10 Great Articles About Writing Blog Posts For SEO
Have you written articles for your website, having heard that it’s a good way to gain exposure for your organization or brand? Does it feel like you’re not getting a good return on the time you’ve invested? For best results, your articles need to be written with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. SEO article writing isn’t as difficult as it sounds when you understand how it works. To help you get started, I’ve curated ten articles covering many aspects of writing blog posts for SEO.
(1) How to Write a Blog Post That Ranks High: Steps for Writing SEO Articles
I’ve been a fan of Andy Crestodina, co-founder and CEO of Orbit Media Studios, since I heard him speak at a social media conference several years ago.
In this article, he provides a detailed walkthrough of how he writes a high-ranking blog post. Here’s a video he created so you can see exactly what he does at each step.
(2) Keyword Research: A Simple Do-It-Yourself Method
Keyword research is an important part of writing for SEO, but you may find yourself asking “What keywords should I use?”
Michelle Bourbonniere of Edited by Michelle outlines a six-step keyword research process that’s easy to follow even if you’re new to SEO article writing.
(3) SEO Writing: Tips on Writing Blog Posts That Rank on Google
This guide by Courtney Feairheller of HubSpot offers practical guidance that doesn’t assume you have a high level of technical skills.
The tip that jumped out at me the most was “Write for humans, not search engines.” You can tell when a writer hasn’t followed this advice when their post is so full of keywords that it doesn’t flow properly. Don’t make that mistake as you learn to apply SEO principles to your article writing.
(4) Crank the Rank of your Blog
If you don’t have time to read a long article right now, you’ll probably appreciate this 21-point SEO Blog Post Checklist infographic created by Barry Feldman of Feldman Creative. It clearly outlines the steps to optimize your post for both search and engagement.
(5) How To Write A Blog Post: The Definitive Guide
This post by Brian Dean of Backlinko consists of nine chapters covering everything from topic selection to promoting your published article, including search engine optimization. I discovered a lot of valuable information that was new to me, even after 15+ years of blogging. It’s definitely worth bookmarking for future reference!
(6) How to Write Powerful Headlines in 5 Easy Steps
Once you understand SEO basics, you may wish to learn more about creating specific elements of your blog posts.
Neil Patel of NP Digital explains how to write a title that will capture your readers’ attention and make them want to read the article.
(7) Write An Irresistible Intro To Your Blog Post
Mary Jaksch of Write to Done explains the importance of a strong introduction and outlines ten ways to help your readers feel welcome and more likely to want to read on.
(8) How to Write the Perfect Blog Posts: Body Text
Jesse Kerema of The Writing Cooperative describes important strategies to make your article easy to read and compelling.
(9) Ways to end a blog post
I read a lot of blog posts, good and bad, and it surprises me how many writers make their last point and then call it a day, with no conclusion to wrap things up.
The importance of this step is explained by Braveen Kumar of Shopify, who also offers five effective ways to conclude an article.
(10) Writing a Powerful Call to Action
The final resource is one of my own posts (with a video) where I explain how to craft a Call to Action related to your topic and your goals for your article.
Are you ready to start writing articles for SEO?
There are two key messages throughout the posts listed above.
- SEO article writing requires that you know your target market and the keywords they would enter when searching for your content.
- SEO isn’t just about using the right keywords. Your content needs to be valuable and formatted in a way that’s easy to read. If human readers don’t like it, neither will Google.
If you’re a CPC member, we welcome your quality content on topics relevant to our profession. It’s a great way to support your professional association and your colleagues while promoting your own business or organization!
Read our guidelines and get started today!
Janet Barclay is a former employment counsellor who supports Career Professionals of Canada as technology manager, and many of its members with her web design services and website care plans. She’s been blogging since 2006 and runs a Facebook group for bloggers in the organizing industry.
Janet, this post is so full of great information I wanted to stop and read through each of the articles. So, I’m doing what a good organizer does and breaking it down. I will read through each one of these articles – one at a time (translated to: one a day). Thank you for this SEO is something I’m working to get better at incorporating.
I hope you find some great tips you can use!
You are a hub of information on blogs. Terrific resources here. I so agree about writing for humans. Some posts are just hard to read, either because of the keyword overload or because there are so many ads popping up I can’t see the content. That is a turn off for me.
It’s a dead giveaway that someone is forgetting about their human readers when they repeat their keyphrase 12 times throughout the post, especially when it doesn’t flow properly.
I’m going to take my time reading these articles as they’re packed with fantastic information. I’ve sent it on to a few people who I know would appreciate them.
Thank you for sharing!
Ronni, thanks so much for sharing my article! I hope your contacts find it useful too.
Thank you for curating these SEO posts. It is so important, and many small business owners do not do it. I have been blogging for over 10 years and found that when I took the time to make the posts more SEO friendly, they became more popular. Note: it doesn’t happen overnight; expect it to take several months for Google and other search engines to see the transformation of your site.
I’m glad you mentioned that. SEO is definitely an ongoing process where you won’t see immediate results.
Great article. It has so much information that I need to improve my blog’s performance. Thanks.
As a regular reader, I look forward to seeing what you do differently in the future!
Wow! Janet, you are the go-to for wise blogging strategies, so I’m not surprised (but am impressed) that you gathered all these great pieces on tips for getting good SEO with blogging. You are such a smarty-skirt! I want to avail myself of all of this and stop writing from my gut alone!
It’s much easier to have SEO principles in mind as you write than to try and “SEO” your post once you’ve already written it. Eventually it will become second nature.
This is really very informative post!
Keep it up.
this piece of content is very informative and these blog posts are highly appreciative. I think all seo expert should read all these at least once.