SEO writing | 10 proven tips on writing blog posts that rank on Google

“What is the use of writing great blog posts that won’t rank on the first page of Google’s SERPs and people won’t see?” – Ruth Adeyemi. 

Beyond writing valuable content to my readers, I always make sure that these contents are fully optimized for search engines. To do this, I follow a strict SEO blog writing process which has not failed me once.

Have you ever wondered how bloggers are now able to grow their blogs without investing in paid advertisements?

How does organic traffic seem to roll in after just a few posts? It’s all in SEO writing.

This post contains a carefully and thoroughly explained SEO writing process that will help you create fully optimized blog posts that can rank on the first page of Google.

The SEO writing process is a little overwhelming and daunting regardless of your previous blog writing experience. It is also time-consuming, but it pays off when you can convert your time into money.

Many technicalities go into the published search engine optimized blog posts you see online, and I’m about to lift the curtains for you to see.

What is a blog post?

A blog post is a single piece of published content on a blog site accessible via the World Wide Web. These contents are majorly written contents that may or may not be supported with images (images are a MUST for optimization, though) 

What you are currently reading is referred to as a blog post.

What is SEO writing?

Simply put, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) writing is creating and writing content optimized for search engines. 

Blogspot defines SEO writing as writing content to rank on the first page of search engines such as Google.

Optimizing starts from the creation process, from the topic ideas to the writing and the images; these contents are deliberately created and organized to make sure that they fit the baseline requirements of search engine optimization and even go beyond it.

Features of an optimized blog post

The features of an SEO (Search Engine optimized) blog post are pretty direct but also easy to miss, especially when you are batch creating content. We had an SEO checklist designed to ensure you don’t miss a thing while creating SEO content for your website or clients.

For you to write what counts as an optimized blog post, it needs to have these features:

·   A good, compelling headline

The headline is the title of your blog post; it is the first sentence that any searcher will see. An important tip to note when creating your headlines is that they need to give your reader a brief overview of what your post is about.

You have to make your headline compelling but straight to the point. Do not use sugar-coated words because they send a red flag to the reader.

·   A good introduction

Some blog writers are a little lax about what they put in their introduction. Apart from the fact that it is the first impression of your blog post, it is also what determines if the reader will continue the blog post or leave. You want your introduction to explain to the reader exactly what value they will get from the post. It is similar to the abstract of research (a concise summary of the main work).

Advisably, the words you use in your introduction should be simple, sincere, and straight.

There are different types of introduction you can use for your blog posts.

·   An organized, paragraphed layout

Did you know that long paragraphs reduce readability and prevent your readers from scanning through the entire post? Research has discovered that most readers scan the whole post before deciding if it is read-worthy or not. 

If you fill your blog posts with long paragraphs, more than half of your readers will bounce out and not likely return.

Break down your paragraphs into smaller, digestible chunks.

·   A long-enough and valuable content

The content of your blog post has to answer the questions in the reader’s mind, and this point is where good research comes up. You need to identify the pain points of your target audience and give them content that is beneficial to them. Your content should also contain verified facts and visual engagements.

All these features are determined during your research, i.e., the headline, the outline, and the content.

·  Links to authority websites

You might think that having an external link in your blog post will make you lose originality, but this couldn’t be more wrong. Having external links to authority websites in your niche will make your content more credible to your readers. However, please do not make it excessive.

When you talk about verified facts and statistics, you want to ensure that your readers know the source.

Plus, can I mention that this is good for your SEO?

SEO writing process

Many writers have been stuck with the process of SEO writing, and the frustration can make you question your writing skills. Maybe you own a website, or you hope to take your SEO content writing game up a notch as a freelancer to land high-paying clients. 

Whichever class you belong to, I’m here to guide you step by step and show you how to write a compelling, fully optimized blog post.

The SEO writing process can be tasking, but you find out that it is achievable when you follow the template.

The SEO writing process:

• Identify your audience
• Know your content bucket
• Come up with topic ideas
• Optimize the topic ideas
• Research the topic ideas
• Research keywords
• Research contents around the keywords
• Create your SEO outline
• Write your contents
• Insert visual contents 

Since SEO writing skills go beyond just blog writing, most of what makes your blog posts optimized are in the research you put into it before typing away at your keypads, just like I’m doing right now.

·  Identify your audience.

I cannot emphasize this enough!

If you check out our blog post on 5 proven ways to make money blogging in 2022 – SARMLife, I wrote there that one of the most significant milestones that any blogger can cross is the ability to recognize and know their target audience. Why is this important?

Your target audience is the ones that will be interested in your content and will want to click open that blog post because it addresses either their curiosity, fears, or pains. If you don’t know your target audience, you will not be able to create content relevant to a specific group of people. 

You end up with no niche and no audience.

When you know your audience, you begin to find out about their pain points by doing surveys, checking out the posts of others in your niche, checking out commonly searched words, and direct interaction with people in that niche. Check out 18 simple ways to come up with blog post ideas daily – SARMLife for more details on knowing your audience.

·  Know your content buckets

A content bucket is a segment of the entire content you want to relay to your audience. Each of your content buckets should address various aspects of your business while also reflecting your overall message as a brand/business.

Content buckets are vital because they help you narrow down your ideas and distribute content across your audience.

 For example, if you are a fashion blogger, your content bucket might include accessories, dresses, color combinations, or even make-up.

When you want to write a blog post, you select the content bucket and find topic ideas around it. Check out Topic ideas for different niches HERE

·  Come up with topic ideas

This particular process might not need you to go online because you can develop topic ideas based on your experience, expertise, and interactions with people. Otherwise, you can check other similar websites and get inspiration from their contents – it is entirely legal.

