Panda, penguin, hummingbird. 

These all sound like cute, harmless critters, right? But if you know anything about SEO, you’ll also know that they’re just a handful of the many, many algorithms Google updates every year.

SEO feels like it changes every day. Once upon a time, we were told to buy links to boost our ranking, and now we’re told another story entirely. 

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So what really matters when it comes to getting your blog post ranked on that much-coveted first page of Google? 

Firstly, I want to hit you with a pretty hefty stat:

Google receives over 63,000 searches per second on any given day.

That’s a lot of potential customers that are actively looking for something. These aren’t just people who are scrolling through social media; they’re people who want information on something – this is why SEO is such a powerful marketing method.

But only if it’s done right.

And, because there’s so much jargon out there about it that can make you want to run away and hide in a dark corner, we’ve put together a list of 10 easy things you can do to your blog posts to get them ranking higher. 

  1. Create High-Quality Content

Think back to when you were at school or college for a moment. When you wrote papers you needed to do a huge amount of research and collect relevant information from credible sources – professors wouldn’t accept anything less, right? 

It’s the same with blog posts (but imagine Google is your all-seeing, all-knowing professor). 

Most of us aren’t established experts in our fields, so integrating cold, hard data and credibly sourced information to back up our points builds reader trust and indicates to our Professor (sorry, Google) that we’re pumping out good stuff. 

Today, the quality of your content is one of the most important Google ranking factors.

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According to Andrey Lipattsev, the Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, high-quality content is one of the two most important signals used by Google to rank blog posts in searches. 

High-quality content doesn’t mean your post has to be epically long (although the average first-page result on Google is 1890 words). Google simply wants to see that searchers aren’t quickly clicking away from your site when they land on it, which indicates that it’s not giving them what they are looking for. 

  1. Feature Engaging Visuals (Infographics, Videos, Photographs) To Increase Time Spent On Page and Optimize Them For SEO

Consumer attention spans are plummeting by the day (seriously, our attention spans are now shorter than that of a goldfish).

But there’s one thing you can do to keep people staying on-site for longer: include visuals. It’s been proven that images are more compelling than copy and, when you add that to the fact that people remember what they see rather than what they read, you’ve got yourself an important reason to add images to your posts.

Don’t just stop at static images though. Populate your posts with relevant videos, charts, and infographics to dramatically increase the time people spend on the page. But remember, if you want to avoid any sticky copyright situations, make sure you always include the image source. 

However, simply throwing up a few images and hoping for the best won’t do anything for your SEO. 

Just like with your written words, Google wants to know what your images are about so it can serve them up to people who are searching specifically for them, which is why it’s vital to optimize your images by:

  • Adding your keywords into the Alt Title and description of your images 
  • Making sure your images are the right resolution and not so big that they hold up page loading time 

This is where you add the Alt Title in WordPress. 

  1. Spice Up Your Headline According To New Data

Your headlines are almost as important as the content you create. With a compelling, eye-catching headline, you’ll get more click throughs, which means you’ll get rewarded by Google. 

BuzzSumo recently analyzed 100 million headlines to see what made the most successful ones engaging. 

As well as tapping into your reader’s emotions, it’s important that you think about which words you use and in what order. 

For example, “will make you” was by far the most engaging phrase in the headlines analyzed (“This Trick Will Make You Rank Higher in Google”). 

And, while you might jump to the conclusion that shorter headlines pack a heftier punch, you might want to think again. In fact, the study revealed that headlines with about 15 words were the most successful. 

So, if

So, if you aren’t already conjuring up juicy, click-able headlines, it might be time to change your strategy if you want to rank higher on Google. 

  1. Keyword Research

First things first, Google needs to know what your content is about. And, in order to do that, it sifts through your blog post for specific words that will help it get an idea.

This is where keywords come in. These words act as prompts to Google, and basically tell it, “THIS is what my blog post is about”. 

Keyword research is the very first stage of on-page optimization, and it kind of fuels all the other points we’re going to cover in this post, but it can be confusing if you’ve never done it before.

The key is to not think too hard about it. 

It’s highly likely you’re already integrating relevant keywords into your content by simply writing about your chosen topic (e.g. if you’re writing a post about “cupcake recipes”, the chances are you’re going to use the words “cupcake recipes” in that post in a pretty natural way). 

But if you want to discover which keywords relating to that topic (say, cupcake recipes) get the most searches each month or have the highest competition (with lots of other brands targeting them, too), you might want to try out a keyword analysis tool, like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

This will show you the exact words people are using in Google’s search bar to search for the kind of content you’re writing about. 

  1. Sprinkle Relevant Keywords Throughout Your Blog Post

So, now you’ve established which keywords are:

  1. Most relevant to the topic you’re writing about
  2. Being searched by people you’d like to attract
  3. Not being used by too many competitors

Next, you want to sprinkle your chosen phrases throughout your blog post in places where they’ll have the most impact for both human readers and search engine bot readers. 

Don’t panic, it’s a lot easier than it sounds.

Basically, you just need to include your chosen keywords in the following places:

  1. The title of your blog post
  2. The headings and subheadings of your blog post (more on that in a mo)
  3. The first paragraph of your blog post
  4. The last paragraph of your blog post
  5. The title tags and metadescriptions of your blog post
  6. The image descriptions of any visuals in your blog post (again, more on that in a mo) 

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We should probably issue a word of warning here. In the past, it was common practice to stuff blog posts full of keywords until they were bursting at the seams and practically unreadable.

Don’t do this. 

Not only will it confuse and annoy your readers, but you’ll also get penalized by Google who is more intelligent that ever and knows exactly what you’re doing. 

