Questions to ask yourself when writing an SEO blog

Writing a blog that people want to read takes a lot of time and hard work. It takes research, a strong voice or point of view and real dedication. It also involves an understanding of SEO principles. It can be difficult when first starting out to understand everything you will need in order to make it work. Getting a blog to rank well involves a clear understanding of ranking factors and how to best implement them and track them.

Read on below for a check-list of the key questions you should generally ask yourself when writing blog content.

What keywords are you targeting?

Keyword targeting is one of the most important considerations you need to keep in mind when it comes to SEO. Selecting the right keywords to target is essential to attracting the right users and decent traffic. You need to do proper keyword research in order to get an idea of search trends and the best keywords to target for your market. You should begin this research with a competitor analysis, before doing some more in-depth research. This will lead you your competitor links and help you to drill down and discover the landscape of your industry. This will help you to work out what’s working and what’s not.

Do all your pages optimize keywords?

Have you audited your website lately? Do all web pages attempt to optimize a keyword. Some people mistake keyword stuffing with keyword targeting. The truth is that keywords are important, and when correctly optimized they will flow naturally in the body of your content. Not optimizing for any content whatsoever not only leaves opportunities for users and traffic on the table, but it can also confuse to Google. If you haven’t correctly optimized for a keyword, how are search engines supposed to tell what your content is all about?

If you have pages that do not correctly target any keywords, then it might be time for a rework. You should ensure that you have a solid keyword research plan in place and that you are targeting decent search volumes. Just make sure your keywords are diverse, you don’t want to overuse the same keyword on multiple pages as this could lead to cannibalization.

Are you using semantic keywords?

Beyond just using your main keywords you should also attempt to optimize for secondary or supporting keywords on a page. These might be semantic keywords related to your primary keywords selections, or keywords with higher competition that may take longer to rank for. These keywords can be broader or part of a longer view strategy.

Have you consider word count?

When it comes to SEO, word count is important. Churning out super long articles every other day will not necessarily lead to high rankings, especially if the content isn’t good but it’s important to get an idea of the length at which your competition is writing, and do better. A short 200 words on a topic is unlikely to be as helpful to the reader and won’t be as valuable as 1000 well-written natural content on a topic.

Are meta titles & descriptions optimized?

The meta title and description are important in SEO. The search engine will read and display these in their results to your potential users, so it’s essential that you use your keywords are used effectively. Meta titles should be a short, concise summary of your content and your primary keyword should appear as close to the front of the title as possible. Meta descriptions should be an enticing explanation of content, like the blurb of a book.