SEO (search engine optimisation) allows independent and small business owners to drive organic visibility, traffic and sales through their websites. In the SEO world, we often say that "content is king". Blogging is a fantastic way to enhance your website's SEO and captivate, connect with and convert your target audience. This guide explains how to blog for SEO, so you can produce blog content that drives organic visibility, traffic and conversions.
Topics covered in this guide:
How Do Blogs Help SEO?
Blog articles are a form of written, long-form content, which can help your website get found in Google Search when they are written and optimised effectively. Once your target audience discovers your blog, you can use it to connect with them, build trust, and ultimately convert those readers into customers.
Blogs can support your SEO efforts by demonstrating your experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness (known as EEAT). They also provide helpful content that answers the questions or queries your target audience search for online. By providing what Google describes as “helpful content”, your blog posts increase opportunities for your website to rank in search results, drive traffic and ultimately generate more sales for your business.
Blogging plays a significant role in supporting your SEO efforts. So, if you haven't already started leveraging the power of blogging for SEO and sales, now is the time to get started!
How to Blog For SEO
Step 1: Keyword Research & Choosing Your Topic
For your blog article to generate traffic, you need to target the topics that your audience are searching for, and this means selecting the right keywords. There are a number of free tools that you can use to help you with this, including Google Trends, Ahrefs Free Keyword Gnerator, and Chat GPT.
I also strongly recommend that you combine what your audience wants you to write about with what you want to write about. Creating quality, engaging, long form content is so much easier when you have that passion and motivation to drive you forward.
Below are some examples of blog post topics for independent service providers or small businesses:
A business coach could use their blog to address common questions or problems business owners have. Blog topics might include “how to increase your profit margins”, “how to beat imposter syndrome”, or “why your offer isn't selling”.
An artisan brand selling handcrafted, rural themed hair accessories could use their blog to highlight what makes their products ethical, authentic and unique, and how people could wear their hair accessories. Blog topics might include “is using feathers in fashion ethical”, “how to choose ethical hair accessories”, “ladies hairstyles for cheltenham” or “hair inspiration for rural ladies”.
By conducting keyword research for your blog posts, you'll be able to SEO your blog content and help it get found in Google Search. This will increase the visibility of your blog posts in search engine results, and ultimately drive more, relevant traffic to your website.
Step 2: Create High-Quality and Engaging Blog Content
Creating high-quality and engaging blog content does not have to be complicated, but there are a few things to consider. Essentially, every blog article needs a brief, engaging introduction and conclusion, the main content, and a call-to-action. This section provides some pointers on how to create quality blog content:
Use AI to Help You
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a really useful tool, which I use to help me plan and produce content. Free tools, such as Chat GPT, can help you to defeat the blank page, find alternative words or phrases, and give you ideas for what to include in your content. Always fact check, edit and tailor AI-generated content before publishing. AI is an assistive technology, not a do-it-for-you solution. Furthermore, Google may penalise your website SEO if it detects low-quality, AI-generated content on your website.
Captivate Your Audience
A quality blog post will captivate the reader. By making it clear how your post will help the reader, you can encourage readers to visit your blog article and stay on the page. A captivating SEO title, SEO description, heading and introduction can help drive traffic to your blog article and keep them interested enough to read on.
Connect With Your Audience
Ultimately, our blog articles are there to help us sell our offers. To do this, we also need to connect with our audience. Blogs help us to do this by allowing us to demonstrate our real-life experience, niche expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Including real-life experiences and case studies, highlighting your credentials, and demonstrating your subject knowledge all contribute to blog content that connects your audience to your brand.
Convert Your Audience into Customers
The reader is reading your blog article because they think it will help them with something. As they are already looking for a solution to a problem or desire, this is an opportunity for you to convert them into a customer. By giving value with your blog post, and presenting your product or service as a solution, you are one step closer to making a sale.
Do you sell a product or service that solves the problems discussed in the blog?
Do you have a book, course or programme that goes into more depth than your blog article? For example, my online self-study course, Blogging for Small Business, helps small businesses get found online and make sales using blogging.
Do you have a service that saves the reader the time, money or hassle of doing something themselves?
Or, do you have an email newsletter that offers additional value to the reader in the form of an offer code or extra content?
Use a call-to-action to link your blog post to your offer, and encourage them to buy, book or enquire.
Provide Value
The most important requirement of writing blogs is providing value to your readers. Offer insightful information, practical tips, or unique perspectives that resonate with your target audience. Always remember that no matter how many other people there are writing about the same topic or doing the same thing, you will have your own unique value to add to the conversation.
Finally, don’t fixate on a word count. You want to answer your reader’s question(s), provide unique value and ultimately get the reader to take some kind of action. Aim to fulfil these criteria, but don’t ramble on and on just to hit an arbitrary word count. At the same time, if you really cannot write more than a handful of sentences on a topic, then it is probably more suitable for a social media post than a blog article.
Step 3: SEO Your Blog Posts
Now that you've written a great blog article, it's time to optimise it for search engines and improve its visibility. This step is crucial in ensuring that your content reaches the right audience and drives organic traffic to your website. Below are three key SEO tasks to carry out on your blog article:
Write an SEO Title & Description
SEO titles and descriptions (also known as meta titles and descriptions) indicate to Google and its users what a website page is about. You can see SEO titles and descriptions in the search engines results - titles are usually in blue, and descriptions tend to be in smaller grey text.
You can learn how to write SEO titles and how to write SEO descriptions in my dedicated guides.
Compress Your Image(s)
Depending on the nature of your business and the topic you are writing about, you may use one or more images in your blog article. My business generally doesn’t lend itself to using lots of images, so I tend to include one cover image and maybe a couple of screenshots as required.
Images can help to boost engagement and SEO, and they can also help to sell your products or services. However, large image files can slow down page loading times, negatively impacting user experience and SEO rankings. Compressing images reduces their file size without compromising quality, resulting in faster loading times and improved website performance.
You can use a free tool, such as Tiny PNG, to compress your images and reduce the file sizes. Another free image compression tool you can use is the Website Planet image compressor, which was recommended to me by a lovely reader. I have tested this tool myself and found it to work just fine! It allows you to compress JPEGs or PNGs by up to 80%, and download the compressed images to Dropbox, Google Drive or your device.
Internal Linking
Lastly, don't forget about internal linking within your blog article. Internal links are hyperlinks that connect different pages within the same website. They help search engines understand the structure of your site and improve navigation for users. Look for opportunities to link relevant keywords or phrases within your blog post to other related articles or pages on your website. For example you might use internal links with your CTAs to take readers to a product page or sign-up page.
Start Making Sales With Blogging
Consistently publishing optimised blog articles can help establish you as an expert in your subject area, drive organic traffic to your website, and ultimately boost your sales. By carefully selecting keywords and blog topics, creating quality content and optimising your blog posts for search engines, you are well on your way to making organic sales through your website.
Online Blogging Course: Blogging for Small Business
If you want to transform your website into a revenue-generating asset, without paid ads, then my online blogging course, Blogging for Small Business, is for you. This course will take you through all the key concepts, teach you how to carry out keyword research, and show you how to plan, write and optimise your blog posts..