9 Powerful Tips to Optimize a Blog Post for SEO

Businesses worldwide are increasingly using blogging as a tool to attract visitors to their websites. It has become a powerful way to gain traction to your website and increase your business's visibility on search engines. According to a survey by blogger.com, more than 60% of businesses run blogs as part of their digital marketing strategy.

However, 65% of these websites haven't updated their blog section in the past year. In not taking blogging seriously, they miss out on the incredible opportunity to rank on search engines and hence lose a lot of traffic.

If you want to get the most of your blogs, here are nine effective tips on optimizing your blog post for SEO.

Important tip: Before you decide to optimize your blog, make sure that your website is SEO optimized. You cannot construct a high-rise building with a shaky and weak foundation.Ā

1. Edit and Proofread

For an SEO-optimized copy, make sure your blog post is appropriately edited and proofread. It should be clean and error-free. According to an Adobe 2009 study, wordy or poorly-written content annoys about 39% of readers.

Carelessness and poor quality can create a negative impression. Proofreading involves screening the content meticulously for errors, typos, grammar, formatting, and other related inconsistencies. In other words, proofreading's primary objective is to write a perfect blog post. Even if your content is informative and grammatically correct, you need to make sure that it has the right tone, proper persona positioning, logical flow, contextual images, and style guide consistency.

Proofreading tips:

1. Take a printout of your post and edit it offline. It is more effective and easy on the eyes.
2. Read your article out loud. It is beneficial when you are optimizing your content for SEO. The goal is to create a copy that reads naturally. Make sure that the keywords don’t sound unnatural or stuffed.

Various Chrome extensions can help you read aloud. MS Word that comes with Microsoft Office 2019 and Microsoft 365 also provides this feature under the Review tab. You can access it by:

Review > Read Aloud > Select Play in the controls.

1. You can also try proofreading your article by reading it backward.
2. Try to proofread with one goal at a time. The first time you can proofread for grammatical mistakes. The second time, check data and facts, and so on.

2.  Consider the E-A-T Factor

Another critical aspect that will determine your content's ranking is how beneficial it is for the user. Therefore, you must evaluate it based on the E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) factor.

These are the factors that Google considers for ranking purposes and they are directly linked with the trust factor. The ultimate objective of Google is to offer the best experience to its users and the E.A.T. factor is an important metric that determines the level of trust Google puts in a particular website.

Here is an infographic that will help you understand the E.A.T. factor.

3. Optimize Subheads for Readability and SEO

Using subheads such as H2s and H3s help. Google spiders consider content with subheads as reader-friendly. Check your content on your CMS's visual editor to ensure the subheads are correctly added.Ā

4. The Links Must Open in a New Window

If links are opening in the same window/tab, the bounce rate may increase sharply as it leads to a poor user experience. Nobody wants to exit from a website just because they chose to click an outbound link. So, when adding links, make sure they open in a new window.

5. Add Call to Action

You should add CTA (Call to Action) to your blog post tactfully. You can place text CTA anywhere in the blog. However, you will achieve better results with an image CTA if you put it within the first, second, or third subheadings. Ensure that you add a strong CTA at the end of your blog post to prompt your readers to take action.Ā

Screenshot Courtesy: Blog.Hubspot.com

6. Add One-Click Social Shares

Twitter is a great platform to promote content. It's not just about Tweets; you can also leverage Twitter Chats, a powerful content promotion tool. Most of these chats lead to an ongoing discussion with a specific hashtag. If you belong to the same domain, you must take advantage of it. Search for relevant Twitter Chats on TweetReports and Twubs.

You can use a Click to Tweet plugin to share your WordPress content on Twitter. The Content Marketing Institute blog does it effectively to promote its blog posts. Your blog may have takeaways and punchlines that the readers should be able to share on Twitter with one-click.

Screenshot courtesy: Content Marketing Institute

However, make sure there aren't too many extra codes that can interfere with your rankings. Don't put any "click-to-Tweet" above your first H2.Ā

7. Add Meta Title and Description

Add a suitable meta title and meta description for your blog post. WordPress CMS allows you to do it quickly. A meta description's ideal length is between 155 and 160 characters, but it should be sufficiently descriptive.Ā

The title text can be between 50 and 60 characters, the ideal length that Google displays on SERPs. In the WordPress CMS, the ideal length is depicted by a green light that indicates you can go ahead with the meta description. If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin on WordPress, you'll have a color-coded smiley to signal perfect SEO.

You must also be mindful of your blog's readability. You will find a readability indicator in your Yoast SEO plugin. Pay attention to the engagement factor; it plays a significant role in deciding your Google ranking. It uses metrics such as "time spent on page" and "average time spent on the site" to measure engagement.

You should also include a call to action (CTA) in your content; it helps increase conversions and overall sales.Ā

8. Add ALT Text to the Images

It is vital to add alt text to your blog's images. This descriptive text is beneficial for the visually impaired or those using a screen-reader. Short for "alternate text," it tells the search engines what the image is about and helps them index it accordingly. For image visibility on Google, adding alt text is incredibly important.

9. Optimize for Social Sharing

You can easily do it with your site's SEO plugin (such as the Yoast SEO plugin) if you use WordPress. Click on the social sharing icon from the SEO options.Ā

You don't need to fill the title and description fields, as Yoast automatically pulls this information from the main fields. Scroll to the Facebook and Twitter images and upload your pictures there. But make sure that the image you select has alt text and a title tag.

Conclusion

The blog post SEO process can be frustrating and time-consuming, but if you follow the tips mentioned above, you'll attract organic rankings and traffic easily. Every step you take to optimize your content will improve your visibility on search engines. Attention to detail can make all the difference in your quest to achieve top rankings on SERPs. Therefore, you must take out some time to optimize your blog posts to boost your overall Google rankings.