5 easy steps for writing SEO friendly blogs

So, you’re writing blogs for your pet business, and you’re wondering how to get them to show up on Google? We need to give your blogs a bit of an SEO friendly polish, but what does that even mean?

And perhaps more importantly, how do you do it?

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. In regular people speak, that means optimising your blog post so that it will show up on search engines like Google.

For a long time, I wrote blog posts that I thought were really good, and perhaps the content was….. But nobody could find them because I didn’t have a clue about SEO.

I’m going to add a caveat here; following SEO tips cannot guarantee you better Google rankings, but it puts your hat in the ring.

How can you make your blogs show up on Google?

There are a lot of factors that will influence how likely your blog post is to be found on Google. But I don’t want you to go down an SEO rabbit hole and run away.

So instead, let’s focus on five easy tweaks you can make to make your blog posts more SEO friendly.

Focus on these five things;

1. Choosing keywords for your blog post

Keywords are words or phrases that someone might type into Google to find content. That could be a question like ‘why does my dog eat grass,’ a search for a service such as ‘dog walker near me,’ or a company name like ‘pets at home.’

Are you a dog trainer?
Grab my free SEO keyword research list for dog trainers here.

The most important thing to think about when choosing the keywords for your blog post is user intent. Google wants to please the human searching, so think about what question or problem your blog is answering, and choose keywords that somebody looking for answers would use.

There are a few tools that can help you here – Google’s people also ask, Answer the Public, and Keywords everywhere. You can see how I use these to help me with my keyword research here.

Ultimately you want one focus keyword, which is your main keyword that you are targeting. And two to three secondary keywords or synonyms to use in the body and subheaders of your blog post.

Make sure your focus keyword is in your blog title, the first 100 words of your blog, and in one subheading.

And don’t be tempted to keyword stuff! Use your keywords naturally, where they make sense!

If you want to dig a little deeper, then let me walk you through keyword research for beginners in just 4 minutes.

You can find a couple more videos and some more SEO tips here.

2. Writing an SEO-friendly blog title

Your blog title has three main jobs:

To tell the reader what’s in the blog
To tell Google what’s in the blog
To encourage your reader to want to learn more

Forget clickbaity titles and make sure that whatever blog title you use is honest and clear about what is inside. And don’t forget to ensure it has your focus keyword in it.

Your title is pretty important, so I have a whole blog dedicated to helping your write killer blog titles here.

Watch the video below for a walk-through of a real-life blog I penned for Your Family Dog Trainer and discover why it works.

3. Include subheaders in your blog post

Subheaders are crucial to your blogs. 79% of people scan read blog content, and only 16% of readers will read your entire blog.

Your subheaders will help people scan and find the bits of your blog that answers what they’re looking for.

Write subheaders that tell both the reader and Google what’s in your blog’s next few paragraphs. If appropriate, try and use your focus, secondary keywords or synonyms in a couple. You can read more about formatting your blog post for optimum user experience here.

4. Write your Tag/Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

The Meta Title and Meta Description of your blog post is the bit that shows up on the Google search list.

What are Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

If you’re unsure where you can edit this when you upload your blog post, then ask your website developer to show you.

Your Meta Title should be a maximum of 60 characters and your Meta Description 160 characters, including spaces.

Make sure you include your focus keyword in both. Front load your meta title with the search term you’re targeting.

Think of your Meta Description as the tiny little intro that will be the deciding factor on whether someone wants to click through and read or scroll past. It needs to be compelling – after all ranking is one thing – winning the click is the main goal.

Learn much more about how to craft excellent Meta Titles and Descriptions in this blog. It’s a pretty well-kept secret, but it’s gold I tell you!

5. Write a quality blog post

I’ve saved the most important for last.

There is absolutely no point spending time churning out blog posts and doing your keyword research and SEO optimising if your blog’s quality is just a bit meh!

Your blogs most important job is for it to be something your target reader enjoys reading and finds helpful.

If people stay and read your blog, that gets a big thumbs up from Google. If they leave as quickly as they arrived, and click back to find another answer in the search results, perhaps your blog needs a bit of polishing.

It’s a good idea to google your blog topic before writing and check out the subject’s top search results. Are the blogs that are ranking on the first page of Google providing a lot of content to answer the user’s search query? Is there something you could add that would give the user more?

The ultimate blogging goal is to have people read your blog and walk away satisfied that they got exactly what they were looking for. So keep that front and foremost in your mind when you pen your next blog, and you’ll be sailing into happy blogland.