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Blog writing for SEO

Sep 19 11 - 11:27AMAlex Charraudeau, Account Manager Marketing

Blog writing for SEO – what to do


When blog writing for SEO one of the things to remember is that you are not just writing a blog for SEO, but writing it for people to read.  Too often blog writing for SEO becomes just a bunch of key words written for SEO in a blog.  SEO is important and you can write a blog solely for SEO... but it just ends up reading like this paragraph...

Blog writing for SEO


Here are things to remember when writing blogs for SEO AND for people


Key words are key


You need to have key words mentioned in the main areas of your blog – like the page title, the URL and the main header on the page.  Also try and mention the key words that you are trying to rank for in the first paragraph. 

Make it readable


If people are turned off by what they see why would they want to do business with you?  Why would they want to engage with you in a business conversation?  The level of written communication that a business produces is indicative to the type of organisation they are. 

Send the reader somewhere next


What is the next step for the reader?  Where do they go from the blog?  You need to make sure that you have key calls to action that the user can follow.  If they are bought into what you have to say they will head off to contact you.  Make sure contact forms and details are near by.

Your blog needs to link to services


Make sure that firstly your blog is about something you do and a service that you offer.  Link it to relevant pages on you website.  So for example this is a blog about recruitment SEO so this page links to the relevant service on the main website.

Make sure it is easy to share


Search engines hold a lot of weight in the way that content is linked to.  With sites like BING! there has been a bit shift and they rank pages based on social links.  If other people mention your writing in their blog or on their website you are more likely to rank in places like Google. 

Now share this and get writing!

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Geri , 20 September 2011, 01:35 PM
A blog should never be written for SEO; however a well written blog with seamlessly interwoven keywords will enhance your SEO efforts. A blog is written for the reader. It should be well planned, well written, relevant, fresh, original, engaging, and posted on a predetermined schedule. If you are using keywords in your blog they should be properly/professionally researched and interwoven seamlessly into the text.
Louis , 20 September 2011, 01:51 PM
Good article thanks Alex. We'll be starting a blog soon at Colleague Software (and writing more articles elsewhere) and although SEO is important we want to create quality content too. Very possible to do both.
Josh , 20 September 2011, 04:48 PM
Good post Alex, especially the advice about not stuffing a blog post with the same keyword. However you can also get SEO value and readable content by including variations of a keyword and closely related terms in the post. In fact the Google algorithm is so sophisticated that some believe it will expect to see related terms and variations on the same page of content as the main phrase which is being targeted in the heading, page title etc.
Alex, 20 September 2011, 04:27 PM
Hi Josh, thanks! Google is pretty clever. The algorithms are looking for natural writing style and are wary of the over use of key words, however relevance is still critical. Synonyms are key to making it read and rank well. The same thing goes for links and anchor text coming to your website. These can't all be the same and from the same sites. They need to be varied to have the best effect.
Alex , 20 September 2011, 04:47 PM
Agreed Louis! One of the most important things to remember is researching key words and understanding how they can marry with articles and content. We help a number of our clients with key-word decks and content calendars to make sure they get the right info out at the right times.
I look forward to reading your blogs!
Ian West, 20 September 2011, 07:57 PM
There is a basic discipline to all (commercial) writing: it is a two stage operation. First is a creative stage... free flow, stream of conciousness stuff. The second is the editing stage. This is a pragmatic, crafting exercise.
What any writer should do, first and foremost is to write. Then, in the second phase, this is where you reflect, analyse, and craft your writing for SEO. Forget SEO when you are writing... write to communicate. Edit for SEO.
Maybelle, 21 September 2011, 02:54 AM
I thought this was going to be a pros/cons article but rather, a great reminder for bloggers as I. Thank you very much!
Maybelline , 21 September 2011, 08:47 AM
Blogs are meant to be written for people and not search engines. I guess bloggers should communicate and convey a topic primarily before optimizing it for search engines There is always a good way to do it, without having to be spammy. As search engines are enhanced, content is going to be critical and seo will be more challenging. Article mentioned a good point.
Helen , 21 September 2011, 08:56 AM
I agree Alex, great tips! It is always a fine line between writing for the search engines, yet making it entertaining and engaging for us humans. At the end of the day it is us humans that get our wallets out, not the search engine spiders, so however good our seo practices are in getting the website noticed, we have to engage with our potential customers in a meaningful way to get them to part with their cash.
Alex, 21 September 2011, 08:43 AM
"At the end of the day it is us humans that get our wallets out, not the search engine spiders"

