Five Easy Steps to Optimize Your Blog for SEO
By: Seo Long Island
Tags: Seo Services

The fight for new customers in “The Big Apple” has reached new heights. And as the market gets more competitive, NYC businesses are seeking any edge they can get — particularly when it comes to building brand awareness. As a result, Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) has become a top priority for businesses across verticals and industries. A well-defined SEO strategy is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase brand awareness and drive more organic traffic.

One of the most effective ways to build a well-defined SEO strategy is to work with an SEO firm in New York city to boost your content output. Blogging is vital for building authority on specific keywords relevant to your NYC business and products. However, it is more than just posting scads of blog posts per month — quality is just as (if not more) important. One high-quality, SEO-optimized blog post will have a more significant impact on your online presence than a dozen mediocre ones.

Let us go through some of the most important steps you should take to optimize your blogs for SEO:

Step 1. Conduct Keyword Research

When conducting keyword research, consider what words your target audiences search for and see whether your competitors rank for them. You may also want to pick long-tail keywords over broad and generic terms since they have less competition and yield a higher click-through rate (CTR). SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool and Moz Keyword Explorer can help with your keyword research.

Step 2. Create a Scannable Blog Structure

When creating a blog outline, use proper HTML header tags for the headings (H1>, H2>, H3>, etc.) to help illustrate the blog’s structure. This will improve the blog’s readability and make it easier for search engines bots to scan the key topics discussed in the blog.

Step 3. Keep the Word Count in Mind

A blog post must contain at least 300 words to rank on search engines. It can be tricky to provide enough information in so few words, so it is recommended that you make your blog at least 1,000 words long. Because Google is engineered to deliver the most relevant and value-rich results for their users, longer blogs are more likely to contain more thorough insights.

Step 4. Sprinkle Keywords Throughout the Blog

The number of times a keyword appears on a page — or “keyword density” — is an important factor to consider when optimizing a blog for SEO. You can calculate it by dividing the number of times your targeted keyword appears in a blog by the blog’s word count. There is no ideal keyword density percentage; however, you can safely go as much as 3%. It is also important not to get overly excited or overdo it. If you are caught keyword stuffing, you may face a Google penalty.

Step 5. Add High-Quality Images

Using relevant and visually appealing images in your blog post improves the reader experience and adds incredible value from an SEO standpoint. Google Images is becoming increasingly popular, and with its rising popularity comes another avenue that can attract more organic traffic. All images in your blog post should have alt text that only contains your targeted keywords to describe the image.

If you don’t know where to begin or don’t have the time to commit to your own SEO efforts, it is a good idea to outsource the job to professional New York City SEO services.