Content Strategy Essentials: Blogging for SEO

I have seen so many small businesses lately that either don't have a blog, haven't posted to it in months, or - most cardinal of sins - have a blog, but it's just the lorem ipsum filler from their Wordpress template!

The most difficult part of developing a website content strategy is starting. A blog can be an amazing tool to drive traffic to your website and grow your business, but not if you aren’t maintaining it! New to the blogging arena? Here’s a simple guide to help you get started.

Know Your Ideal Audience

The most important thing you should do before writing a blog for your small business is figure out who your target audience is. Ask yourself:

• Who will be reading this?

• How will what I write serve them?

• Does this audience have the potential to convert into paying customers/clients?

If you don’t take the time to define who you’re writing for, reaching them and convincing them to choose your listing in search results won’t be easy. You need to know who you’re creating content for before you can figure out what content to create.

It’s tempting to keep things generic in hopes of appealing to the masses, but that’s just not realistic or sustainable. You're never going to find a person, place, or thing that every single person in the world will like.

Instead of trying to make your content broad enough to apply to everyone (or even everyone within your niche), think about what makes your brand unique. Take a look at the people who already love your work; your biggest fans. Write out everything you know about them. They are your ideal audience! Now take a look at their needs and what draws them to your brand. Think about what more you can do to support them, whether through education or entertainment. This should give you a jump start on brainstorming potential blog topics.

Optimize COntent for Search Engines

The words you use matter not just for users, but for organic reach as well. Your primary goal should be to create content users will actually engage with, but your secondary goal should be to rank well in search results. If you don’t rank in the first page of a search, users aren’t likely to discover your blog post in the first place.

When I decide on a particular blog topic or theme, I start by writing out 3-5 primary keywords that will be the focus of the content. For example, a few of the keywords for this blog are

• content

• search engine optimization

• blogging

Once I have my basic keywords, I study related long-tail keywords to see what users are searching in relation to my core keywords. This helps me develop a larger pool of keywords to pull from while constructing my content.

If you’re looking for a free tool, I like Wordstream or Neil Patel’s UberSuggest. You can also use Google Keyword Planner, although they only show large ranges of average monthly searches, so the metrics aren’t super specific.

Now collect all of those keywords for use when curating the core elements of your blog post:

Your Blog Title 

Keep your blog’s title concise and clear, using only one or two keywords while avoiding clickbait behavior. DO NOT plagiarize the title of another successful blog on the same topic - make it your own and cater it to your unique audience.

Your title should be around 40-60 characters in length and tell users what value your blog will bring. Your blog’s value could be anything from entertainment to information or inspiration. Whatever it is, you want your audience to be able to identify it right away!

To keep this simple, focus on the specific search query your blog should resolve. What types of questions will your ideal audience type in the Google search bar that should bring up your blog in the results?

Subheadings

Subheadings help break up your content so users don't feel overwhelmed by a wall of text and help Google to easily crawl the page for keywords. As with the title, focus on the core keywords relevant to the following section. No need to get fancy - just tell the user what to expect next in an H2 Subheading format!

Alt Text for Images

Alt text isn't as complicated as you might think. It’s just a very brief description of your blog’s imagery for accessibility and SEO purposes. Don't cram it with keywords, but if they are relevant to the specific image, then alt text can be a great place to use one or two of them. As a bonus tip: you don’t need to say “image of…” or “picture of…” in your alt text. That’s just filler and won’t do anything for you.

Let’s write alt text for this image as an example:

Considering the context of the image, the alt text might read, “pottery shop owner working at computer.” However, pottery isn’t relevant to my blog, making this alt text less beneficial to my SEO. Instead, my alt text reads, “small business owner working at computer” to better fit my blog while still remaining relevant to the image.

If my website’s content were about pottery, however, the alt text might instead read, “artist planning pottery project.”

Meta Description

The meta description is the small paragraph of text that shows up under your blog title in search results. This is your last opportunity to convince users to choose you from the search results, and you only have around 150 characters before it gets truncated, so make it count!

Since it's always preceded by your title, you don't need to reiterate the same exact phrase again. You can still use some of the same keywords, but frame them in a different way that tells users (and Google!) more about what to expect from your blog post.

I generally avoid using the auto-generated meta description, as it just pulls from the first paragraph of the blog. Especially if your blog starts with an anecdote or setting up the problem, your first paragraph may not engage users in the right way. It’s like taking the first paragraph of a novel and posting that as the summary. It may give you an idea of the writing style, but it won’t tell you much about the overall story.

Your meta description may also be pulled in social media shares or show up on the blog page of your website, so keep that in mind when writing it as well!

Include Relevant Links

Both internal and external links are beneficial to the organic search-ability of your blog. Internal links teach search engines how your website’s content interrelates, while increasing the usability score of your website. They guide users from one post to the next, helping them find what they're looking for if they want to keep reading and learn more about a particular theme within your blog.

External links to high quality websites is basically the blogging equivalent of citing your sources. Just as you need reputable sources when writing a college research paper, so you should link to one or two pieces of corroborating evidence that will lend authority to whatever claim you’re making in your post. Be sure not to link your competitors', however. That won't help you grow your business…for obvious reasons.

You can even incorporate external links collaboratively, offering to link a peer’s website in exchange for them linking yours. Any time someone else links to your website on their own, it builds your authority with Google.

Call to Action

Don't just end your blog abruptly when the meat and potatoes are done! You need to serve a little after dinner mint to freshen their palette for more. As you conclude your blog, tie in a call-to-action that tells your audience about your offer or invites them to get in touch with you. Keep it conversational and organic and avoid being too salesy, but don’t miss a chance to let users know what other benefits you have in store for them!

Example of a concise call to action:

If you're ready to invest in your business and free up more time to focus on your craft, contact me to learn more about my copywriting services for blogging and beyond. (See what I did there?)