Optimizing Blog Posts for Search Engine Visibility

We begin this lesson with a reminder that readers come first, and search engines second. When posting new content to your business blog, try to create something of value for the reader. Try to create blog posts that are interesting, helpful, entertaining or otherwise engaging. Do this, and half the search engine “battle” is already won.

When writing content for your business blog, limit each blog post to a single idea. Blog posts should be easy to digest in one reading. Shorter posts are more eyeball-friendly and will likely help you grow your readership, especially if those posts are engaging as well. My personal rule of thumb is to write more than 100 words (for value) but below 500 words (for brevity).

From a search engine standpoint, it’s also better to create a higher number of short posts. Most blog programs save each of your blog posts as a separate page. So if you blog once a day for a year, you’ll have 365 pages of web content. That’s a lot of keyword-rich content to educate people and search engines alike!

Also, be sure the content of each blog post is a direct extension of the blog post’s title. Search engines robots will compare the content of your blog post to the post’s title. So the key phrase in your title should be carried over into the actual blog post.

When you think about it, this should happen automatically. If, for example, you were blogging about a new software product for bankers, a good title might be “Bank Software: What to Ask Before Buying.” This title should then match the body content of the blog post. Maybe this blog post would go on to list the top-ten questions to ask before choosing a banking software program. The page’s content would be a direct extension of the title. Good for readers, and good for search engines!