more likely to click away. Your bounce rate can also have a big impact on SEO.

You can improve readability with shorter sentences and by breaking up paragraphs with headings and bullet points. Adding white space with margins or images can also make your content more inviting to read.

Categories and Tags

Think of your categories and tags as a glossary or index at the back of a book. Categories organise your content into broad topics, while tags describe specific subjects within those categories. Using categories and tags makes it easier for both visitors and search engines to understand and rank your content. It’s worth spending a bit of time making sure your posts are organised properly.

Featured Snippets

If you’ve ever Googled a question, you’ve probably seen featured snippets at the top of the search results. These short text excerpts are pulled from online content that Google thinks best answers the question.

There’s no guaranteed way to get your content featured, but optimising your content and providing clear, accurate information will increase your chances.

SEO Copywriting at Priority Pixels

SEO is about making your content easy to find and enjoyable to read. It’s a combination of creativity and strategy that helps you reach your audience and drive traffic to your site.

You could leave things to chance, or you could guarantee visibility on search engines, improve traffic and increase your conversion rate with some careful optimisation.

Need a hand with your content? Priority Pixels has been providing tailored marketing strategies to businesses and organisations across the UK since 2016. Our mighty team of WordPress developers, content creators and copywriters know their stuff – and we’re always happy to help.

Contact us today by emailing hello@prioritypixels.co.uk or calling 01626 245061.