There are many elements that influence SEO ranking, and it may seem like controlling them all is mission impossible. But the truth is that you can tackle them step by step.
To get your blog positioned as high as possible in Google, let's review how to write SEO-friendly content step by step.
Keyword research can be a complex process, but it's one that pays off in the end. These are some of the key aspects to consider:
There are many tools for researching keywords, both free and paid. When you use these tools, don't forget to take a look at the section on related keywords as it can help you get interesting ideas.
URLs must be easy to read and easy for search engines to index. The basic guidelines for creating good URLs for your blog posts are:
It's not clear if Google takes into account these elements to decide the SEO positioning of a page. But even so, it is very important to optimize them, since in most cases they appear in the search results when a user searches for the keyword of the page in question.
You should try to make sure that the title and description of the page properly reflect the content, encourage the user to click, contain the keyword you want to position, and fall within the character limits to show up in the search results.
In addition:
The page headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are necessary to structure the content of your blog posts, both for search engines and for readers.
These elements form a page hierarchy, so that the information is correctly ordered:
Search engine spiders can't see images the same way we can. Therefore, in order for them to index them, you have to follow these recommendations.
Today, most web traffic comes from mobile devices, so it is absolutely essential that your site is ready for them. In fact, Google penalizes websites that do not meet this requirement.
To be prepared, you need your website to provide a good user experience on different screen sizes and have fast loading times. To achieve this, you have several options, but the most recommended are responsive design and Accelerated Mobile Pages from Google.
A responsive design is able to adapt to different screen sizes. The system automatically detects screen width and then optimizes the design to provide the best possible experience.
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMPs, are pages specifically designed for mobile and load much faster than normal. They are especially useful for blogs and news sites.
Sitemaps help Google spiders to better target and crawl more completely, so they'll be great for your SEO strategy.
You can create a sitemap by hand following Google's webmaster recommendations or use some sitemap creation tool. Blogging platforms like Wordpress or HubSpot create them automatically.
Once created, don't forget to tell Google Search Console what your sitemap URL is and do the necessary maintenance to keep it up to date.
Pages that take too long to load generate user frustration and high bounce rates, which translate into lost traffic. If that's not enough, excessively slow pages position worse on search engines.
To avoid this, you'll have to audit your website and try to improve the loading times of the slowest pages. In Google Search Console you can find information about the loading times of your website's pages.
Today, SEO is much more natural than it was a few years ago. This means you no longer have to focus on entering the same keyword over and over again, but on creating quality content that follows these recommendations.
Rather than obsessing over the number of words you have to have, focus on creating articles that are centered on the keyword you want to position, that deal with the topic in question and that include all the related aspects that are relevant to the reader.
However, if you want to position a broad concept (for example, content marketing), the recommendation is still to create an article of at least 2,000 words and include other elements such as videos, images, graphics and podcasts.
The internal link structure of a blog conveys authority from one article to another and facilitates navigation. In addition, a well-linked blog is easier for Google's algorithms to analyze.
Therefore, make sure you include links to related concepts in your blog posts and make your internal links "dofollow." If you link to other sites, use "nofollow" instead.
All the previous steps are related to on-page SEO. But one more step is missing: off-page SEO, or aspects external to your own blog that can help you position. The most important one is the link building.
Links from other websites work as a kind of vote of confidence on the quality of your page and Google takes this into account when ranking you, so it is very important that there are other pages that link to yours.
Look for quality links to good content on sites related to your subject or industry. Guest blogging is a good way to generate these types of links and promote your site.