There are a few good reasons to start a blog, and if you’re a business owner, it’s likely that one of the main reasons you’ve started a blog is to optimize your website to rank in search results and otherwise increase views. At this point, you may be wondering how exactly to do that.
The first thing to remember is to make sure you write a thorough and effective post—an important part of optimization efforts is to be a credible and valuable resource. You should also consider the small tweaks you can make to give your post the edge.
Why Is Optimization Important In The First Place?
It may seem like just creating and maintaining your blog will bring enough traffic to your site to be worthwhile.
After all, 409 million people read blogs, and if your business has a blog, you could be looking at 55% more traffic than businesses without them. But the fact is, most businesses know this. That means that you are competing to show up before they do in search engine rankings. Doing that requires ensuring that you have covered your optimization bases.
The takeaway here is that the simple act of writing blogs isn’t enough to gain you valuable traffic—you have to out-perform your competition.
How Do I Optimize?
Depending on which service you use to maintain your website, you may have resources at your fingertips that will help you in the SEO process—some WordPress sites, for example, allow you to install a yoast plugin that helps you optimize keywords on your blog post.
Even if your site does not have immediately available resources, you can check and optimize a few things on your own.
Images and Alt Attributes
Images are an important part of a blog—whether it be the link preview that shows up when your audience shares your blog on social media or the image’s alt attributes that affect SEO, what you choose matters to how well your blog is accessed, read, received, and shared.
Images can help blogs get 94% more views.
Feel free to use your own images to give your blog an authentic touch, or use royalty-free stock images from a site like Unsplash. Whatever you do, make sure the images fit your theme and branding, and don’t forget to add alt attributes containing your blog’s main keywords to help SEO.
Keyword Research
Another important optimization step is to do your keyword research. Use a tool like Ubersuggest and your own brainstorming skills to ensure that your post contains the keywords you are hoping to rank for—keywords that are important in your industry and relevant to your blog topic.
You don’t necessarily want to oversaturate, but make sure you’re giving yourself the chance to be seen.
Internal & External Links
Help yourself out by linking internally to your site wherever relevant—if you mention contacting you, information from a previous blog post, or a product or service, be sure to directly link to it. This will encourage readers to explore your website and will hopefully send them through the sales funnel. Don’t forget to link externally as well—it can enhance your credibility, and gives you a better chance for inbound traffic by encouraging backlinks.
No matter what you do, remember to release quality content that adds value for your readers, and make that content accessible to them through your website, social postings, or regular newsletters. To learn more about optimization or how to best share your blog, contact us today!
