How to format your blog for SEO success

SEO starts before you even touch your keyboard. Incorporating blogs into your SEO strategy is a great move but it’s not as simple as write, publish. Instead you need to be thinking about the format, the way you’re using words and your audience from start to finish. 

Looking for some practical steps on how to format your blog for SEO glory? Then you’re in the right place.

SEO to think about before you start writing

If the reason you’re writing blogs is for SEO purposes then before you even start to type there’s one thing you need to do.

And that’s making sure the topic you’re blogging about is actually being searched for. 

After all, if you want people to read your blog then there have to be people looking to read about it first. Hopefully you’ll have a keyword strategy which will make sure you’ve covered this off but if you haven’t then it’s worth popping your subject into Google Keyword Planner. You can then see what traffic and what difficulty there is for that phrase and make a judgement call from there. 

Key ways to format your blog for SEO

You’ve got your topic. You know people are searching for it. You’ve done your research. You’re ready to get going. But how can you format your blog for SEO? It’s not enough these days to have one long block of text. Instead we need to think about a few key things to sprinkle some SEO magic.

Powerful heading

Your blog title is so so so important. It needs to answer a question, it needs to include your key words and it needs to be interesting. That’s a difficult thing to do. 

My advice? Write your heading while you write your blog to keep you focused. Then once you’ve written it, play around with some different ideas. You can also trial different headings over time and keep a note of the impact on visitor numbers. What your audience prefers might be different to what my audience prefers. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Make it scannable

We don’t read left to right, top to bottom. In fact we don’t read every word, or every line. We read in an F shape. We scan across the top of the page then we scan down the left hand side, reading across when something catches our eye.

We want to keep people on our page so we need to keep them scrolling and reading. That means breaking our writing down using headings, using interesting and catchy subheadings, using bullet points, highlighting key text in bold or italics. Basically, we need to use different methods to make words stand out so they catch your audience’s eye.

If it looks boring, people assume it is boring.

Keyword distribution

There’s a difference between keyword stuffing and keyword distribution.

Keyword stuffing is a big no no. It’s a cheap trick that used to work but one that Google’s become wise to now. It’s when you put your keywords in as often as you possibly can. The result is a weird, clunky blog that doesn’t quite makes sense and is like someone screaming the same word in your face over and over and over.

Keyword distribution however is about making sure it’s being used in the right place i.e. your title, a subheading or two, your first paragraph and then evenly and naturally throughout the rest of your blog if appropriate. If it doesn’t make sense, then don’t use it. 

You also don’t have to use your keyword verbatim, you can use synonyms or adaptations if it creates a more natural flow. For example if I were talking about recruitment tactics I could also use tactics for recruitment, recruitment methods or hiring tactics.

Keywords can’t be a hit and run, make sure they’re sprinkled naturally throughout your blog.

Depth and quality

Google wants to be showing people things that are actually useful. That’s not going to be a 300-word “blog”. I’d argue that’s not a blog, that’s a social media post. 

Your blogs need to have some depth to them, go beyond the surface level and provide some value. That might be education, it might be through linking to reputable sources, it might be an opinion. But depth and quality are crucial for SEO success.

But don’t fall into the trap of more words = greater depth. You can waffle on for 2000 words and that doesn’t make it good quality. 

Links - internal and external

Our content shouldn’t exist in isolation. We need to anchor it both on our own site through our internal linking but also reference external sources and sites when appropriate. 

Think about internal linking like Wikipedia. You start on one page and end up half an hour later reading about the hibernation practices of hedgehogs. Part of creating content that performs well is keeping people on your site. If you start to link your blogs together they stay for longer. 

You can do that when you talk about something i.e. if you need help with how to get started writing blogs, check out my previous blog. Or you can make sure you have thumbnails for other blogs at the bottom of your page. 

Linking to external sites is easier - if you talk about some research, link to it. If you reference a tool, link to it. But please make sure when you link you choose for it to open in a new tab so they still stay on your site!

Author bio

Building authority in a particular area of expertise is part of succeeding at SEO. With blogs, including an author bio at the end can help do this. 

It allows the audience to know who’s written it and what their credentials are. This works particularly well for larger businesses who might have a number of people contributing to their blog. 

They don’t have to be long - a picture, name, job title and a sentence about their experience is all it takes to give your blog an extra boost.

Meta description

Your blog’s written, you’ve used keywords you know are getting traffic, you’ve used headings and bullet points, you’ve got an author bio, job done, right?

Nope. Because the way you upload it to your site will also impact its SEO success or failure. Make sure you edit your meta description - the handy bit of text you see on the SERPs page that tells you what it’s about. You need to make it snappy, add some urgency, include your keyword and make it sound irresistible.

This will help put your keywords in the right place which will help Google find it but will also grab your audience’s attention.

Hey - I never said blog writing was easy! 

SEO title

You should have the option to change your SEO title or page title. Again change it - it doesn’t have to be your main blog title. As long as it’s got the keyword in use this as an opportunity to drive action and use some power words to get that all important click.

URL format

When you’re sorting your meta description you should also be able to edit your URL. It’s tempting to keep it to whatever your web editor prefills and sometimes that works. But check that it’s got your keyword in and that it's not too complicated. 

The simpler the better.

There are so many things to think about when writing your blog if you want to win at SEO. Some are to do with the writing themselves and using keywords fluently in your writing. But others are to do with the formatting of your blog itself.

The number one thing to do? Make sure it’s the best blog possible for your reader. My advice should help you do that, but your audience is the most important thing and the best way to rank is to be useful and relevant to them. 

Of course, if you want a helping hand I’m always here. Just send me an email and let me know what support you need.