You’ve just spent hours crafting a perfectly worded blog post, and you’re ready to add it to your website. But wait! Before you press publish, there are a few things you need to do to make sure your post is optimized for Search Engine visibility and audience engagement. Follow this handy guide to start maximizing the power of your blog posts and give your search engine optimization efforts a boost!

Create a clickable title

Before you publish, make sure your post’s title is eye-catching and interesting. Your title is the first impression your readers get from your writing, so it’s best to brainstorm a title that will pique the interest of your audience and compel them to read and share with their friends. Avoid using a clickbait-y title that may diminish your credibility, and instead, opt for a title that offers your readers helpful advice or insight. One way to do this is by using numbers in the title, which can draw the reader’s eye and make your content easier to organize.

Optimize your post for search engine visibility

Incorporating SEO (search engine optimization) into your blogging strategy is a free way to make sure more eyes land on your content. To do this, you need to make sure your posts are optimized for the keywords related to your brand. However, you must be careful not to “stuff” your content full of keywords in an attempt to increase your rankings. Google is aware of this tactic and will actually penalize your website if you try to trick the system! Rather than stuffing your content with keywords, try to work the words naturally into your content. If you consistently create content that is relevant and helpful to your readers, they’ll reward you by coming back for more.

Add strong visuals

Your post is not complete without at least one image or video (or a gif if you so desire!) According to Hubspot, content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. When cross-posting your blog to social media, be sure you include an image. You don’t need to be a professional photographer to utilize high-quality, compelling photos in your blog posts. Utilize resources like free online stock photos or get creative with your smartphone!

Link to the pros

There are plenty of good reasons to include external links in your blog content. Not only should you give credit where credit is due, but linking to other web pages is also a simple way to improve your search engine rankings. Try hyperlinking to about three external websites in each of your posts to add more credibility to your claims and give your SEO a boost. Likewise, you should also link to past blog posts that you have written, which can spur visitors to spend more time on your site and give new life to older content.

Check final details to boost SEO

Before you publish your blog article, you need to make sure to edit the final details of your post to increase its SEO and readability. A few ways to do this are by including your keyword(s) in the meta description, slug, and the alternative text of your images. The meta description is a brief description of your blog post, which will appear on search engines and Facebook as a preview to your post. The slug is part of the page’s URL, and unless you edit it, it will automatically generate a visually unappealing link. Finally, another place you can insert your focus keyword is in the alternative text of an image. The alt text is what will be read to visually impaired users, so be sure to actually describe what the image portrays while weaving in your keyword. While these small features may seem unimportant, they’re actually very easy ways to increase traffic on your website and improve your keyword rankings.

Do you have questions about using content marketing to boost your website traffic and wow your readers? Leave us a message in the comments or contact us below to learn how we can help!

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