Blogging has been around for ages but the way you use it today is different from before. Online behavior has been evolving over the years. People don’t subscribe to specific pages as they used to. Now they use search engines and type in specific keywords to identify content relevant to their needs. That’s why keyword research is such an important part of any website’s content strategy.
If you’re new to blogging or if you haven’t given keyword research much thought for your SEO efforts in the past, now is the time to pay closer attention. Here are some smarter ways to use keywords in your blogging strategy.
Do Research To Identify Keywords That Match Your Audience Needs
Accoridng to Hubshout.com, knowing and understanding your audience is a vital part of keyword research because it helps you narrow down specific phrases that are most relevant to what they are looking for online. Consider the following:
- Start by creating a profile of your ideal buyer – likes, dislikes, budget etc – the deeper the better.
- Find out what your audience is looking for online by typing in certain keywords and using keyword tools to identify the most common phrases used in relation to your business.
- Study the search volume of every keyword because this gives you an estimate of the number of people searching for that keyword each month. You don’t always have to choose the high-volume keywords. Sometimes lower volume keywords can also be relevant to your audience.
Once you’re able to do property keyword research to identify relevant phrases that match your audience needs, you can start developing blog topics around them to make your content relevant and valuable.
Study Pages Currently Ranking For Similar Keywords
Now that you’ve identified important keywords for your business, study pages currently ranking for similar pages. Consider the following:
- What other competitors or brands are using similar keywords?
- What kind of content have they developed in relation to those keywords?
- How can you develop better quality content than your competition using the same keywords so you can end up with a higher SEO ranking in the future?
According to SEO Shark by studying different pages that use similar keywords to the ones you intend to target, you’ll be in a better position to identify topics that your audience may be interested in reading about. You can use this as a benchmark to create high-quality content that is better than what is currently found.
Optimize The Blog With Relevant Keyword Placements Without Affecting Flow
According to Fortunelords, once you’ve managed to narrow down your topic, which can be the tough part, you’ll want to get to the actual writing. Here are some considerations when writing your blog:
- Use the main keyword in the title tag as it is a signal for search engines to find you.
- Use the keyword and similar phrases as organically as possible so that you write for people and not for search engines.
- Use keywords and phrases to describe videos and images as they will help your blog rank for specific keywords.
- Use keywords in meta tags like the meta description, alt text for images and file name to help search engines rank your blog page for that particular phrase.
- Use internal links as much as possible to help readers identify other topics that may serve as valuable resources within your website. This increases the time they spend on your website and can push up your SEO ranking over time.
- Use social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to promote your post. This will encourage people to share your post and broaden your audience reach – which in turn is great for SEO.
Optimizing your blog post will help you rank better for it when connected to relevant keyword phrases. Plus it shows the audience that your content is exactly what they might be looking for.
Keywords continue to be an essential component of any blogging strategy, which is why you cannot afford to take them lightly. There are plenty of keyword research tools out there to help you narrow down phrases that could be relevant to your business. The best part about blog posts is that you could promote them in multiple ways to get more traffic to your website, which is far easier than simply attempting to get visitors to specific web pages.
