SEO Checklist For Blogs: Don't Miss A Single Detail!

One thing is certain: SEO success is not a phenomenon that happens overnight, however, a good dose of patience and a simple knowledge of its techniques will be enough to take off and start increasing your traffic. Grown up Digital – the leading SEO agency in Bangalore is publishing this detailed post to address the basic SEO elements for blogs and websites.

Join us for this quick guide and discover the basic elements of SEO for blogs!

1. Research keywords

SEO is extremely important for digital marketers, and especially fans of content marketing. When you optimize your blog, you are making it more visible to people who are inserting terms associated with the topics you address through search engines. And if it all starts with finding keywords in the engines, there is no way to launch an SEO strategy without thinking about them.

The keywords that you should choose for the contents of your website are those that refer to the search criteria that your target audience uses to find information. Therefore, researching them thoroughly and working your positioning based on them is super important.

One of the factors in choosing your keyword is knowing its monthly search volume as well as the variation of the search over time. In this way, you discover whether or not it is worth writing an entire article on the subject. To find this information, there are some tools:

2. Keyword tools

· Ubersuggest

· SEMrush

· Keyword Tool

· Google Keyword Planner

3. Include keywords strategically

Optimizing your publication is not about repeating as many keywords as possible, in reality, this could even harm you, since search engines consider this type of excess a bad practice for positioning. I mean, they take it as a cheating act to rank you highly in organic searches.

Plus, this also doesn't contribute to a good reading experience - a ranking factor that engines prioritize to ensure you're responding to your visitors' intent.

Therefore, you should use the keywords in your content in a way that does not seem artificial or forced.

4. How and where to apply it?

o Once in the main title

o At least in one or two subtitles

o At least 3 times in the body of the article

o Once in the URL

o At least once in the alt text of an image

o Once in the meta description

o Marked at least once in " bold " or " italic "

5. Optimize title

You already know that the keyword must be part of the title (H1) of your publication, however, there are other practices that optimize it even more and help search engines find the article more easily are:

§ Include the keyword, preferably, the further to the left the better

§ Make the reader aware of your intention. For example, "How to choose", "Tips for ...", "Learn to ..."

§ Do not exceed 65 characters (including spaces), with 55 being the "ideal" number of characters. This does not mean that your article will not be indexed if you exceed this limit, but it will be automatically cut by Google.

§ Don't use too many commas

6. Make URLs friendly

The structure of the URL of your website should facilitate the understanding of the content that the reader will find on it. For example, if you have a blog that talks about advertising and marketing, you can have these two types of content embedded in specific URLs:

xyz.com/advertising
xyz.com/marketing

This makes your reader understand that there are minor sections, called subdirectories, within your blog.

For the URL of a publication, it is recommended to make it as short as possible (without losing its meaning) and that it contains the main keyword.

7. Add an attractive meta description

The meta description is an HTML code tag that summarizes the topic you will be talking about in your article. Being a summary, it should be interesting and pleasant, so that it calls the user to click on the link and access the site. In Google, this is the text displayed in the second and third lines of search results, just below the title.

Google has already confirmed that the content of the meta description does not influence the positioning, however, a well-written and attractive description contributes to the increase in the click-through rate, so it is important to take it into account.

What to consider

§ Write a meta description with a maximum of 160 characters (it is the space that Google delimits so that it is not shown with cuts)

§ Include the keyword naturally (although it does not influence the ranking, visually they usually stand out in bold when the user searches)

§ Incentivize an action ("Click here to learn more", "Try it for free", etc.)

8. Optimize the alt text of images

Alt text is a description attribute that is added in the HTML code of an image, but don't panic, you don't need to be a programming expert to do it, most platforms already have this text field available.

Whenever you upload an image in your post, be sure to include the keyword in the file name and a short description in the alt text related to its context - search engines use alt text to identify what the image is about.

This not only helps your SEO, but also for people with visual disabilities, since the screen reader reads and recites the alternative text to the user, and in case of broken images, if the image does not appear on the blog, the alt text instead.

9. Divide content into topics

Subtitles are not only used to organize your text and make it easier for the visitor to read.

Search engines take into account the topics and subtopics that you use in your text to categorize your content and identify what the topic of your publication is.

How to do it effectively?

§ Include the keyword in at least one topic or subtopic

§ Try to use up to H3

§ Do not repeat texts in different subtitles

§ Make short paragraphs with a maximum of 300 words

10. Have external and internal links

External links - links that other pages generate in their content and point to yours - serve to show search engines that you are trustworthy and relevant, after all, if another website recommends you, it means that you are a great reference.

The best way to achieve external links is by seeking other colleagues to share your links in their own articles or by making guest posts (writing articles on another blog that is not yours).

On the other hand, we have the internal links, which are much easier to apply. The internal link consists of pointing to a page of your own blog within your article. This tells search engines that that page is the most important on your website / blog.

This practice also serves to increase the time that visitors stay on your page, making them browse other of your relevant content.

Tips on internal linking

§ Do not abuse it so as not to harm the scannability of your article

§ Use words or phrases that really describe the article instead of "click here" or "access this article"

§ When publishing a new article, review old content and see if you can link to some, especially those that have reached popularity

Check if you are compatible with mobile devices

Did you know that more and more people are using search engines through their mobiles instead of the computer?

And for all searches done on smartphones, Google shows the results optimized for mobile first.

This means that the search engine strongly favors a mobile-friendly website , so if you are not, you are probably losing a lot of positions.

By applying responsive web design on your site you can also unify your URL, without the need to have one for the computer and another for the cell phone. This helps your SEO, since it centralizes the power acquired with links and allows Google to recognize the value of your publications more easily.

By following these simple SEO tips , you can increase your website or blog's search engine ranking, your web traffic, and your conversion rate. Then start incorporating the techniques on your page, you will undoubtedly have excellent results.