Blog SEO: Optimize your Blog Posts

  • 7 minutes read
blog seo

This is how Slypress Blog is performing! 

Blog SEO is a technical process of increasing your blog visibility in search engines like Google or Bing, without paying Ads for the traffic (known as "organic traffic").

Of course, nothing is really free in this world but spending some time, instead of money, you can write good blog SEO posts to organically rank.

Traffic is money and without traffic, there is no such thing as "business".

Blog SEO optimization - is what we are talking bout.

Well, Blog SEO is enough, without the extra-word "optimization" because SEO means Search Engine Optimization - see? the word is already there, in "SEO".

Why your blog is very important for SEO?

Simply put: your blog might be the only consistent source of very targeted content for your business.

This is why:

A blog is a game-changer for many online businesses (this is a fact, are not just empty words).

You know, you can't fill your website with tons of content.

You might ask "Why not?". Well...

A business website has few generic pages: about us, services, contact, pricing, terms & conditions, privacy - and some other few pages.

You can't fill those pages with tons of content.

Blog SEO - is the actual game-changer: targeted content using specific keywords to attract people from search engines like Google.

That's why Slypress.com exists - a blogging platform, highly SEO oriented, one of a kind!

Don't trust me, check for yourself!

→   The ultimate guide: how long does it take to write a 500 word blog?

How Does Google Work?

Very briefly put, this is how does google works:

  1. Crawling: Google downloads text, images, and videos from pages it found on the internet with automated programs called crawlers.
  2. Indexing: Google analyzes the text, images, and video files on the page, and stores the information in the Google index, which is a large database.
  3. Serving search results: When a user searches on Google, Google returns information that's relevant to the user's query

The primary goal of your blog posts is to rank higher as possible on Google.

That's why you spend time to write blog posts, isn't it?

Most people are hunting the first page - there is a lot of competition! So the quality of your blog posts is very important!

Blog SEO is the only way to rank better on google.

Also, to make money with your blog, of course: business, affiliate marketing, personal/influencer - doesn't matter the way you monetize your blog.

→   5 ways to make money with a blog

Blog SEO optimization

Ok, we've already pinned that "optimization" word should not be used together with "SEO".

But we do it for the sake of... Blog SEO 😃

It’s easy to think about SEO as being a keyword-driven marketing channel.

Well, the fact is that if you really want to drive growth, you really have to know who your target audience.

Assuming you already know your target audience, you start writing your posts - starting with keywords, not the other way around.

Here's the most common things you have to know before writing your blog posts:

SEO Blog Titles - Title Tag

SEO Blog Titles are actually the titles of your blog posts. Is that simple, don't overcomplicate!

The same post title should be used as a meta title (most blogs are doing it by default) because Google is using it - see below:

Of course, it's possible have a different meta title but this is a bad practice because your visitor might be confused (different than search results).

Think about blog titles in this way:

Would you buy a book having a bad title? No, of course not!

Well, SEO Titles are actually the titles of yout blog posts.

A good title, will capture your visitor's attention. A bad title will not, naturally!

You have to include in your article the keywords you want to target.

As an example, this article is targeting Blog SEO keywords. You see, these words are also present (without exaggeration) in the content.

So your blog post title should be treated like a book title: simple and objective.


Recommended title length is between 50 and 70 characters (max 600 pixels). Longer titles will be truncated when they show up in the search results.

Blog SEO Description - Meta Description

Blog SEO Descritpion is pretty much used as a snippet by Google.

As you can see, the keywords are highlighted in the description - is a good idea to include the keywords you target in the description also.


Recommendation today is to keep your page description between 110 and 160 characters, although Google can sometimes show longer snippets.

Blog SEO H1 Tag - or multiple H1 Tags

This is a technical detail and your blog platform should already have the main H1 by default.

If it doesn't, you should change your blogging platform NOW!

Try Slypress - a highly SEO oriented blogging platform!

According to Google, there is no problem of using multiple H1 tags.


John Mueller of Google mentioned that you could use as many H1 tags on a page as you need, hinting that Google is smart enough to puzzle out your headers.

Blog SEO keywords

Without right keywords, you can write millions of articles for nothing! Period!

Too many people are missing this critical factor!

Most people are doing this:

  1. Find a subject you are passionate about
  2. Write a bout it
  3. Cry because you have no traffic

You see, people are different and nobody care about your particular passions! Don't take it personal - is just a simple fact!

Why is so hard, for many people, to understant this simple fact?

WHY?

When you start writing your blog posts, put aside your passions and find out what people want:

  1. Find what keywords people are using to search on Google
  2. Check the search volume for those keywords - you can use tools like:
    • Google Keyword planner
    • Google Trends
    • Google suggestions: type something in Google and see the related suggestions - those suggestions are most searched terms, related to your keywords

    • Google "People also ask": I'm absolutely sure that many times you noticed answered questions directly on Google. Use those questions!

  3. Analyze the competition - don't start writing a post if there is a high cometition for the same keywords. If your blog is new (under 1 year), you should start with low-competition keywords!
  4. Write your blog post starting with the keywords you have found
  5. Optional: in time, build backlinks for the article to rank better (useful only on high competiton)

You see the approach of a successful blog post? Is very, very different than most people do!


Right keywords means targeted audience. Targeted audience means profit - those people found what are looking for!

Blog SEO Speed

You should read this article:

Ghost vs Wordpress vs Slypress: Faster Loading Blog

According to Google, if a page is loading in more than 3 seconds, more than 53% of your visitos will leave.

This is huge: 53% of visitors are doing it!

So the speed of your blog, is one of the most important Google Algorithm factors.

Did you knew that?


You can check your blog speed in various ways - here are two of them:

  1. Lighthouse: if yu use Google Chrome, you can run the tests from your browser - press F12 key and go tu "Lighthouse" tab.
  2. Online Tool: browser test is more accurate but you can also use https://web.dev/measure/ to test you blog speed.

Blog SEO Canonical URL - Canonical Tag

Canonical URLs are used by Google to ignore duplicate content.

This is pretty much technical, but you should know about it.

This is a quick example:

  • https://slypress.com/pricing/
  • https://www.slypress.com/pricing/

See? Are not the same! So Google will treat them as different pages, but having exactly the same content.

There are two ways to solve this problem:

  1. Use a canonical tag to tell Google which article URL is the "original"
  2. Use a 301 redirect

Slypress is using both! If you have a Slypress blog, you don't have to worry about canonical issues!

Sitemap.xml

sitemap.xml is very useful because is helping Google to discover the pages of your blog much faster than waiting to crawl page by page.

Yes, including pages that has no link to them - for some strange reason are "hidden" but you want them visible in Google (well...).

A sitemap is automatically generated and most blogging platforms are using sitemaps.

You have to submit your sitemaps to Google Search Console:


If you are curious about what a sitemap is: this is it! Ugly, isn't it? 😂

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many aspects to take care of! Means a lot of time!

Slypress Blog is doing everything for you - start writing instead of fixing.

Slypress Blog SEO: is doing magic - your blog scores higher in Google Lighthouse, Core Web Vitals, and common SEO audits tools.

Share this article with your friends

Community Q&A