Writing blog posts is just like all writing that requires specific skills. You have to keep in mind that making your readers interested is the most important thing. You have to create a piece that is well structured and attractive. Also, by providing clear short paragraphs, headings, and subheadings, you will help readers understand what is the article is all about.
If people understood your article and it was useful for them, they are more likely to share it on social media platforms, which will boost your rankings. Therefore, if you want to make your rankings jump, you have to enhance your writing skills. Begin with reading some advice on how to write an SEO-friendly blog post.
Some people think that writing to achieve the SEO goals conflicts with writing to grab people’s attention, which is wrong, you can still make both. If you want to make an attractive and readable also SEO friendly post, you have to write an attractive article for readers but also has the keywords to be SEO friendly. However, overusing keywords weakens the readability of your article and sure you don’t want this to happen.
This article will provide you with all the tips you need to know how to write an SEO friendly and readable article.
keyword research before you start writing
Before even starting your article, you have to do research for the keywords you aim to use, you should understand if these keywords are what the audience search for or not.
Then, let’s begin with some tips for writing!
Major tips for good articles
First of all, your article should be a perfect piece for the reader! When you begin writing a new blog post, most writers start writing first, and whatever comes to their heads they write it. Sometimes, this works for some talented writers who have natural writing skills, other people might need help. But for the best results, following the rules is the best thing to do while blogging.
1. Thinking before writing
Think about the message you want to deliver well before writing. What is the central question you need to answer? What do you want your readers to understand after finishing your article? What action do you want your reader to do after they finish your article? You have to note the answers to these questions before starting.
2. Creating an outline for your post
At the beginning you have to create a clear outline, it should include:
- Introduction (introduce your topic)
- Body paragraph/s (the main idea/s)
- Conclusion (summarize the article’s main ideas)
Take notes with all these points, then, you can start your article.
3. Dividing your article into paragraphs
You may be using paragraphs, but you don’t use them right. Don’t put each sentence in a different line even if it looks better. When you start a new paragraph it should be for a reason because every paragraph must have their own idea or point. Before starting a paragraph, know what is the main point of this paragraph. Each paragraph has to be summarized in one sentence, if it needs more than one, you need to separate this into more than a paragraph.
4. Headings
Headings are usually used to organize the whole article. So, it’s important to use them for better readability and SEO. Headings make Google understand the major ideas of a long article and consequently can boost your ranking. You have to use subheadings to lead people to find the specific point they want to know in the article, it helps them understand what the article is about. Remember to put your keywords in your subheadings, but not in all of them, because it will make your article look unnatural and fake.
5. Using signal words
Signal words support the readability of your article, help people to grasp your text, and know the main topics and ideas. So, for instance, there are 3 causes for the audience to purchase your product/service. You have to use signal words like: ‘firstly’; ‘then’ and ‘in the end’. Words like ‘however’, ‘of course’ and ‘actually’ provide an evident signal to the reader. Readers will immediately understand that they will find an outcome after words like ‘thus’, ’therefore’ or ‘so’.
6. Proofreading
Let someone else read your article before you post it. If they understand the main idea of the topic, and they got the point easily, your article is fine. And ask them to correct your typos and grammatical mistakes as well.
7. Considering the length of the article
Google prefers long articles. So, make your articles with more than 300 words. However, if it’s too long and difficult to read or understand, it may make people skip reading it. Try writing long articles just when you’re sure you’re a professional writer.
8. Using internal links
If you’re writing about a topic that has a point you already wrote about it before, don’t forget to connect both articles together. Your article is going to be more powerful if it has internal links because this gives it relevance somehow. This also is important for your Google ranking. Also, surely, if the reader is interested in your article, they will be interested in the other one linked to it as well.
9. Posting consistently
If you publish articles to your website consistently, Google will know that your website is active and alive. Not active websites will be crawled less by Google. This, surely, will decrease your rankings. However, don’t post anything just to be active, make sure you post an informative, relevant, and high-quality content that people search for.
10. Using Yoast SEO plugin
Yoast SEO plugin provides you with analysis tools that help you improve the readability of your post, and make sure it’s SEO friendly as well. Choose your main keyword first which is the most significant word that people will search for. Then, the plugin automatically checks the optimization for your post.
- Yoast SEO plugin revises the article to let you know if you used the keywords in the right places or not. It asks you to put the keyword in your paragraphs, meta description, URL, title, and alt text. Also, Yoast SEO Premium will let you use various word synonyms of your keyword.
- It lets you know if your paragraphs or sentences are too long, or if you used your transition words properly. So, it helps you make sure your article is readable.
- Also reminds you to use images, internal and external links. Also, if you got the premium version it will recommend you links to put on your website.
- It counts how many times did you use your keyword, and if it’s enough, not enough, or too much. And the Premium will help you add synonyms for your keyword.
- It also helps you know if you used the same word before which may lead to competing with your own site.
If you created an SEO friendly article, the plugin will show you green bullets, if it’s not that good and needs some improvements it will be shown as orange, and if it’s not good at all it will be indicated as problems with red bullets.
P.S. You don’t have to make all the dots green, but make sure your overall results are good.
Conclusion
High quality is the main aspect when it comes to Google rankings. SEO tricks are not enough now to help your website rank. Better content is more shares, tweets, and views which will make your readers return to you more and more. Surely, you need to make sure your article is SEO friendly, but the more important is to write excellent posts.
