Do you know much about blog SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you’ve never messed with it, it’s basically a combination of techniques performed to help your blog content rank better on Google and other search engines.

In 2023 and beyond, Google is really the only search engine you should worry about ranking on.

But you might be wondering if blog SEO is even that important…

The truth is that the internet is enormous. Every blog has competition. Every industry is oversaturated. Without basic use of search engine optimization, your blog isn’t likely going to rank well.

Ranking well gives you more readers, more customers, more followers, and more of a chance to turn your blog into a cash-earning activity.

So, why not give it a shot? And I’m here to help you make your blog SEO strategy as simple as possible.

Understanding Target Keywords for Blog SEO Success

When you search for something on Google, you use a combination of keywords to find the information you want to see.

We all do it routinely and have for years.

If you want to find the best burger joint in New York City, you’ll likely search for “best burgers in New York City” on Google.

Burger places that use blog SEO strategies will create content for that string of keywords. If they do it proficiently, they’re likely to be either at the top of the search results or the one on the first page. That’s where you want your blog because people rarely go past the first page after Googling something.

The strategy to target a string of keywords like that is called keyword research and placement.

You need to master your ability to find the best keywords for your content and then research those keywords to find out if they’re the best fit for your content. Some keywords will be too competitive because bigger websites are dominating them. It’s hard to compete with the bigger websites.

Instead, you’ll need to target longer keyword strings to rank your content higher in the search results. This usually means you need to add words to make your keyword more specific to your content.

Many tools are available to help your blog SEO tactics for keyword research.

Some of the better-paid options are SEM Rush and Ahrefs. These options are expensive, though, and not everyone can afford to use them. If you need a cheaper solution, try Uber Suggest and Keywords Everywhere. There are plenty of free options, too. Use Google Search Console and Google Trends. Typing your target keyword into Google Search will also drop down suggestions from Google. Those suggestions make for good target keywords.

Keyword research is the most challenging effort of effective blog SEO. However, once you master that, everything will be a lot easier.

But you also must master your ability to place your target keywords in your content. There is such a thing as placing it too much; if you do that, Google might penalize your blog. That is something you want to avoid.

I recommend using Yoast SEO for WordPress. It’s free and will give you a blog SEO score for every post or page you create on your blog. Yoast is often called the most popular and powerful SEO plugin for WordPress.

Work on improving your keyword research and placement skills each time you publish content on your blog, and eventually, it will be like second nature to you.

Blog SEO Doesn’t Matter Without the Best Content Possible

Google wants the best content you can make before any other search engine optimization tactic takes place.

The sole mission of Google Search is to give the searcher precisely the information they are trying to find. So if someone clicks on your blog post, doesn’t find the information they’re looking for, and clicks the back button, that informs Google that your post isn’t relevant to the terms they searched for.

That’s bad for your blog!

In most cases, that happens because the blogger has either poor content or poor content structuring.

Every time you create a new blog post, your main goal should be to create a better post than the last one you created. The end result of your article should be to answer a question of a searcher promptly and thoroughly. That’s the most essential blog SEO tactic that you should do.

If there was only one tactic you could do – it would be creating the best content you can make. That is going to be the best characteristic of your blog.

If you create the best content possible, Google will reward you in search ranking, and people will flock to your blog.

The best way to create the best kind of quality content is by researching your niche. A niche is the topic or industry your blog is about. My niche for this blog is a digital marketing and content creation. Posting about blog SEO fits right in between both of those topics.

Your niche will give you ideas for the best content out there!

Find your people! Find them on social media. Find them on discussion forums. Find them on Quora. Find them on other blogs. Find them where ever they may be.

And then “listen” to them.

Discover the biggest challenge of the niche. Find out what the most common unanswered questions are. Understand what problems they are being faced with.

After you find that information, make it your mission to solve it and find a solution. And when you do, turn it into a blog post. And after using blog SEO tactics, I promise you that it will not only get you better rankings on Google Search but will make you the niche expert everyone wants to go to.

Write the kind of content you would want to find on search engines to solve your problems and answer your questions. That’s how you win with content on a blog.

Being Consistent to Win Your Blog SEO Strategy

To win at blog SEO, you need to research your keywords, place them correctly, and write the best content possible.

I’ve already explained how to do those things above.

But you must do all that consistently to win at search engine optimization on Google or anywhere else.

What does consistency mean?

