One of the most important channels of digital marketing is the company’s website itself. Almost every website has a section called the ‘blog’ section. The section is more or less of a publicly accessible journal of a business’s site. Blogging helps in driving massive web traffic to a company’s website. But, is your blog being able to capture the attention of your targeted audience?

Posting relevant articles describing your business is not enough to drive traffic. Blogging for your business can only be fruitful if the blogs are SEO-friendly. Search Engine Optimization is an essential factor in increasing a website’s visibility for potential customers entering through search engines (mainly Google). But not to forget, there is an ocean full of tricks and tips for SEO optimization. And choosing the correct combination of SEO optimization tools and recommendations is the real challenge for marketers. This article will give you an insight on 7 ways an SEO-optimized blog can skyrocket your business.

But before we dive into how SEO optimization helps businesses, let us take a look at the basics of SEO and why we need to practice it. 

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing channel aiming to reach the targeted audience by ranking higher on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page). In simple words, SEO helps people in figuring out how search engines like Google work. Best SEO practices will help you deconstruct the complex Google algorithms. But think how easy it would be to get organic traffic if you could decode Google’s algorithms!

Backlinko, is one of its articles, has discussed that Google has over 200 ranking factors. Knowing these factors can help you build a better SEO optimization strategy. 

SEO, indeed, is a journey of building an understanding relationship between your website and the search engine. It is a comprehensive term for all the methods used to ensure the visibility of your website. The sole intention of SEO optimization is to get ranked on a search engine’s organic (non-paid) search results. 

When we search for a product or service, two types of search results appear on the SERPs – organic or non-paid and paid results. And SEO has nothing to do with the paid results. The ones appearing in the organic results are 100% boosted by SEO activities. 

Why do we need SEO?

Will it be okay if you create content that remains unknown to your audience?

Of course not, right!

This is why SEO is essential. It is only through good SEO practices that your content can reach out to your targeted audience. It not only increases visibility and web traffic to your website but also automatically improves the credibility of your website. Doing on-page SEO to optimize your website provides a seamless user experience and helps them navigate your website easily.

Traditional SEO tactics like Keyword research and relevant content generation help web crawlers find your website. These practices affect your organic presence that drives in the highest number of web visitors. The end goal of SEO is to elevate the growth of your business and ensure your website secures a place at the top.

Even though the process is time-consuming and the results do not come easily, SEO can work wonders for any online business. Listed below are a few tips for SEO optimization that you cannot ignore while optimizing your site.

SEO Tip #1. Relevant Keywords

What are keywords? They are words that we type on Google based on our search queries. As we type the keywords, Google presents a list of relevant websites related to your topic. There are quite several things that determine the search results. It can be your location, search history, date, and anything that complements Google’s latest algorithm.  

Keyword research is the most traditional SEO practice. It is probably there since the inception of SEO. Blogs with the best keyword stuffing are likely to rank higher. Also, there are different places like your blog URL, blog title, the body of the content, and meta-description where you should mention the keywords. But remember, stuffing keywords that do not make any sense will only mislead your visitors. It will affect the dwelling time of a visitor who visits your blog. Most of them will exit in 2-3 seconds, which will eventually bring your rank down. 

The key to on-page SEO optimization is keyword research. Before writing a blog article, you can refer to SEO related tools like Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest to conduct your research. It is not necessary to have every relevant keyword stuffed in your blog. Targeting keywords is just one recommendation among a hundred more that are equally important for promoting your website.

SEO Tip #2. Readability

Do you ever get lost while trying to read a text? It happens when a piece of writing has low readability. Readability refers to the ease or difficulty level of reading a write-up. Improving the readability of a text is vital to hold the reader’s attention till the end of a text. Poor readability can occur if the writer uses long sentences, jargon, grammatically wrong text, and irrelevant details. 

