The perfect SEO blog

Hey hello,

We get a lot of questions about writing the perfect SEO blog and how to do it. We’ll never say a blog is perfect, but if you follow the step-by-step plan below, you’ll get damn close to a perfect SEO blog. 

Last update: 11 June 2020

Step 1. 

The first step is always Keyword Research!

Together with the client, we’ve decided which topics we’re going to write about. Next, we research what people are Googling and look for the so-called long-tail keywords around that topic. Rather do it yourself? Keep an eye on our blog, we’ll share some tips and tricks in a future post.

So the key is to look for long-tail search terms. An example of a long-tail keyword is “writing SEO blogs” instead of the short-tail “SEO”. In this case SEO is a short tail, because the competition on that word is huge, which makes it incredibly hard to rank for SEO. Better to find a niche where we’ll get found faster.

So step 1: keyword research / find a niche / come up with blog topics based on search terms. 

Step 2. 

The second step is setting the goal of the blog.  

• What information do you want to get across to the reader?
• What should they do after reading the blog?
• Who are you writing it for (who’s the audience)?

So step 2: set the goals of the blog.

Step 3. 

Structure Structure Structure.

The structure of a blog is mega important! Both for findability and for readability. Where you used to stuff a blog with keywords (so don’t do that now), a blog now has to be quality, high-value content above all. But it also has to be a pleasant read.

• Work with headings / paragraphs / white space etc.

Example structure:

H1 (title)
Intro paragraph 

H2 Subheading 
Paragraph

H2 Subheading 
Paragraph

H2 Subheading
Paragraph 

H3 Closing subheading 
Paragraph (closing)

So step 3: decide on the structure and write it out.

Step 4.

With the basics and the structure in place, the writing can begin. Secretly Google loves long, valuable content, but a blog doesn’t always have to be 5 pages. Do make sure the blog is at least 300 words. In the text, always try to link to certain pages or products within the website. Make sure you mark the whole word or group of words with the link. For example:

This summer is of course perfect for an oak picnic table to eat outside with your little one. 

So step 4: write / link.

Linking is mega important, both internal and external! Backlinks are hugely valuable! More about backlinks in a future blog.

Step 5. Images + Alt text. 

Always use images, preferably your own (also because of copyright!). And always give your images alt text. Use the alt text to work in your keywords. Also make sure those keywords appear around the image. So if the image sits between certain paragraphs, make sure the same keywords show up around it, in the running text. Relevance is mega important.

So step 5: add images and write alt text with keywords.

Step 6.

If the website’s CMS allows it, you can edit the META text. This bit of text should give a short description of the blog (combined with keywords). That way the reader, and the search engine (Google, for example), knows what the text is about. If you can’t, Google picks an intro text itself.

So step 6: edit the meta description.

Step 7. Share + monitor.

Always push the blog as far out onto the world wide web as you can. So on all the client’s socials, but it also helps to share it personally and, where possible, link to the post from other websites. The more links to this blog post, the higher we’ll score on the keywords in question.

We’ll also monitor in Google Analytics and Google Search Console how well the blog is doing, and whether we need to tweak it and/or write extra content on the topics in question if we’re not scoring high enough yet.

So step 7: share and monitor!  

Step 8.

Remarketing, if you like.

SEO blogs on their own often don’t bring more conversions or sales right away. But combined with a remarketing campaign, they’re deadly. So we can, for example, show social media ads to people who spend a long time on this blog page (and are therefore clearly interested in this content). Say it’s a blog about a picnic table: then we can show the people who linger on this page beautiful discounted picnic tables on Instagram or Pinterest. 

Fun facts.

• Work keywords into the blog naturally;
• Make the blog at least 300 words;
• Make sure the main keywords are always within the first 60 characters of the blog title;
• Make sure the URL contains keywords (ideally the blog title).