Why does consistency matter for blog SEO?

Why does it even matter for search engine results?

I’ll answer these questions and then show you how to easily be consistent and never run out of blog post ideas again.

Consistency is doing things in the same way in a conforming manner. It matters for SEO and search engine results because that will tell Google when you create new content based on your target keywords and niche. Google will then know to serve your new content to searchers looking for your type of content. It’ll also let your fans and followers know when to expect new content to come back to your blog and consume.

You’ve heard content is king. Right? I have a different saying that adds a little bit more…

Content is King – You have to have the best content possible.

Consistency is Queen – The king will fall if he does not please the kingdom, and the queen will help him maintain a consistent flow.

Engagement is the Kingdom – Your content needs to make a consumer do something, whether sharing the post, commenting, or performing some Call-to-Action after reading it.

Without these three, the kingdom WILL FALL!

So, how do you remain consistent?

You experiment with a style in which you create content. Try posting two articles a week. Do this for a few months. If it becomes overwhelming, start posting once a week instead. If that becomes overwhelming, post once every two weeks or even once a month.

Whatever turns out to best your best posting style, that’s the style you need to stick with. If you can post once a week, you need to make sure you post once a week. Pick a day. Pick a time. Always meet that deadline. If you can do that – you’ll be consistent.

I post once a day on this blog.

I also post once a day on another blog.

That’s two posts every single day, all year long. I’ve been doing this for a few months as of writing this article. I wrote this article in one day.

I have turned it into a consistent habit. I’m not telling you to blog daily; I’m telling you that whatever you choose, you need to stick with it. But by all means, experiment first to find your perfect, consistent rhythm.

But then comes the elephant in the room – content ideas.

When we consistently create content, we have content ideas to write about.

If you don’t plan out your content ideas, you’ll not do well at consistency, blog SEO, or any of it.

You need to create a content calendar. A simple spreadsheet or notepad is all you need to make this a reality. Write your ideas down and anything else you want to add. I write my title (but might change it later), the keywords I want to target, and the blog post category. After I publish the post, I add the date I published it to my content calendar.

This is the first phase of never running out of ideas for your blog.

The second phase is coming up with ideas, and that’s where it gets fun!

BUCKETS OF FUN!

Buckets – that’s how you do it. Let me explain…

Create a pillar keyword. This is the keyword that your main blog should focus on. For example, mine is “Shawnee National Forest” for my hiking blog.

Now create a set of buckets under your central pillar. These buckets are sub-topics of your main topic.

And few examples of mine would be “Shawnee National Forest Hiking” and “Shawnee National Forest Lodging.”

Now you need to put more buckets under your already existing buckets. You need to create sub-topics of your sub-topics.

For my “Shawnee National Forest Hiking” bucket, I would create “Shawnee National Forest Hiking for Seniors” and “Shawnee National Forest Hiking for Kids.”

And then you keep adding buckets under buckets. You add sub-topics under sub-topics that are sub-topics. It should be never-ending.

That will help you never run out of ideas again. I promise you. It works. It also helps with blog SEO because it keeps your content relevant to your keywords. It allows you to create related content for your niche consistently. Google really loves that!

And finally, use the tools provided to you to make consistency a breeze.

Two of these tools are post-scheduling and social media content scheduling.

WordPress has a post-scheduling feature. You can bulk-create content which is how I post daily on two blogs, and then schedule it to post whenever you want it to post. This will improve your consistency. It’s nice to have content scheduled when something goes wrong, and you can’t post something new.

It happens in life all the time!

Embrace automation because we didn’t have these incredible tools fifteen years ago to help us remain consistent without being superhumans.

And social media scheduling helps with blog SEO because social media can help you build backlinks which you want to do. Backlinks are websites and people who link to your blog content. Its backlinks are on good websites with related content; it will help you rank better on search engines.

You can consistently increase your chance of getting backlinks through social media by using a social media scheduling tool.

I use Buffer. I pay for it, but there is a very generous free edition that might be all you need. But the paid upgrade is well worth it in the end.

And that sums up how you can accomplish blog SEO strategy as efficiently as possible. It isn’t as complex as you might think it is. You must do the right tactics and, most of all, be consistent. Follow the advice above, and you’ll have no problem ranking on Google. This is what I do on every blog post I make. This was a long post to write; I’d love it if you showed me your support by following me on Twitter for more digital marketing and content creation tips.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.