In today’s social-media driven world, it’s common knowledge that a blog can help you build an audience, stand out, and grow your business.

But the reality is that simply writing blog posts for your website is not enough. Instead, you need a winning strategy to create a blog that drives conversions and increases SEO.

In order to reap benefits of maintaining a blog, it needs 3 core elements:

efficient architecture
attractive content
easy engagement

Our experts here at 2 the Top Design have broken down these elements into simple strategic steps that lead to SEO success. Take a look at these 8 essential tips to successful blogging:

Architecture

1. If you’re using WordPress, you need the Yoast SEO plugin.
If your website is built on WordPress, the Yoast plugin is absolutely necessary for a prime website and blog. This critical tool will allow flexibility of settings, which makes it much easier for editing and customizing an optimized website.
2. Use categories and tags sparingly and deliberately.
A common mistake bloggers make is tagging and categorizing a blog with far too many different tags. That leads to duplicate content and spider crawl issues. Instead, make a plan before creating and implementing tags. Shoot for 5-7 categories, and don’t set them up until you are convinced that you’ll use them over and over again.

Content

3. Do keyword research before you create content.
Do you know what people type when they’re looking for your content? Do some research in order to understand a searcher’s intent. If you learn what they’ll type in a search engine before you create content, your content will align with what your potential clients are looking for.
4. Remember that presentation is a ranking factor.
Think about how easy is it for viewers to consume your content. An easy to scan page layout, images, and bold headlines will create a user-friendly experience.
5. Pay special attention to the title.
The blog post title is the single most important SEO onsite ranking factor. To get readers to your blog post, the title needs to be optimized for both search engines and users. And remember: even if the post ranks well in a search engine, it still needs to be attractive and “clickable” to get readers to view your content.
6. Create an easy user experience through related posts.
Adding links to related posts creates a better experience on your blog, and that’ll keeps readers on your site. There are a variety of WordPress plugins can be added to do this automatically. Or you can always add the links to related posts manually, which gives you more control over what content you want your viewers to read.

Engagement

7. Make it easy for people to socially share content.
Social media is a megaphone that amplifies to audiences that you wouldn’t normally reach. Adding social buttons for easy sharing is an easy way to promote your blog. You can also add a call to action in your post to encourage readers to share your content.
8. Get other websites to link to you.
If you have a blog with content that is worth linking to, it’s time to share it. Identify the right people and websites, and ask them to share your content. Having other websites link to your blog posts is a core way of have a “Google-friendly” website.

Need help creating a winning blog for you business? Just drop us a line at 2 the Top Design so we can help you out!