5 quick ways to SEO-upgrade your blog posts
You’ve got a blog packed full of useful articles because you know there are lots of benefits to blogging for your business. Go you! Now the question is, are those blog posts optimised for appearing in search results? I know, I know. You’ve spent good time writing them and getting them published on your site. The last thing you want is someone to scribble another task on your to-do list in red pen. But making your blog posts SEO-friendly is something you don’t want to skip for one simple reason:
SEO-friendly blog posts can boost your business’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and bring more visitors to your website.
If you need more convincing, I’ll just leave these two stats here…
Blogging can boost a business’s web traffic by 55%
45% of bloggers say their engagement went up after updating their older content
Now that we’ve established that a) it’s essential to update your blog posts for SEO, and b) you’re probably very busy and feel you’ve spent enough of your precious time on writing the posts in the first place, let’s crack on with my 5 super speedy quick wins to give your existing blog posts an SEO upgrade. You’ll be soaring up the SERPs in no time.
If you’d like me to write SEO-friendly blog posts for you or update your existing articles for SEO, say hello.
1) Links
Add internal links
Open up one of your existing blog posts and give it a quick read. It’s quite possible that since you wrote it, you’ve published more articles on the topic. Add links to those articles wherever you can to connect readers and search engines to other parts of your site.
This practice is called internal linking and it helps search engines discover new pages and demonstrates that your website is a font of knowledge on topics in your niche.
NB: follow best practices and prioritise relevant and natural linking by linking to other pages of your site that make sense in the context and will be truly useful to your readers.
Check existing links
If your blog post already has links, make sure you click on each one to check that none are broken (i.e. they don’t lead to a non-existent page).
2) Headers
Structuring your blog posts with headings and subheadings is great for reader accessibility and SEO alike. As Search Engine Journal elegantly puts it, think of header tags as chapter titles in a book. They help the reader get a quick overview of the article (and are also useful for people who use screen readers), and they show search engines the context and hierarchy of the page.
Title
According to Google, a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page. So, make sure your existing title fits the bill and edit accordingly if not.
Your title also forms the headline part of how your blog post appears in the search results and as Google advises:
It's often the primary piece of information people use to decide which result to click, so it's important to use high-quality title text on your web pages.
Subheadings
If your existing blog post doesn’t have any subheadings, scatter them throughout your article so search engines can easily understand the structure and readers can quickly find what they’re looking for (which in turn will improve your bounce rate).
While the <h1> tag is typically used for the main heading or title of a page, <h2> and <h3> tags are commonly employed for subheadings.
3) Images
We’re visual creatures, so adding images to your blog posts can break up the text and make the article more engaging to read. Google stresses the importance of adding high-quality, optimised images to your website in their SEO guidelines, too.
If your existing blog post doesn’t have any, identify a couple of sections where an image could fit well and head over to a free-to-use image site (Unsplash and Pexels are two of my favourites). Download your images of choice and insert them into your post.
Optimising images
First things first, Google advises to “use images that are sharp and clear, and place them near text that's relevant to the image.”
Adding alt text
Once your images meet the mark, it’s time to add alt text. Descriptive alt text is essential for helping users with accessibility requirements and it also helps search engines understand what the image is about and how it relates to your article.
Your alt text should be useful and descriptive. I find it helpful to keep in mind how it would sound to someone using a screen reader. Could they form a good mental picture of the image with the alt text provided?
Google provides some examples of good and bad alt text.
4) Meta descriptions
A meta description is a short description of a webpage that search engines can use as the snippet in search results.
Here is an example of a snippet from Google’s article on meta descriptions:
Google doesn’t always use the meta description for the snippet as they often gather the information from the actual webpage. But in their own words on snippets and meta descriptions:
Because meta descriptions aren’t displayed in the pages the user sees, it’s easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google’s search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.
Meta description best practices
Write a unique meta description for each blog post (and each page of your website for that matter)
Make sure your meta descriptions are truly descriptive and reflect the contents of the page
Keep your meta descriptions short and snappy. Technically, you can make your meta descriptions as long as you like, but bear in mind that there is a limit to what we can see in the SERPs of around 155 characters.
Give your readers a reason to click through by including a call-to-action, such as ‘discover’ or ‘learn more’
Work your main keyword in (but avoid keyword stuffing as Google doesn’t like this and it comes off as spammy)
5) Author bios
Google prioritises helpful content, using a mix of factors called E-E-A-T to do so. These letters stand for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. A key way of helping readers understand the E-E-A-T of your content is making it clear who wrote it and why they are qualified to do so, which leads us to our final quick win - adding an author bio to your posts.
What to include in your author bio
You want your expertise to shine through, so be sure to include elements such as number of years in your field, what you write about, and qualifications where relevant. The aim is for readers to trust you as a credible source of knowledge on the topic at hand.
Final thoughts
So there you have it. 5 actions you can take towards upgrading your existing blog posts for SEO that will make a big difference to your website’s visibility but won’t take up lots of your precious time.
Here’s a recap of the quick wins. Add links to other relevant articles in your blog and check all existing links in case any of them are broken. Make sure your title adheres to Google’s guidelines and keep in mind that it will appear in the search engine results pages. Break up your text with subheadings and images. Write unique meta descriptions for each of your blog posts. And finally, include author bios on all of your articles to showcase expertise.
Once you’ve done all that, be sure to monitor your results using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which are both free to set up.
If you’d like me to write your blog posts for you or give your existing articles an SEO-upgrade, I’d love to chat. Say hello at camilla@camillabass.com or book a call.