  1. Integrate Longtail Keywords

Did you know that 50% of search queries on Google are longer than four words?

These longer phrases are known as longtail keywords and they indicate to Google what your blog post is about on a deeper level.

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Think about it: when you search on Google, are you more likely to search “SEO tips” or “SEO tips for small businesses”. Consumers often narrow their searches down, and longtail keywords let you tap into this market of people who are more focused and, therefore, more likely to become a customer. 

Again, you can use a keyword tool to analyze which longtail phrases have the best ranking potential for your blog post. Then you can go ahead and strategically sprinkle a few of these throughout your content, too. 

  1. Incorporate Bucket Brigades To Increase Reader Engagement 

Here’s the deal:

When readers spend more time on page, Google immediately knows that the content on that page is worthy of a high ranking. 

If people stick around, there’s a reason for it, right?

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So engaging content is key, but what does that look like?

Bucket Brigades are a really simple copywriting technique that were originally created to pull readers through a sales letter. In blog posts, they look like a short sentence ending with a colon or a question mark. 

These work great in the introduction to immediately grab reader’s attention, and then again half-way through when the reader might be getting twitchy and wanting to click away. 

Go back to the top of #7 and you’ll see I’ve used a Bucket Bridge (“here’s the deal:”). 

  1. Use Headings

Headings are the backbone of your blog post.

They give readers an indication of what they can expect from the next section and they make your posts easily scannable (remember, our attention spans are now dangerously low!). 

But more than that, headings are important for SEO because they help Google grasp the key points you’re making in your post. 

Rather than being faced with a huge wall of text which, let’s face it, has most people clicking away faster than it takes to say “Google”, headings and subheadings give readers the chance to quickly consume the main points of your post. 

 

And, if you want to make your headings particularly compelling (for both readers and Google), sprinkle in some of your keywords for an extra pinch of SEO goodness. 

This improves the user experience, which helps to improve rankings in search results. Combining relevant keywords at the top of the page in a user-friendly way makes headings an important part of SEO. 

  1. Link Out to Other Sites and Mention Relevant Influencers and Thought Leaders In Your Industry

You are not an island – nor is your blog post.

Don’t try and handle an entire topic on your own. Instead, link out to useful resources, key thought leaders in your industry, and other relevant sites to, first of all, generate good blogging karma and, second of all, increase your chances of getting a link bank (remember earlier when I said that high-quality content was one of the two biggest factors in Google ranking? Well, the other biggest factor is incoming links). 

 

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When you link out to high-quality relevant sites, Google can see that you’re trying to provide as much value as possible to your readers. 

You can also leverage those link-outs to encourage big-name thought leaders to return the favor. For example, if you’ve included a list of experts in your post you can email them and any publications you’ve mentioned asking them to share the post with their audience. 

Not only does this present a great opportunity for link building, but it also creates important relationships for future content opportunities. 

  1. Check Your Own Link Structure

And, as well as linking out to other sites, you also want to be linking to other relevant blog posts within your own site.

If you’ve already written a couple of posts on a similar topic, linking out to them will make your blog post stronger because it shows that you’ve written about it more than once and are somewhat of an authority on the matter. 

For example, Forbes links out to a selection of further reading or “Recommended Posts” at the end of every article:

On top of that, your internal linking structure (where one blog post links to another and so on) is important for SEO too, because it gives Google an insight into what your content is about and which pieces are superior.

  1. Make Your Blog Post Easy to Share

Let’s rewind to linkbanks again.

Getting high-priority sites to link back to your little blog is the most time-consuming and frustrating part of the SEO process, but you can make it easier on yourself by implementing share buttons.

This makes it a piece of cake for other sites and brands to share your blog post across social media channels – a.k.a. creating linkbacks to your site. And hey, you might get some extra visitors in the process which is always win-win. 

  1. Optimize Your On-page Load Time

How frustrated do you get when a webpage takes ages to load?

If you instantly feel that little fire burning in your chest and start aggressively drumming your fingers on the nearest surface, you’re not alone. You see, page load time is a vital part of SEO, but it’s one that a lot of people overlook.

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But it’s so important, in fact, that Amazon has reported an increased revenue of 1% for every 100 milliseconds of improved loading time. That’s no minor feat. 

Check out Google PageSpeed to help you get your load time up to scratch and, if it’s still provoking aggressive surface drumming, there are plenty of plugins that help optimize load speed. 

Bonus Step: Add Call to Action Banners Within the Blog Post to Increase Blog Conversions and Sales

Sometimes readers just need a push in the right direction. Once you’ve got the visitors coming in via Google, it’s time to add some serious conversion power to your post with Calls-to-Action (CTAs). 

Research shows that over 90% of visitors who read your headline also read your CTA copy – that’s a great number for conversions. 

Take TINT’s blog post, “Everything You Should Know About Social Media Aggregators” as an example. Before adding a CTA within the post, we were averaging around 3-4 free trials a month via this post.

Because we were already seeing conversions through it, we knew that capitalizing on it would only make the post even more successful. And, lo-and-behold, as soon as we added CTA banners within the post promoting our free trials, the conversion rate rocketed to over 400%.

Are You Ready to Optimize Your Blog Post for SEO?

SEO is an amazing technique for businesses to tap into, but we get that the jargon and mumbo jumbo can be confusing and head-spinning, especially if you’re not tech-savvy.

But it doesn’t have to be difficult. 

All you need to do is make sure Google knows exactly what your content is about by integrating keywords and phrases, and ensuring your content is of the best quality it can be.