If you’re a new blogger then you might not be aware of the many ways that you can optimise your posts to make them more searchable. Or even if you’ve been blogging for a while but want a reminder to keep as a checklist (this includes me) then hopefully this post will be helpful to you! So I’m collaborating with HQSEO to bring you the best tips and tricks for getting your post more traffic.
1. Yoast SEO Plugin
This is by far the easiest and most simple way of boosting the SEO of your content if you’re a WordPress user. I use this plugin myself since I made the switch from Blogger. It gives you reminders for what to include in your post and recommendations for the way it should be written. But do note that I said recommendations, not rules. At the end of the day, it’s a piece of technology and doesn’t think like a human does, which is who you’re writing for. It also isn’t quite up to speed with Google’s algorithm as it doesn’t recognise synonyms or similar phrases like Google does. So if you don’t hit all those green lights but you’re happy with the content then don’t fret too much.
2. Build Your Internal Link Structure
This just means that you should link to other posts and pages on your blog within your posts (like I did in the previous point). This helps Google connect your relevant content and should also help to keep people browsing your blog for longer and keep your bounce rate down. Using external links (to other relevant sites) also helps Google define your topic.
3. Optimise Your Images
Search engines can’t read images so you need to add your keywords to them with text. You do this in two places, the first is when you save your image. Once you’re done editing and everything else, save the files of your images with relevant names to your post. Like for this post, I’ve called the image file ‘seo-tips-for-bloggers’. You then want to also put your keyword in the alt text of the image once you’ve uploaded it. On Blogger you can do this by clicking the image once it’s in your post and then going to Properties. You’ll then see a box where you can insert your Title Text and Alt Text. If you’re using WordPress, you’ll find the box for Alt Text just to the right in the Media Library when you select an image. You can also add this in the html of your post using alt=”insertkeywordhere” within the <img> tag.
4. Earn Some Backlinks
You’ve probably heard about DA (Domain Authority) and having a good score can be important for a few reasons. You can increase your score by getting quality backlinks to your site from others. You can do this in a few ways but the easiest and most enjoyable way for me is to write guest posts for other bloggers. A lot of bloggers will ask for people to guest post when they’re busy or on holiday, etc. Keep an eye on social media for people asking. I like doing this because it not only gives me a link but can bring some more traffic from relevant people and sometimes it gives me the opportunity to write about something that I don’t often cover on my own blog, like beauty or broader lifestyle topics. Of course, there are also the times when bloggers will link to you just because they wanted to mention that they really like your blog, which is awesome and super lovely!
5. Write Engaging Content
Creating content that people spend more time reading or looking at and have more to engage with is basically really good. Having longer articles also suggests to Google that it’s higher quality content (if it’s written well of course!). This is something I’m not particularly great at. I find it especially hard for my outfit posts, sometimes there just isn’t a lot to say. But when you can, write longer content that will encourage readers to interact with it. Whether they leave a comment, share it on social or link it to a friend, it’s all good and helps search engines know that it’s valuable content. So encourage engagement when you can and make your share buttons easy to find.
I hope you’ve found these SEO tips for bloggers useful, let me know if you have any other tips! If you want even more info then go and check out the whole strategy that HQSEO implement themselves!