Blog posts are lucrative real estate on your website. They have the potential to increase visitors and help convert leads. Your blog can .
But, without SEO, no one will find it.
You need to take advantage of your blog section and SEO strategies at the same time. A few simple changes to your blog and page set-up make a huge difference.
If you’re ready to make your blog SEO friendly, keep reading. Here are the five basic steps to optimize your blog and increase traffic.
1. Make it Mobile-friendly
Users rely on their phones to find local businesses, search for recipes, and shop online. Smartphones make it convenient to search on the go.
Your website must get optimized for mobile searches. If not, you’re going to miss out on a huge portion of searches.
To make it mobile-friendly, use a responsive web design. This means your site will adjust to fit whatever screen it gets viewed from. Don’t write in long blocks of text because on a phone, users aren’t likely to read them.
2. Research Keywords
What are the keywords used to find websites in your niche? Are you using those keywords on your website? You should be, and you should especially use them in your blog.
Come up with a handful of long-tail keywords and short-tail ones. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to find the right keywords for your niche. You can click here to learn more about keyword planning.
Include one keyword in your blog post title and in the URL. Sprinkle a couple other keywords throughout the text, but not too much. Google will penalize you for keyword stuffing if you put too many.
3. Boost Page Speed
If your page doesn’t load within three seconds, users will choose a different site. You need to ensure your blog posts load quickly to keep those users.
Improve page speed by minifying Java and HTML files. Choose the right hosting option for your site. You should also enable browser caching and compress all blog post images.
4. Use Internal and External Links
The linking strategies in your blog can boost traffic and conversions immensely. Internal links are hyperlinks that take the reader to another page on your site. These keep them on your website longer and give you more opportunity to convert them.
External links are hyperlinks in your blog that go to another website. You should be strategic in choosing these websites. Link to sites with authority in your niche because that boosts your site’s authority.
5. Optimize Images
Keywords aren’t only for the blog text, but the images too. Search engines can’t “see” images on your site; they read the details assigned to the image.
In the images’ alt-tags and captions, use your niche-specific keywords.
Is Your Blog SEO Friendly?
To increase your website traffic and conversions, you need a blog section. This feature provides value to your readers and builds their trust.
Make your blog SEO friendly so it shows up in the search engine results page. Follow the simple steps above to make your blog more searchable. Then, to get your website ready for 2019.
