Running an SEO blog is one of the leading strategies online businesses are using to improve their search rankings. Publishing keyword-rich content that is relevant around popular topics not only helps to drive additional traffic to a site, but also increases overall domain authority. An SEO blog might be the one of highest return on investments a business can make in modern digital marketing.
SEO Blog
Starting with the basics, an SEO blog is simply a platform built into a website that allows for easy content production with a focus on keyword rankings. Traditionally, SEO blogs are used to provide value to an audience while working to rank for the most popular queries. Posts are also commonly used to build authority towards other website pages that need additional traffic.
In practice, many choose to write posts related to their primary service offerings. These posts are usually optimized for synonyms or related search terms that pertain to a particular service. We practice exactly this on the Renewal Digital blog. For instance, custom WordPress web design is one of our most popular services and we write bountiful amounts of content on related subjects. Scrolling through the blog, you’ll likely see posts written on WordPress itself, web design concepts, etc. These posts are used to open opportunities for internal link building and to indicate to the search engines that Renewal Digital has something to do with WordPress web design.
Link Building Through An SEO Blog
Link building is a fundamental principle in SEO and is one of the most common ways to improve rankings. A best practice is to use keyword-rich anchor text that is a direct synonym of the page it is linking to. We exercise internal link building at Renewal Digital by creating a link on a post with say the anchor text “web design service.” This link would then be pointed towards our service page optimized for “WordPress web design.” Anchor text is one of the most weighted factors in search rankings and a content-filled SEO blog will provide thousands of opportunities to link build internally.
SEO blogs are also used to link build externally. Many times, post authors and businesses collaborate amongst each other to “trade” external links. In the industry, these types of links are referred to as backlinks being that they link back to a page on a site. Backlinks are factored more heavily than internal links by search engines. Reasoning is, backlinks stemming from high authority sites indicate to search engines that the page they are linking to has some form of relevant content. The larger amount of backlinks that point to a specific page tend to raise its rankings for a related keyword. When routinely built, backlinks make chasing new keywords much easier and also aid in maintaining existing rankings.
How To Write A Search Engine Optimized Blog Post
Writing a search engine optimized blog post is not as difficult as it may seem. As long as you’re able to write content that is relevant to your industry, accurately describes your business, or provides value to a web audience, you are more than prepared to start publishing posts. Point being, if the actual content of a blog is poor and doesn’t retain an audience then no amount of SEO will prove profitable. Search engines want to display the most relevant and accurate content to their users, therefore metrics such as bounce rate and click-through rate heavily affect how a page will rank. Both of these metrics are based on the interaction of actual humans on your site, and therefore are not technical factors that can be optimized.
Choosing Keywords
Every piece of content published to a blog needs to be optimized for a keyword relevant to the content of the post. Planning out a keyword hierarchy will aid greatly in determining what kind of content needs to be written. Such a hierarchy helps prioritize certain rankings over others, where most of the keywords of lower importance would be optimized on a post instead of a static page. Posts tend to dissolve fairly quickly in reference to a static page, and therefore should not be optimized for “big-ticket” keywords that your site needs to rank for. For more information, check out these keyword research tips.
Choose keywords that make sense in reference to the post content and are related to higher level keywords within the hierarchy. For example, a general contractor trying to rank “contracting services” on a static page would likely write a post optimized for “general contracting best practices.” Not only would a post of this type stipulate that the general contractor is highly knowledgeable in their field, but would also help support the ranking of the static page optimized for “contracting services.” In link building between the post and static page, search engines are able to associate the content.
SEO Blogging Is Easier Over Time
One of the best parts of SEO blogging is that rankings grow exponentially as more posts are published. To be clear, this does not mean that content should be poorly written and rushed out, that will do much more harm than good. Instead, a consistent stream of posts that are written around topics that people within your niche are interested in is the best path towards success. As the amount of content on a site grows, the ability to link internally and externally eases. Simply put, more content equals more opportunities to link.
Speaking from experience, you’ll also find that as you hone your writing skills the concepts of SEO become much easier to understand. You’ll be able to semantically include keywords into your writing without them seeming forced. By all means, avoid “keyword stuffing” your content. Search engine algorithms are able to detect unnatural wording and will likely penalize the content for it. Just stay consistent, practice a lot, and accept that your first posts might not be great. It’s part of the learning process and you will get better the more you write.