I recently wrote some ideas for a friend in a different niche from me. I had no idea what topics were good and not-so-good at first, but I ended up checking other blogs in the same niche as hers. The summary is that the contents were created while also maintaining originality.

If your content bucket of choice as a relationship expert is breakups, you might think of topic ideas like:

• Why new couples breakup
• How to avoid breakup
• How to maintain Long distance relationships
• What ladies/men do after a terrible breakup

Mind you, these are JUST ideas and have not been verified yet.

·  Optimize the topic ideas

For Search Engine optimization, you want to make sure that your topic ideas are what people are interested in.

This is where you use https://www.answerthepublic.com 

What this site does is that it gives you a compilation of all the questions people are asking about a particular keyword.

Now you have a topic idea, log on to this site, type in your keyword of choice (1-3 words), and watch the magic!

Take, for instance, that your keyword of choice is simply ‘breakup,’ you’ll see a screen similar to this:

Now, you have dozens of options to select from, and all you have to do is pick one.

The above image is just a part of the result page. You don’t have to be frustrated about coming up with relevant topic ideas anymore. You have over a hundred ideas in a single content bucket. Imagine having up to five content buckets! Mind-blowing!

·  Research the topic ideas

You now have a verified idea that you can use. The next step is to take that idea and run it through Google.

From answerthepublic.com, your idea might be ‘how to break up with someone you love’ – this is what you type on Google Search Query.

Why?

You want to compare with existing blog posts, and you do this by checking the similar keywords used by the top-ranking websites. Apart from the keywords, you also check the headline structures and the meta description.

From the above example, you can see that ‘break up with someone’ is the keyword frequently used by most top-ranking websites.

Let me also share a tip with you. 

One of the SEO checklists is that your focus keyword should be part of your headline and URL. To fully confirm what focus keyword others use, you can check these two places and then research that keyword.

Any website with its focus keyword in both places is knowledgeable in SEO writing, and these are the websites you should visit for content inspiration.

Now, you have a keyword to verify.

·  Research keyword(s)

This part is so exciting! The best keyword research website out there is Ubersuggest. When you upload your keyword on ubersuggest, it analyzes that word. It gives you real-time data, including search volume, cost per click, SEO difficulty, other keyword ideas, and content ideas that you can use along with the keyword you entered.

From the above example, you’ll notice the keyword overview, which consists of:

• Search volume
• SEO difficulty
• Paid difficulty
• Cost per click

Scrolling down, you see the keyword ideas, which gives you statistics on other keywords that you can use.

It shows you the trend on each keyword, top-ranking websites for it, alongside the keyword overview statistics for each keyword idea.

After this are the content ideas segment where you see several existing contents with that keyword; in this case, the keyword is ‘break up with someone.’ 

The fantastic thing with this content idea segment is that it brings you the monthly estimated visits to that website and shows you the keywords that bring this organic traffic. It also shows the number of backlinks, so you know if the website is really credible and the number of social media links (Facebook).

Do you know what? You get this much information for free, and you get even more information when you subscribe to the paid version.

The paid version, among other features, will give you breakdown statistics on what kind of device generates the higher search volume (mobile or desktop).

·  Research contents around the keywords.

This is the same step done in researching the topic ideas from answerthepublic. The only difference is that you have specific keywords to type on the Google search query.

In this case, your focus keyword can be ‘when to break up with someone’ or ‘break up with him’ because the search volume is 1,900 and 1,600, respectively. You can also still go with the focus keyword ‘break up with someone,’ which has a search volume of 1,000.

Or you can use all these keywords while deciding on one focus keyword.

For example, ‘when to break up with someone’ can be my focus keyword, while the other two can be my other keywords.

Note: Search Engine Optimization requires that your focus keyword be a long-tail keyword. All your keywords should not be more than five (5) or less than three (3) with at least one (1) short tail keyword.

If your focus keyword is ‘when to break up with someone,’ you use Google Search Query to find its contents, taking note of the headline and content structures.

·  Create your headline

From the above SERP of the focus keyword ‘when to break up with someone,’ several headline structures are around it.

As earlier stated, you need to have a compelling headline that will make the reader want to click on your page. Sharethrough headline analyzer is a good and accessible platform to write a compelling headline, and you can also use it to verify the viability of your headline.

The platform analyzes your headline’s engagement and impression likelihood and suggests ways you can make it better. 

Before you write out a headline, note these points for SEO:

• Your focus keyword must be in your headline with no added word(s) in between. Use any of the formats below:

1. prefix, (focus keyword), suffix.
2. (focus keyword), suffix.
3. Prefix, (focus keyword).

• Your headline should not be too long to avoid being cut off like the ones below.

• Use context words.
• Use numbers, preferably odd numbers.

Any headline you come up with following these rules, run them through the headline analyzer, and make sure your scores are above average.

·  Create your SEO outline

To create your outline, check out the top-ranking websites from the Google Search Query you carried out.

Compare with at least five (5) different websites and note their content structure.

Afterward, create your outline and make sure to include a new point that is relevant to your content, OR

You can elaborate on a point mentioned briefly in other posts.

The endpoint is to ensure that you give your readers an added value that will become a reason to prefer your post to existing ones.

·  Write your content

You have your keywords, outline, and content inspiration. All you have to do is write.

·  Insert visual content 

Your SEO blog post isn’t complete without visuals. Make sure your images are small-sized to reduce the loading speed of your site.

Also, add Alt texts to your images – this is very important for SEO.

If you follow these SEO writing processes, your blog posts are sure to make it to the front pages.

If you need me to assist you with your SEO writing, or you need more detailed and vocal coaching, you can set up a meeting with me HERE.