Why should blogs be SEO friendly?

A blog can be used as a landing page for your website, what’s a landing page? A page that is specifically targeted at a set of keywords (Search terms) that can pull potential searches and therefore people to your website. SEO itself these days, is much more than just tinkering with a bit of meta-data, search engine algorithms have become smarter and smarter and rank pages on their quality and referrals. For this reason, it is very important to have well-structured, planned and written blogs, to be able to rank well.

Define a list of keywords that centre around what your blog is about. From this list decide on at leats one, or maybe a few ‘focus’ keywords. Make sure you utilise the use of the focus keywords in your copy, but, don’t over do it! Google penalises pages that ‘keyword stuff’, that mean ing using keywords too much in an attempt to game the algorithm. An optimal keyword density of 0.5-2% should be targeted, or to put it simply aim to use each keyword 3 to 10 times in a 500 word blog post.

Use paragraphs and headings. Headings help search engines decipher the content on the page, so they should contain keywords or related words while paragraphs break up your content making it easier to read. Make your focus keyword(s) appear in the first paragraph, this could form part of an introduction. Structure your writing as an essay style, of introduction, body and conclusion.

Google penalises posts less than 300 words so keep that as your minimum. It’s a good idea to not write too many words as to keep your readers attention so also keep to approximately 700 words maximum, about 1.5 pages.

Images not only make your blogs look more visually appealing, they also help Google decipher what your content is about.

Create links to your own website (internal links) such as related posts, and previously described content on your website/blog. If you have covered an area you are describing in detail in another blog, link it. Furthermore, link to any relevant external websites that reinforce your writing. This will give your post legitimacy by ‘citing’ sources of like-minded material.

Blog regularly, so your page looks ‘fresh’ to Google. Sites with regular, new content will rank better.

What next

A solid plan for all of the above is essential, this ensures regularity and quality in your content. Maybe sit down and write a calendar of who will write what and when. Also, there’s nothing stopping you in a creative moment writing out a few blogs in one sitting, but then staggering their release over time.

Don’t get too caught up with being too SEO friendly, first and foremost concentrate on making your blog posts well written, easy to read and INTERESTING. Google will ultimately reward you if you meet this criteria.

Remeber these key points

• Keyword density of 0.5-2%
• Utilise paragraphs and headings
• 300 words minimum per post
• Link Content
• Blog regularly

Dropwire can optimise your site, and perform keyword research, supplying a list of keywords to use in your blog posts, that are not only relevant to your site, but are also what people are searching for.