I wish I had written that line in the blog! That is brilliant. Thanks for the comment Helen.
Jessica , 21 September 2011, 01:37 PM
Thanks for posting, Alex. Blogging should have a marketing strategy like any other marketing initiative.
Bob , 21 September 2011, 02:39 PM
I write my blog 100% for users but do so for the SEO benefits.
Jamie , 21 September 2011, 04:10 PM
Blogs are often the best vehicle to build out a conversation about a topic as it evolves over time. There are often developments that it just doesn't make sense to edit a core web page.
Alex, 21 September 2011, 04:48 PM
Agreed. If there is a flavor of the month then blogging tends to be the best channel to open things up with. You can then decide if there is enough of a market to start building website content around and adding to your list of services.
Leah, 22 September 2011, 08:10 AM
Alex, this is such a timely post. So many of us obssess over SEO and it's easy to ignore what's really important - connecting with our audiencce. These are good things to remember.
Rahsan, 22 September 2011, 08:32 AM
Alex, nice post. I'm in the middle of setting up a business blog, and agree it is definitely part of the marketing strategy, with SEO an important (but not only) consideration. I'm at a cross roads however, technical blogs - there seems to be a fine line between being informative, and giving away IP. I'm interested in thoughts / experience in this area
Alex, 22 September 2011, 08:08 AM
Hi Rahsan, it is difficult is to know what makes for an interesting blog and what might be giving away too much IP. My approach is to try and add value and get people interested. Make them want to read what you have to say and then make them want to ask questions to find out more. At that stage you can start selling them your services/product because they already see you as the authority in that space.
Travis , 22 September 2011, 02:30 PM
Good SEO should do both. After all, that's ultimately what the search engines are trying to do; give its users links to content which is relevant to what they searched for. Creating good content that is in line with SEO kills two birds with one stone.
Preeti, 23 September 2011, 03:51 PM
Hi Alex,

I agree with Maybelline and the points in your article, the most important thing should be the great content written for people. The one thing I have noticed is that most companies are getting this wrong because they forget about their readers and it's all about SEO, a good title usually can work wonders with Google rankings and not so much keywords but short sentences placed within the content work.

In my opinion companies could learn a thing or two from how individual bloggers write as this content is most shared rather than company blog content, in cases I found that most of the time it's bland, not written with passion and doesn't connect with the reader.
Gabriel, 11 October 2011, 08:51 AM
Alex, Maybellline & Preeti ::: I agree with you all! it's so good to see like-minded professionals encouraging real and relevant content and not just blogging for selfish-reward.

The post makes excellent points and I am grateful to the author for putting his thoughts into the blogosphere. I think it is silly when marketers try to optimize for search engines when who do they think they are fooling, not the real people. ;) haha

You are all awesome professionals and I thank you for your input here. Keep up the good work friends! ;D
Delia, 11 October 2011, 08:08 AM
Make it readable by people is the most important point, in my opinion. I would have called the post "Blog writing for people" to make the point of the article :) Thanks for sharing!
Irina, 11 October 2011, 08:21 AM
Yes, blogging became an effective promotion tool because posts were written for people and were read by people. This is how trust is build:interesting and infirmative posts, communication with readers. Pure SEO copywrite would spoil the effect. So I think one should be very careful while trying to SEO optimise the blog post.
Darlene, 11 October 2011, 08:36 AM
Yeah, I'm very much on the "Offer Real Value" page of this discussion, too. I'd rather have great word-of-mouth advertising (which is also a great SEO tool) than garbage posts just written for the keywords. It's possible to combine the two, but the emphasis needs to be on value, every time.
Jason, 11 October 2011, 08:49 AM
An now my take from a purely numeric perspective - less of an opinion and more a sharing of fact:
Look at your traffic and the sources of your most qualified visitors.
Sure, it's nice to get some good visitor engagement from your blog, but at the end of the day it's about landing the biggest fish. The best net for that will be SEO for a long long time to come. The quality of the leads that come from SEO, for most entry level blogs and bloggers, will always trump the quality that you'll get from blog referrals.
So if you're not doing it for SEO then you're just another marketer drinking the social Kool-Aid. Engagement schmagement - show me the money!
Miriam, 11 October 2011, 08:07 AM
I agree Jason, but Google had good news some weeks ago: the new Panda algorithm is determined to crawl great content not great keywords! Producing premium content, including key words at the right time (Topic, URL etc.), engage with your audience and get back links from power bloggers is the key for success!
Jason, 11 October 2011, 08:25 AM
Honestly, I just write with little attention to keywords and instead focus on relevancy. If your blog is instructional then its hard enough getting the point across. Title tags. Heading tags, footer text... these are priority and keywords should be used heavily there. T
Ilene, 11 October 2011, 08:44 AM
My policy is to write relevant articles and to weave some keywords in naturally. Also, adding keywords as (relevant) subject heads within h1 or h2 tags. Thus, I write for search engines and humans, but most importantly humans!
Valerie, 11 October 2011, 08:06 AM
It isn't even a question anymore. Any SEO copywriter worth their salt knows that web writing is writing for the people. SEO is not about keyword density, it's about keyword strategy, being smart about your per page keyphrases and targeting each phase of the buy cycle.
Gabriel, 11 October 2011, 08:16 AM
Here here Valerie :)
jekaterina , 13 October 2011, 08:46 AM
I have already read a lot of articles with good suggestions how to write blog posts so that people would be engaged and interested... But they all seem too general. I mean, isn't it obvious that a blog is primarily for people? And even if they find it through the search engine (thanks to keywords), they are not going to stay, if the content is poor.
Michele , 19 October 2011, 03:14 PM
No other words to say I totally agree with you all!. I realy think that a blog is firstly for people. Even if now many blogs are thought and written by company for buysiness...so the principle goal is SEO for having money!!!
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