5 Tips: “How can a Blog support your SEO Strategy”
First of all, what is a blog?
Blog (a short combination of the words web & log) is considered to be an interactive website that permits the exchange of opinions, thoughts or perspective on expertise on a certain field or subject between the writers and the readers.
Second of all, who are the bloggers?
Bloggers (the right term when referring toblog writers), who usually create content relevant to their own experiences, observations and opinions.
Nowadays, many people are aware of the importance of having a blog leading to their main website for SEO reasons but not so many are familiar with the actual know-how of blog optimization.
Thus, in this blog post I will provide you with 5 valuable tips on “how your blog can support your SEO strategy” and therefore help your website rank better on search engines.
Before starting to wonder about: “How can I optimize my blog posts correctly? “ask yourself: “With which keywords or keyword phrases do I need to optimize my blog posts?”
So,
- Check your website’s optimized content and make a list of the most important keywords that highly define your product or service.
- Create different keyword phrase combinations out of them.
- Use the very effective Keyword Battle tool of Web SEO Analytics and check their ranking positions.
- Decide for which keyword phrases you need to increase the website’s ranking position.
- Categorize them per subject.
- Figure out titles for each one of these categories and write relevant blog posts.
For example, let’s say that your website does not rank well for keyword phrases such as dining in Thessaloniki or gourmet restaurants in Thessaloniki. Then, you could choose a blog post title like: “Dining for 2 in Thessaloniki” and write about it.
Below are the 5 most effective tips on how to write your blog posts so as to give SEO meaning to your website.
1. Optimized URL’s
It is essential to use the most important keyword phrase in your blog post’s URL. This might be the same with the one used for the blog post’s title. Of course, it will be more than great if you manage to optimize the blog post titles as well.
2. Correct Placement of keywords
- Place the keyword phrases in the introduction paragraph.
- Spread the keywords inside the other paragraphs.
- Use the keyword phrases in the closing paragraph.
- Use the keyword phrases inside headings & subheadings.
- “Bold” them.
- “Italic” them.
Be careful! Do not exaggerate on the usage of keyword phrases. There must be flow and the keywords inside the blog post should appear naturally.
3. Optimized Meta Tags
- Use Meta Titles. Meta titles are easily readable from search engines and really help your blog rank higher. Do not use more that 65 characters in length and try to use primary keyword phrases at the beginning of the meta title combining them with the blog’s name as well. (SEO Keywords | Blog Name)
- Use Meta descriptions. Although, meta descriptions help you get more visits from searchers, they do not really help your blog rank higher. However, as meta descriptions work perfectly for visibility issues, they are more than necessary.
4. Optimized Images
It is very important when you upload images in your blog post to use the primary keyword phrases so as to enhance:
- Their file names
- Their title
- Their alternate text
5. Creation of Inbound Links
When we talk about SEO, we talk about link building. Therefore, the most important thing you have to do after you have finished writing your blog post is to provide links from your blog to your website. Of course, the anchor text links should be optimized as well.
In order to maximize the possibility of your blog post to be found, apart from using all the SEO tips above, try to also use categories and tags. No matter which platform you use for blogging (e.g.. WordPress), categories and tags are always available features.
And finally, I will answer one of the most “tricky questions”.
What is better when you are creating a blog? Hosting the blog under the website’s domain or not?
Well, by having your blog under your website’s domain and by using the appropriate SEO tactics (meaning you are following all the above tips respectively), your website will certainly rank higher in the SERPs (search engine ranking pages) for specific keyword phrases used while writing your blog posts. Also by updating your blog’s content quite often you help search engines index more of your website pages. This helps your website’s visibility and therefore there is an increased possibility to enhance the process of link acquisition and therefore the overall page rank.
On the other hand, not hosting your blog under the website’s domain is not the best solution when you want to avoid any possible bad comments to be linked directly with your brand.
For those of you who are professional bloggers and you work for corporate blogs, you can use a powerful SEO tool that will help you improve your SEO strategy and increase your organic traffic as well. The Blog Analyzer gathers all the necessary data for your blog, like the blog size and popularity while providing extremely insightful data concerning your article (e.g. page analysis, social media statistics, keyword analysis etc.)