Are you frustrated with your blog’s lack of traffic? Do you want to learn how to optimize a blog post for SEO? If so, then here are some tips for you.

In this post, you will find all the steps necessary to create well-optimized blog posts that get noticed by Google and other search engines.

Follow these tips and watch your rank skyrocket!

1. Keyword is the Key

You can’t just write about anything or put up any old content without considering what people are searching for in Google. The only way to get high rankings is if your posts match what people are looking for on the web. So take some time every day (or at least once per week) and brainstorm keywords related to your niche.

I would even suggest you have a bucket list of at least 100 keywords before even starting your blog. This prevents you from running out of ideas.

Most importantly, look at the search volume and SEO difficulty. Currently, I use the Ubersuggest tool to do this.

If you want to dig deeper, then there are several premium tools like Semrush that can give tons of valuable information. Such tools even help you to find out what keywords your competitors are using. Ubersuggest too has a paid version with competitor analysis.

using Ubersuggest in Chrome for keyword research

When thinking of writing about a topic, note down the key phrases that people may use. Then enter them into your keyword research tool.

Most often, the phrase that you initially come up with may not be the best one. There can be variations that are more popular with less competition. Most keyword tools show you what other people are searching for.

You can also look at the bottom of the Google search results page to get more ideas.

suggestions at the bottom of Google search

Some of these suggestions can be ideas for future posts as well.

2. Place keywords at relevant places

Once you have the keywords and the data, the next step is to use them strategically in your articles.

Insert the focus keyword within the text of your blog post or article. It's important that search engines can easily find your content, so you should include keywords in relevant parts of articles.

Plugins like Yoast can give you suggestions on keyword placement. It can also calculate the keyword density as you write your article, which helps find out whether you are doing it right or not.

3. Link to related posts

Linking to other related pages helps the user discover more useful content. If a user is reading a particular post and wants to know more, they can click on related posts which help them find other related topics.

This also reduces bounce rate and improves dwell time, which is a good SEO signal.

For example, someone who was reading about how to photograph the milky way may want to read another article about how to stack photos together to reduce noise.

The two articles aren't exactly related by topic but it's helpful for users who might be searching for the same concept in the future and don't want to go through articles one by one until they find what they're looking for.

In your web analytics tool, you can set up link tracking to know the no. of clicks the internal links get.

This is how I've set up a simple trigger in Matomo Analytics that fires when someone clicks an internal link:

• See also: 12 Best Google Analytics Alternatives

4. Link to external sources

Also known as outbound links, external links add credibility to your statements.

A disadvantage is that it drives the user away from your website. So always set the link to open in a new tab.

Always link to sources when referencing crucial facts in blog articles. Many people use facts from external sources while writing posts, but fail to link them in their articles.

Links to other sites and pages can help give context to your article and provide important research material for your readers.

It's a good practice to limit the number of links you place within an article and always ensure that they're relevant and high-quality; otherwise, you risk providing spammy-looking content or distracting users with too many choices.

5. Optimize headings

Optimize the headings in your blog posts to draw in readers with catchy titles.

A good blog headline will grab your reader's curiosity and inspire them to click on the post. Great headlines accompanied with crisp meta descriptions help improve click-through rates for your web pages in SERPs.

Create a title that depicts what the content is about, but is also exciting enough to entice readers with an interest in what you're writing about.

• Use numbers
• Power words
• Generate curiosity, but avoid click baits

The most important element of a blog post is the headline, which uses the h1 tag.

Not only the main headline but pay attention to the subheadings also.

Use h2, h3, etc for subheadings that define the skeleton of the article. This helps Google understand your content better with their algorithm's ability to identify different sections within it.

You can also insert a table of contents section at the top if you have more than 5 headings in an article. That makes it easy for readers to skim through and find out the sections that are important to them. 

When you optimize blog post headings, make sure it is descriptive enough but not too long.

6. Add title and meta description

Continuing from the previous section, you should consider adding a custom title and meta description if necessary.

The post title (

) and the SEO title (