One of the types of content that is extremely effective in helping with website SEO in the pursuit of better search engine rankings is blog posts. You can create a blog post on any subject, it can be as long or as short as you wish, and if optimised correctly, it can help boost rankings on search engines. Although writing a blog post is not difficult, if it is to be used as part of an SEO campaign, it requires more than just tapping the words on a keyboard. There are several ways to ensure that the published blog post is not only an excellent piece of content worth reading but also SEO friendly and thus contributes positively to helping the website it is published on rank higher on search engines. Here are ten of those ways. Plan Every Blog Post Properly: This relates to not just thinking about what you are going to write about, important though that is. It is also about planning the SEO aspects of your blog post, such as what keywords you are going to use, where you are going to include them, and also if there is going to be a call to action within your blog post to encourage readers to take action once they have read it. Create A Structure For Each Blog Post: Just as your entire website should have a site structure, your blog posts should also have a structure that is both reader-friendly and SEO-friendly. Specifics related to the structure include the blog post’s introduction, the main body of the blog post, sub-sections, and the conclusion or call to action if there is one. Use Paragraphs And Headings Effectively: The key here is ‘effectively’ as it is true that most people include paragraphs and headings in their blog posts. To make paragraphs effective, consider their length while trying not to make them too long, and ensure each paragraph has an identifiable subject or idea. For headings, make sure they adhere to your blog post’s structure, are relatively short, and most importantly, include keywords in them. Use Transitional Words: As you write, do as much as you can to add structure to your blog post and help readers scan through and still understand how each sentence or paragraph relates to the next one. This is achieved using transitional words, some of which are ‘for example’, ‘however’, ‘as such’, and ‘similarly’, to name but four.
Website design is something that makes many people roll their eyes, not because they do not like websites, but because it seems to hold some mystical qualities which only a few will ever understand. Whilst it is true that some technical aspects of designing and building websites require a level of training and experience, for the most part, it is not particularly difficult. Website design does have some basic principles which you should adhere to, and to help you understand them, if you are about to renew your website, here are the top 7. Ensure The SEO Basics Are In Place Being an SEO agency we had to start with this one, and no matter how large or how small a project you are undertaking with regards to your website design, in all cases, you need to have the basic SEO elements in place. This includes the title, the description, and all the other metadata such as H1 tags. Should you be unsure of this, or if the idea of going behind the scenes and dabbling with some technical SEO aspects of your website fills you with dread, then there are plenty of resources that can help you, including ourselves. Use a Clean Design When we say clean design, we mean have a website that looks uncluttered, welcoming, and inviting to anyone who lands on it for the first time, and indeed every other time after that. Whether there is a next time will vary depending on the first impression any visitor has of your website, so try to avoid neon coloured sections, black backgrounds with coloured text, and other imagery that is likely to have anyone seeing it reeling back from their screen.