How to Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search Engines and Traffic

A whopping 93 percent of all online experiences start off with search engines. This should be proof enough that optimizing your website is crucial if you want proper exposure. To get traffic to your blog you first need to get your blog noticed by the likes of Google.

So how do you optimize your posts and start to drive traffic to your blog? Let’s dig right in:

Choose the Right Keywords

Every search starts with typing a relevant phrase or keyword. This is where knowing your audience well is extremely important as it will help you understand what kind of content and topics they want to read about. Having said that, the keywords you use will also need to be competitive or “winnable.” What is a “winnable” keyword?

• One that is relevant to your audience’s interests
• One that gets over 100 monthly searches
• One that has a difficulty of <50

While the first bullet is straightforward, you will need a tool to determine the other two.

Here is an example using Ahrefs:

If you don’t currently have the funds for a tool such as Ahrefs, Ubersuggest is a great free alternative. It provides you with all the necessary information you will need to determine if a keyword is worth using to base your blog post around, and if it will ultimately help get your blog noticed.

Keyword Usage and Placement

Once you’ve found the “winnable” keyword(s) you will be focusing on, it’s time to start implementing on-page search engine optimizaton (SEO).

For those who didn’t know, on-page SEO refers to the strategic placement of your selected keywords throughout your page. This will make it easier for your content to be crawled and ranked by search engines.

Here is how to optimize your blog post for optimal SEO results:

1. Adding Your Keyword in Your Title

You would be surprised with how often this is overlooked despite it seeming like a no-brainer. Remember, the closer you place your keyword to the beginning of the title, the better

2. Adding Your Keyword in Your URL

Once you know your title, the next thing you should do is customize your post/page’s URL. Keyword placement in your URLs also plays a major role when it comes to search engines crawling and understanding what your content is about, so be sure your keyword is always included. One way to be sure that your keyword is always included in your URL is to add your title: “www.example.com/blog/your-post-title”.

3. Adding Your Keyword in Your Meta Description

Meta descriptions are another element that goes overlooked when optimizing a new piece of content. Not only are they important for search engine crawlers, they also provide your audience with crucial information in the search listings about the page or post. A good meta description should entice the user to click on your post. Your meta descriptions should be brief, but detailed, and remember to always add your keyword as close to the beginning as possible.

4. Adding Your Keyword in Your Main Body

Use your keyword throughout your body copy, but it’s important that you avoid falling into the trap of keyword stuffing. Be sure your keywords fit organically in the post. Try not to force it in every sentence as it will significantly reduce the quality of your piece. Contrary to popular belief, Google will actually penalize you for keyword stuffing, so aim for a density of around 1-3 percent to be safe.

5. Adding Your Keyword in Your H2 Tags

While not necessary to be included in every single heading in your post, including your keyword in some of your H2 tags can be very beneficial. This will also help search engines when crawling your post.

6. Adding Your Keyword in Image Alt Tags

Alt-text is what acts as a label for describing what your image is about. You often see alt-text when hovering over an online image with your mouse, after a few seconds a little bar of text will pop-up. Why is this important though? 

Search engine crawlers cannot see what is portrayed in images, so an image with no alt-text is basically “invisible.” Furthermore, organically adding your keywords in your image’s alt-text, you might even increase your content’s SEO performance.

7. Adding Internal Links

Internal links play an important role in optimizing your content. Doing this will show search engines that you have multiple pieces of content that effectively supplement each other, and offer your visitors more value. In turn, by having your audience explore, and click around your pages, they will stay on your site longer. These are both big wins in the eyes of search engines and can boost your potential for ranking higher.

8. Adding the Right Anchor Text for Links

Finally, anchor text is an important aspect for both internal and external linking, as well as SEO. This is the text that appears to be hyperlinked on your content, so it’s important that your anchor text describes what you are linking to. This can be done by either including a keyword from your linked content, piece of its title, or simply a short (few words) description.

The blog optimization options we discussed above are a great starting point for getting your blog noticed by search engines and audiences, but it doesn’t stop here. There are multiple content distribution tactics that will supplement on-page SEO and boost your traffic and rankings even more.