A Quick and Easy Blog SEO Guide

Easy blog SEO (Search Engine Optimization) may sound like an impossible task.

But in reality, SEO is a creature of habit. Once you get the hang of it and use it regularly, it becomes a very straightforward procedure.

Blog SEO is also important, even with all the AI and constant algorithm changes occurring across the internet’s search engines. It’s how you get your content ranked on search engines and found faster by your target audience. With blog SEO, your blog content is a needle in a haystack.

This guide is designed to show you how to perform basic blog SEO and reduce confusion around it, as it doesn’t require a marketing expert to do SEO.

How Easy Blog SEO Really Is…

When I say easy blog SEO, I mean it.

It’s easy to do. There are 4 parts of SEO to understand. They are keyword research, keyword implementation, backlink building, and technical SEO.

Now, the most important thing is your content. You need to ensure that you’re creating the best possible content that you can. The quality must be the best, and the content must be packed with value.

Everyone in blogging should strive to create the best content possible, anyway.

But when it comes to how easy blog SEO really is, it does matter on the quality of content you’re creating and the value you’re putting into it.

But for the four SEO components I’ve listed above, it’s just a matter of understanding what they mean and then making them a habitual activity.

Do you know how to research a topic? Then you know how to do keyword research.

Do you know how to edit your grammar and spelling? The keyword implementation will be simple.

You know how to write a good blog post, right? Then building backlinks will be a breeze.

Technical SEO is often considered the most challenging aspect of the SEO realm. To optimize your blog for technical SEO, it’s essential to ensure it’s optimized for mobile use and loads quickly on each page. That sums up technical SEO.

Let’s get right into seeing just how easy blog SEO actually is by jumping into Keyword Research.

Easy Keyword Research

Keyword research is a straightforward and essential blog SEO practice.

You want to target a unique keyword for each post you create on your blog. Never use the same keyword more than once, as this will cause your content to compete against itself, which is not what you want.

Keyword research boils down to finding a keyword that has low competition and a higher search volume. It matches the search intent of the content you’re creating.

Determining the competition of keywords and search volume is mainly established using a tool. There are expensive but advanced tools, such as Ahref and SEMRush. There are also cheaper yet highly efficient tools, such as Uber Suggest and Keywords Everywhere.

I personally use Keywords Everywhere because I can purchase credits and enable it on my browser whenever I need to use it. The way it works, when enabled, is that when I search for a term on Google, it provides me with all sorts of data used in keyword research.

If you see a metric and don’t understand it, ask ChatGPT (free or paid edition) to explain what it means to you as easy as possible. AI really helps with these sorts of things nowadays.

You can also utilize Google’s features for keyword research, and these features are free.

They include auto complete. This is where you start searching for a term, and suggested searches will pop up. These are popular search results that you can use as search volume for your keyword research.

There is also the “People Also Ask” section on search results. Put in a keyword and search, and the “People Also Ask” section will show in the search results.

Google Trends is another free tool that displays various trending data for different keywords and trending search results.

When it comes to keywords, there are different types of keywords: short keywords and long-tail keywords.

An example of a short keyword is “blogging” as it’s just one word. It’s safe to say that the competition for this keyword is extremely high. Trying to compete will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do because so many people are competing for it.

A long-tail keyword is more than one term, such as “blogging tips for Minecraft blogs,” as it uses more than one word. This will still attract interest as there are many Minecraft bloggers likely looking for blogging tips; however, since it’s more specific, it should have less competition.

Easy blog SEO will happen quicker if you use long-tail keywords in your content, as they still have a good search opportunity but a lower competitive rate.

Then comes search intent.

Search intent is simple to understand. The keyword you’re targeting needs to match the content you’re writing. If it doesn’t and a person clicks on your blog from a search engine, is unsatisfied, and clicks back to go look at other results, it can hurt your search ranking as a result. Ensure that the keywords you use accurately represent the content you’re creating, or it will backfire on you.

See, keyword research shows you exactly how easy blog SEO actually is, and once you do it a couple of times, it’ll be a simple habit after that.

Easy Keyword Implementation

Another example of how easy blog SEO is, particularly in the step of implementing your targeted keywords into your blog content.

Most bloggers overthink this, though.

There is such a thing as overusing a keyword in your content. In fact, I’d be more concerned about doing it too many times than not doing it enough.

Doing it too many times is known as keyword stuffing, and Google and other search engines will penalize you for doing so.

If you’re using WordPress as your blogging software, I always recommend using something like Yoast SEO, which is a freemium plugin to help you audit the SEO score of each post you create.

I just tell people to ignore the feature in Yoast that suggests how many times you should use your keyword. Now, don’t do it more than what they suggest. At the same time, don’t feel the need to do it as much as they suggest, either. I do about half of what they suggest, and I still do really good on search engines.

This is my keyword implementation formula. Please feel free to steal it:

• I put the keyword in my blog post title, as close to the beginning as possible.
• I put the keyword in the URL slug of my post.
• I put the keyword in the H1 heading (only have one H1) and then at least one of the other headings, whether it’s H2 or H3
• I put the keyword in 1-2 images I add to the post (in the ALT tag)
• I include the keyword in the first sentence of the post.
• I might include the keyword in the first paragraph of each heading, a separated section of my post.
• I usually include the keyword about 10-12 times in each post longer than 1,500 words.

That’s it!

That’s what I do, and I get plenty of posts on page one of Google search results. However, as I mentioned earlier, I ensure the keyword aligns with the subject’s intent, as that’s extremely important.

Easy Link Implementation

You should also include internal and external links in your blog posts.

There are two reasons for this. You want to show off other content you’ve written by inserting internal links. You want to link to related content that has a higher value to help others build their own backlinks.

There are three rules when it comes to adding any link, whether internal or external:

(1)   Make sure the link is relatable to the subject you’re linking to. Unrelated links are often identified as spam by search engines, which can harm your SEO.

(2)   The anchor text of your link (the wording that creates the hyperlink) should be descriptive about what people are clicking on. “Click here” is not good enough.

(3)   The link you include should be from a valuable and trusted source. If you link to shady websites or anything that violates Google’s terms, it can hurt your ranking in the process.

Add relevant links to other pages and posts on your blog and away from your blog. This can help people learn more about your blog and keep them on your website, which is essential for SEO.

Easy Way to Get Backlinks

There are a few easy blog SEO tactics to practice for getting backlinks for your blog content.

I’ll talk about 3 of them, including:

1. Guest blogging
2. Social media
3. Content Value

Guest blogging is when you write a blog for another blog that isn’t yours. You should be doing this often. I’d even suggest once a month. Most of the time, you get to include a link to your blog in the bio section. Just make sure you’re giving them the same quality and value that you give to your own blog.

Social media is a great place to share your blog content. Just don’t promote your blog links and don’t post anything else. To make this work, you need to build a loyal following on your social media pages. That means you need to be active on social media and put in the work.

The best way to acquire backlinks is to create blog posts that offer high-quality content and provide significant value. Other websites and bloggers will look for that kind of content and link to it. If your content is generic, no one will link to it.

Building backlinks takes time, so make sure you’re committed to giving it all the time it needs.

Now, Over to You!

See how easy blog SEO actually is?

Use the advice above and you’ll see. It’s helped me over the years, and now SEO is very simple. I know it’ll help you, too.

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Have a great day and Happy Blogging!

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.