Post Optimization: SEO For The Modern Marketer

Whether you own a multinational company or a small business, blogging is a vital aspect of any content marketing strategy. Blogging can help increase your rank in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), drive relevant traffic to your site, develop great customer relationships and even position your brand as an industry leader. It’s great that you already know the importance of business blogging, but with Google making search algorithm changes from time to time, it’s pertinent that you take a step back and refresh yourself with some SEO basics. Read on to find out some ways you can use to optimize your future posts!

Optimize the Headlines of Your Blog Posts

Gather a list of blog posts that you plan to publish. You need to check that you’ve optimized all the headlines within each article. Ensure that you put keywords at the front of the headlines, so for instance, you want to rank your content to appear for searches about sports drinks: “Sports Drinks: Quench Your Thirst after a Strenuous Workout” will certainly perform better than “Quench Your Thirst after a Workout with Sports Drinks.” You will also want to ensure that you use keywords that get shared or clicked frequently. The more your content gets shared, the better you will rank on the SERPs.

Acquire Blog Topics from Keyword Research

When it comes to keyword research and deciding topics for your blog, you will want to focus on a few key topics and phrases that are most critical to your company. You should always start with a topic you really rank well for. The next step is to put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers and think about the likely search terms that brought them to your website.

Gone are the days when people only search with a single word. An increasing number of people are using long phrases and even full sentences to find the content they need. Just take note of Google’s Autocomplete feature. See the most common sentences that are being used as search queries. This is great news for blogs! Blog posts are designed to be educational and you will never run out of topics.

Use Tags Sparingly

With judicious use of tags, they can be good for SEO. The goal is to relate one piece of content to another or a group of posts to each other. However, when you use too many similar tags in your content, search engines may mark them as duplicate content, causing you to get penalized.

You do not want to create a tag for something that doesn’t need to be ranked or doesn’t introduce synonym tags for similar content. The right quantity of tags should be between fifteen to twenty-five keywords, and ensure that you explain what they are to the writers who blogs for you.

Ensure that Your Blog is Optimized for Mobile Devices

If you have done everything to optimize your content for desktops or laptops, you should also consider doing the same for mobile devices. Make sure your site is valued-added for people who search and read content from their mobile devices. Simply stick with responsive designs and you can never go wrong (well, at least in 2016). Focus on creating content that provides value and answer search queries that need to be addressed. Do this and your search rank will gradually rise!