An SEO-friendly blog is devoid of poor readability. Most of the content or blog writers use tools to check readability, like Grammarly. These tools highlight the problematic areas of your write-up and produce a score based on its readability. The higher the readability score, the more you can engage your readers.

SEO Tip #3. Mobile-friendliness

Do you ever open your laptop to Google your favorite restaurant or a food item?  

Laptops have become bulky for us. With the emergence of mobile phones, we can search for everything on the tip of our fingers. Hence it is recommended to optimize your website or blog as per mobile usage. 

If you search for the same topic on a mobile or laptop, the SERPs will display the search results in different orders on both devices. Google algorithms are inclined towards mobile-friendly websites. This has been a constant requirement since the 2015 Penguin algorithm update. So, make sure your blog is mobile-friendly to drive in more traffic. 

To make your blog mobile-friendly, it is likely to use a responsive web design. Practicing responsive design creates a single URL for your website that is suitable for both mobile and computer. This tip for SEO optimization will let Google find and rank your content among the topmost in the SERP.   

SEO Tip #4. Updating previous contents 

You might have a few backdated content in your blog which is still relevant in the present context. If they do not appear in the SERPs, then you might be missing out on something. Guess what?

Your previous blog articles are equally as important as the recent ones. Updating your posted articles is vital for blog SEO optimization. Popular search engines like Google constantly update their algorithms from time to time. And it would help if you use SEO optimization tactics to make a place on the top of the SERP. This demands your content to be at least 1000 words or more in length, in-depth, keyword-relevant, etc. 

Frequently updating your content with the latest information available directs Google’s attention towards your blog. This will continue to drive traffic for longer durations. 

SEO Tip #5. Use precise meta-descriptions

Think of what is the first thing that drives you to click on a particular link?

It is the small 60-120 words description present below the blue link. This is known as a meta-description. 

The meta-description of your blog has to be compelling enough for people to click on it. It must be customized to give the visitors a comprehensive definition of your blog. This description provides them the idea if this is what they are looking for. 

You can use tools like free Yoast SEO Plug-in by WordPress to write meta-descriptions. SEO benefits include primary keywords in your URL, and it is the same with meta-descriptions. 

SEO Tip #6. Backlinking your blog

Besides a lot of recent updates in the SEO optimization techniques, backlinking still remains a note-worthy factor for blog SEO. If you want your content to spread fast, some deliberate promotion is what you need to do. Backlinking is the best off-page SEO strategy. There are several ways to acquire backlinks. 

Typically, backlinks are the hyperlinked texts present within the blog text. When you click on these links, you land on an external link of another website. Sometimes SEO experts link the text to a previous blog within their own website. These are called internal links. For example- we can create an internal link to our previous article “What technology areas to focus on 2021?” . Acquiring backlinks increases the authenticity of your website and lets other site owners to recognize you. 

Also, it is suggestive of you to be aware of broken links. These are links that have been removed from the sites that you have linked to earlier. While backlinks can prove to be of great advantage, broken links can spill water over your hard work. 

SEO Tip #7. Enhance your blog layout

Easy navigation helps drive more visitors into your site. And navigation can be smooth if you have a simple and attractive blog layout. The website has to be user-friendly so that your visitors spend the maximum time possible reading your blogs. 

The recent updates in Google algorithms have made focusing on user experience mandatory for designers. Fixing your layouts can give your visitors a better experience and make conversions. 

How long do you stay on a site that loads slowly? Probably, you back off while the page is still loading. Blog layout is also intended for quick loading of your site. The loading time of a mobile and desktop is different. However, mobile-friendliness is what needs to be more focused on. 

Conclusion  

Lately, blogs have become the most efficient way to connect the targeted audience to your website. By following the tips for SEO optimization, you can rank higher in the search result pages, drive more traffic and increase the number of conversions. 

For effective SEO optimization, you have to be consistent with the tactics mentioned above. The tips for SEO optimization are not a one-time thing. You have to be up-to-date with the changes the search engine algorithms undergo and strategize accordingly.