- The ‘how to blog‘ series
This is post 10 in the ‘How to Blog ‘series
If you’re new here and want to learn how to blog then I suggest starting at the beginning of this series and working through these old posts first;
Blogging Basics-Why A Blog Is A Key Component To Your Online Marketing Strategy
Building Your Blogging Foundations
The Power of Less For Blogging Success
How To Blog Series-Finding Your Writing Style and Overcoming Those Blocks
Building A Blog-6 Key Sources Of Inspiration For Finding New Content
How To Blog Series-The Benefits of Microblogging
Proven Techniques That Deliver Captivating Headlines To Wow Your Target Audience
Blogging Tactics-6 Ways To Identify And Keep The Spammers Away
When you start an online business you find yourself doing stuff you might never have tackled before, blogging might just be one of these areas. Navigating your way around what makes a successful blog can be daunting given all the information and different perspectives available but once you’ve mastered the basics there is nothing more gratifying than blogging on a subject you’re passionate about and building a free and valuable traffic source to your brand.
One of the most critical aspects to get to grips with is search engine optimisation and this post will tackle specifically on-page SEO tips.
Irrespective of how inspiring and fabulous your content and writing skills are if you don’t understand SEO basics then they’ll be no one reading your stuff which would be a crying shame given the effort that goes in to producing quality content. I have made this point many times on this series of posts but you need content and traffic to begin to generate any kind of profit and traction for your efforts.
To get people to your site you’ve got to begin thinking like them which starts by imagining yourself walking in their shoes. We have to identify what they are actually typing into the search engines which can be tricky in the more sophisticated niches and service markets. That’s why the narrower the niche the easier the process gets though often the market can also be a lot more competitive too.
Learning how to blog is also as much about learning the art of keyword research so you can get more lazor targeted traffic and improve your page rankings over time without it costing you a penny. For example, this is a blog aimed at individuals who are self employed, but more specifically working online and wanting to develop Internet Marketing strategies so naturally I cover blogging as a vital online marketing strategy as well as how to develop the entrepreneurial mindset.
How to blog effectively by utilising on page search engine optimisation.
1. Select your keywords , research for relevance and competition by utilising various keyword tools, personally I utilise Google’s keyword ad tool.
2. Use your keywords in your page title known as a HI heading . For example the keywords I have chosen for this post are ‘how to blog’ and a secondary keywords of ‘starting an online business’ so you will see these throughout this article .
3. Then have your keywords in your H2 and H3 headings where possible so when the robots crawl your page they easily identify that these are the relevant keywords to rank your site.
4. Sprinkle your keywords throughout your post and use bold, italic and underline to emphasise them. Many SEO experts talk of achieving a minimum of 5% keyword density and as much as 20% but I struggle with this and find even achieving 5% can massively impact the quality of writing style. So I caution you to find a balance between readers enjoyment and interest and SEO tactics.
5. Provide link (s) in your post to previous posts on the same subject matter. See above how I ‘ve been writing a series of articles on ‘how to blog’ and have been linking each article together as I add a new post.
6. Try and make your posts at least 250 words long otherwise you’ll struggle to incorporate your keyword density throughout your content.
7. Use images and label them with your keywords.
8. Try and use your keywords to kick off paragraphs and at the beginning of sentences.
9. Make good use of anchor text within your post to link to other relevant sites on the subject to develop the topic , add values to your customers and achieve your SEO objective.
With this in mind here are some other great articles on blogging and on page search engine optimisation for your benefit.
Five Effective SEO Strategies To Optimise Your Business Blog
Blogging is a growing trend and one of the best strategies there is for building content marketing.
Got a question on blogging or how to blog then post your questions/comments here and we’ll dedicate a post to it .
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