Search engine optimisation makes your business blog more visible and accessible to your intended audience by pushing you up through the search engine rankings. But which SEO techniques make the most impact?

Before we identify some of the essential SEO methods to use in your blog posts, let’s look at why you need to use search engine optimisation in the first place.

Why use search engine optimisation in your business blog?

With so many people searching the internet for answers, advice, products, and services, you need to make an impact to stand out above your competitors.

When SEO is implemented correctly your business blog is more easily found in the vast sea of online information, and becomes accessible to customers around the world.

Which SEO techniques you use when you’re blogging for business, however, is an important factor in turning the blog into a reliable ‘destination’ for accurate information and advice.

Which SEO techniques are important? Consider your blog post layout

Your blog posts need to be easy to read with plenty of white space on the page, attractive images, bullet points, and clear headings. If the content doesn’t ‘flow’ readers will click away to more interesting blogs.

Furthermore, some people skim read online so it’s important to include headings that accurately reflect the content, and allow readers to jump to sections they’re particularly interested in.

So what should your blog post look like?

• Plenty of white space – keep your paragraphs short (three lines on the page is generally sufficient), and don’t cram all the information together
• Bullet points – when you’re listing benefits or short pieces of information, bullet points make presentation clear and allow for easy reading
• H1, H2, H3 headings – these provide structure and help search engines to scan the page
• High quality images – attractive images placed throughout the blog post are engaging, and encourage readers to continue. You can optimise your images using the ‘alt tag’ (a description of the image).

Choosing and placing keywords

Questions are commonly used to search for information on the internet, so your choice of keywords should reflect the questions your customers might ask.

Choose one or two long tail keywords, and sprinkle them throughout the text.

This allows you to focus on a single question or subject, remain authentic, and provide highly relevant information when you blog for business. Keywords should be included in …..

• Title
• First paragraph
• Last paragraph

….. and placed at intervals throughout the text.

It’s important not to cram keywords into the blog post or article, however, as this would harm your SEO efforts and you’d probably be penalised.

Use them sparingly, but place them optimally throughout the blog.

Essentially, you need to consider the reader’s experience when you’re placing keywords. Read through your blog post – does it sound natural?

Internal and external linking – important SEO techniques

Linking to other pages on your own website provides structure for search engines indexing the site, and helps readers to navigate their way to the information they need.

Linking back and forth in a logical way provides clarity to Google about your site content, its purpose, and reliability, and ensures that no pages are missed.

External linking to well-established, highly reputable sites also helps search engines to understand your content, and offers confidence that it’s relevant.

Careful external linking can also help you to build relationships with other businesses that might link back to yours, or share your blog post with their audience.

Meta description and meta title

When you’re considering which SEO techniques to use in your business blog, the meta description and meta title are also valuable.

Meta description

When you search online, the meta description is the couple of sentences that appear in the results and provide a brief outline of the content.

It helps readers decide whether to click through to the site, and is important in SEO terms.

The meta description should be relevant, engaging, and include the keyword phrase you’re targeting to be fully beneficial. It’s typically up to 160 characters in length, so use as many characters as you can.

Meta title

The meta title appears in your browser, and in search engine results. Again, you need to include your keyword phrase in the meta title as this helps search engines to index the page and establish the main subject.

Which SEO techniques are sometimes overlooked?

Mobile friendly

According to Statcounter GlobalStats just over 50% of online searches in the UK in April 2020 were made using a mobile phone, so making your website and blog mobile friendly is important for visibility.

Regularly updating old content

Updating older, high performing blog posts, and generally improving lower performers can generate new interest and increase website traffic.

To start, change the titles of these posts but keep your focus keywords. Then update any historic data or statistics you’ve mentioned in the blog posts, and change a few of the images.

URLs

Make sure your readers understand the basic topic of the page by using relevant words in your URLs.

Some blog structures use the dates that blog posts were published as the default, but this doesn’t help visitors or search engines to navigate the site.

Choose four or five words to describe the page (you don’t need to include conjunctions such as ‘and’ in your URL).

Which SEO techniques will you use in your business blog?

Using these search engine optimisation methods gives your business blog the best chance of attracting visitors, and boosting visibility.

Take a broad approach when deciding which SEO techniques to use – once you’re up and running it’ll soon become second nature.

Do you already run a business blog or are wondering where to start? Why not drop me a line to find out how I can help.

I write about money management, debt management, budgeting, freelancing, and working from home.

Let me help you reap the rewards of business blogging – building your brand, connecting with customers, and becoming the ‘go to’ resource in your market.

Please get in touch via the Contact form, or drop me an email at: ann@cornerstonewebcontent.com

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