Do you find SEO confusIng? Are you struggling to be featured on Google? Next time you publish an article on your blog, follow my blog post checklist, my SEO tips will help you to fully optimize your blog. There are lots of things to think about each time you publish a new article so have a look at the blog post checklist over view for a quick summary of the different steps to take and keep reading to learn how to write an optimised blog post.
Once you have started your blog it’s time to fill it with quality content. Learn how to pick the best topic and write a good blog post, and then use this blog post checklist to ensure that your article is optimised for Google. I would recommend downloading the free Yoast SEO plugin to help you ensure that you have optimised your blog posts. You will need to be self hosted in order to have access to this plugin, I am hosted by Bluehost, one of the cheaper hosting sites.
First step on your blog post checklist is to pick a primary keyword. This is a word or phrase that Google will use to understand what your article is about, and hopefully feature it on the first page of someone’s search. The majority of my traffic comes from search engines, with my best performing blog posts being the ones that rank high on Google.
In order to pick a keyword you need to think about what topic your blog post covers and then use a keyword research tool like wordtracker or keysearch to find more hidden keywords. It’s important to use less common keywords as you will have less competition. Learn more about picking a keyword for your blog post.
You can then enter this keyword into the Yoast SEO plugin on Bluehost (or whoever you are hosted by) to track how well you have optimised your post for this keyword.
Next you also want to research related keywords. These are words or terms that are related to your keyword and will help search engines to better understand your blog post.
Try typing your keyword into Google and seeing what related search terms pop up.
For this blog post I have chosen Blog Post Checklist as my keyword and then I could use terms like ‘things to add to every blog post’, ‘how to write an optimised blog post’ or ‘SEO tips’.
Your title needs to perfectly explain what is in your blog post, whilst also including the keyword. You might want to wait until you’ve finished writing the blog post before choosing your blog post title.
If you’re having trouble thinking of a catchy title, try out the blog title generator for some inspiration.
Headings are super important to your blog post. They help to improve readability, conversions, SEO, social sharing, and even click-throughs. They can help to attract readers and encourage them to stay for longer on your site. So make sure that your blog post includes relevant headings and sub-headings. Your keyword should be incorporated into at least one of these.
In order for search engines to understand what topic your blog post is on (and to confirm that is a thorough and valuable source), you need to write at least 300 words.
Another must do on your blog post checklist is to add high quality images. These will help your audience to better understand the blog post as well as break up the text. Make sure to include your keyword into the alt text, not only will this help search engines to better understand your blog post but you might also feature on the Google image search for that keyword.
If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin on Bluehost (or whoever you are hosted by) they will tell you when your images are optimized.
The meta title and description are what are the snippets on your blog that are shown on search engines. Be sure to make it super enticing and include your keyword.
The Yoast SEO plugin will help to show you when the meta title and description are both optimised (see below).
Upload a featured image to your blog post. This is an image that accurately sums up your article and will appear on your home page. I create mine in Canva.
Make it easy for others to share and save your blog post! I always add at least one pinnable image (with the title on) at the bottom of the blog post, that I create in Canva.
Properly categorizing your blog posts is more important than you might think. Blog categories and tags help to make your blog easier for your audience to navigate, whilst also improving your SEO. Categories help search engines to determine what your blog post is about. This is especially true if the category is mentioned within the blog post URL.
My blog is divided into the following categories:
Links are very important to SEO. You should always use a mixture of internal and external links in your blog posts.
Internal links refer to other relevant articles on your blog. By cross linking your blog posts you help to keep visitors on your blog, improving your bounce rate. Whilst also helping with website navigation.
I usually try to include a link to at least two relevant blog posts, for example for this article I will link to:
External links refer to any links that take your audience off your blog. You might think ‘why would I want to take people off my blog?’ well external links are important because they help to build your credibility with search engines (especially if they are high-authority links) they also provide value to your readers. I would try to include at least two external links per blog post.
In order to make sure that your readers don’t completely leave your website you can set up your blog so that your external links open in a new tab.
If you have followed all the above blog post checklist steps correctly then you should achieve green on the Yoast SEO plugin.
Please note that you will need to be self hosted in order to have access to this plugin, I am hosted by Bluehost, one of the cheaper hosting sites. You can also use the plugin by subscribing to the WordPress business plan but this costs nearly 4 x more than Bluehost!
If anything is missing from your blog post the Yoast SEO plugin will outline this for you (see below).
This step isn’t necessary for your blog post SEO, however it’s important if you want to monetise your blog.
If you have set up your own shop on your blog then you might want to link to your own products to encourage sales. Make sure the products you link to are relevant to your blog post. For example on my blog post ‘How to create a vintage film edit‘ I promoted my Golden Film Preset.
Another way to monetise your blog post is with affiliate links. Just make sure you clearly include a disclaimer like:
This post contains affiliate link(s). An affiliate link means I may earn advertising / referral fees if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. It helps me to keep this little blog afloat. Thank you for your support!
One of the easiest way to monetise your blog is through adverts. You will need to be self hosted (like I am with Bluehost) in order to put ads on your blog. If you’re using a free blog host then the adverts on your site will be from the host.
I’ve included this in the blog post checklist as you might need to embed advert HTML into your blog post in order to monetise it.
Personally I use Ezoic to effectively manage the adverts on my site. Ezoic is a technology platform for websites that improves website ad earnings, site speed, & UX.
Keep your readers engaged with your website. Encourage them to subscribe to your blog newsletter and grow your email list. This might be a pop up whilst they’re reading of an embedded sign up form like below:
Subscribe to my blog newsletter for more exclusive tips!
The final step on your blog post checklist before you publish is to proof read it. You don’t want any grammar mistakes or typos to push people away from your site!
Open up the preview to read through your bog post as if it’s already published. Be sure to check for:
You can also use an automatic grammar checker like Grammarly, to quickly check your grammar.
Once you have completed these steps on your blog post checklist you are ready to publish!
One of the first things I do after publishing a new blog post is to go back to my relevant published blog posts and link to my new blog post. I make sure that each of my blog posts has 2 internal links leading to them and that they include 2 internal links.
The final step to take to optimise your blog post is to share it on social media. Not only does this help to boost your organic traffic but it also helps your SEO.
I always make sure to share my blog post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest. Having more external websites link to my blog help search engines to see that my posts are valuable.
For Pinterest I would recommend scheduling pins on Tailwind. This way you can spend just an hour or so a week scheduling the pins, rather than pinning every day. I also use Tailwind Tribes to benefit from other bloggers sharing my pins.
I hope my blog post checklist will help you to optimise your blog posts and improve your search engine ranking. Feel free to follow my blog post checklist each time you publish a new article, or create your own. This will help to guarantee that your blog posts will be perfect, showing that your blog is professional and consistent, which in turn will help to build and nurture a loyal readership.
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate link(s). An affiliate link means I may earn advertising / referral fees if you make a purchase through my link, without any extra cost to you. It helps me to keep this little blog afloat. Thank you for your support!
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Can’t wait to have some time to dive into this a bit with my own blog posts! I only just installed Yoast for my Wordpress blog and am slowing starting to figure SEO out. Thanks again for posting, I love following along with your beautiful, Parisian life!