Blogging for SEO: Keywords

09 Jun Blogging for SEO: Keywords

Posted at 23:42h in Beginner, Digital University, SEO Tutorials by

Always Remember:

  1. Blog for your Readers! DON’T blog specifically for Search Engines.  Blogs are for your website visitors first, but are also a great way to take advantage of SEO opportunities as well.
  2. Provide content that is engaging and unique and always keep your reader in mind. Remember this while practicing the following tips and both your readers and your search engine rankings will benefit.

 

Keywords – Which to Use and How Many

  • Choose one keyword you want your blog post to be about. A blog post should target one main keyword phrase! A single blog post is not the place to try to optimize for several keywords.  If you choose more than this, you risk diluting the impact of your post.   For our example, we’ll choose “Jackson Hole Lodging” as our keyword concept.
  • When indexing your site, Google understands that there is a variety of similar words that mean the same thing and that a blogger will use these interchangeably to make the blog interesting and readable.
  • Use your primary keyword concept in your title, but after that, you can use other similar keywords where they sound natural.   For example in our Jackson Hole Lodging blog post, we could also use similar phrases such as Lodging in Jackson Hole or Lodging in Jackson WY.   This method will improve our ranking for Jackson Hole Lodging and introduce other keyword concepts that we can be ranked for.
  • Google frowns upon “keyword stuffing,” or overuse of your keywords. Using your keyword too often makes your post uninteresting and unreadable. You won’t keep many visitors on the blog for long if you put “Jackson Hole Lodging” in every sentence!
  • If you are looking for a target number of times to use a keyword, try aiming for a “keyword density” of 3%. If your post has 200 words, aim to use the keyword 6 times. If this is unnatural or unreadable as mentioned above, it’s okay to settle for a lower density. Use the 3% as a guide, not a hard and fast rule.
  • Even if it’s nowhere else in the post, use your keyword phrase in the title and the first sentence of the post if possible. We’ll get to more on placement in the next section, so keep reading!

 

Where to Place Keywords

  • Always, always include your keyword in your blog post’s title. WordPress will automatically add the title name into the URL, which also helps with SEO. We’ll call our article: “What to Consider When Choosing Jackson Hole Lodging”.  Hint – Keep your titles short.  Google will only index the first 60 characters in their organic search results.
  • Take advantage of headings! Use your keywords in headings by using the Header 2 and Header 3 tags. Example – “Jackson Hole Lodging: Our Room Offerings”
  • Top & Bottom – Include your keyword or similar keyword in both the first sentence of the post and the last sentence of the post.
  • Use your keyword or similar keyword in the Link Text of an internal link. (We link the phrase Jackson Hole Lodging to our Home Page or a specific Website page about lodging options)
  • Use your keyword or similar keyword in the Alt Tag of post images (in a picture of your room, the alt tag could read: Jackson Hole Lodging – Queen Suite with Kitchenette).
  • When using the keyword, if it doesn’t affect readability, use Bold and/or Italics

 

For a quick reference, these are the best places to put keywords for SEO:

  1. Title (and URL)
  2. Headings
  3. First & Last Sentence
  4. Link Text of an Internal Link
  5. Alt Tags