What’s search engine optimization?
According to Search Engine Land, search engine optimization, more frequently known as SEO, is “the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.” In other words, search engine optimization ensures that your content gets into the hands of the right people when they are looking for it.
If you’ve ever spent time creating a website or launching a new product or program, you know how much time it can take to make sure everything is perfect. From the copy you write to the images you upload, you plan for weeks and maybe even months in advance to make sure everything goes off without a hitch. At the very last stage, when you’re finally ready to release your big work into the world, it crosses your mind that you haven’t necessarily optimized your content for search engines, but since it’s really great content, you go ahead and publish it anyway.
What’s the big deal if your content isn’t optimized for search engines? Won’t it appear in search engines regardless as long as it’s quality content and available to the public?
Why does it matter?
In short, the answer is no, and here’s why: Search engines rank content based on the way in which it’s optimized, meaning that if you don’t optimize your content for the search engine, it will have no way of knowing what content to display and what content to leave out.
As a marketing manager, small business owner, or personal blog writer, it can be devastating when your content doesn’t get the number of views you thought it should have, but without search engine optimization, it’s highly unlikely that your content will be able to make its way to the top of the search results page to where people can consume it.
In theory, you could create the greatest piece of content of all time and receive little to no traction from it if it’s not search engine optimized. While this phenomenon is true for all types of content, it is especially true for blog content.
How do I make it better?
According to letter.ly, there are more than 7.5 million blog posts published each day, but only 25% of all bloggers report researching key phrases for every article. Even still, this means that on average, there are 1,875,000 blog posts each day that have highly researched key words in them.
With statistics like these, it’s hard to argue against optimizing your blog content for search engines to the highest of your ability, but when it comes to actually doing it, it can seem like a daunting task. When it comes to utilizing search engine optimization in blog writing, Hubspot recommends the following 12 tactics:
- Use headings to your benefit
- Optimize your content for featured snippets
- Write for humans, not search engines
- Include keywords in your meta description
- Add alt text to images
- Start with keyword research
- Resist the urge to keyword stuff
- Link to high-authority websites
- Aim for scannable, longer posts
- Link to other posts on your site
- Compress images for fast page load speed
- Design a link-building strategy
By following these tactics and doing a bit of research on your own, you’re sure to improve your SEO ranking and get the traction you’re hoping to achieve on all of your blog writing in the future.