There are millions of blogs out there, so it’s hard to be noticed and relevant in the blogosphere. If you want to get noticed by Google and your readers, here are 10 tricks on how to format blog posts that Google will love.
In the past, blogging was fairly straightforward. You blogged about a particular niche and you were guaranteed to attract readers. These days though, because of the sheer growth of blogs that covers almost every niche imaginable, it’s become much harder to stand out from the crowd.
Nowadays, it’s not enough for bloggers to just publish a stream of thoughts. You need to format your blog posts in a way that goes beyond merely making them sound good.
Understanding the guidelines to format your blog posts will help search engines (including those who read blogs!) understand your content better than ever before!
Why should I care if Google loves my blog post?
Ah, yes. Google should love your blog post. Who doesn’t want to be on Google’s good side? A blog is one of the best ways to show Google and other search engines that you’re an authority on a subject. It’s one of the most effective forms of content marketing, too.
By posting valuable, relevant content on your website, you’re creating long-term value for your business. No matter how amazing your content is, if it isn’t well-structured, Google won’t know what to do with it.
What does “well-structured” mean?
I’m talking about meta tags, alt tags, headings, bulleted lists, and paragraphs. Show me a search engine that doesn’t care about this stuff and I’ll show you a search engine that’s losing market share by the minute.
Think about a blog like gardening; when you start it and water it regularly, you’ll start to see a nice green plant grow in your garden. If no one visits your site to enjoy your blog post, then it hasn’t been effective.
If you want people to read your blog, you have to make sure that Google will rank it high in the search results. With these tips listed below, Google will love your blog, and then more readers will come.
Your social media strategy should focus on authenticity and engagement. Create compelling stories that increase your likelihood of gaining followers. Consistently create engaging content that will likely lead people to your website.
The days of producing duplicate content are over. Now, Google wants to know if you are relevant and authoritative on a particular topic. The primary way to demonstrate this is by providing information that adds value to the customer.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Getting Google to love your post is quite simple, and all I need to do is give you some pointers. Below are 10 tricks on how to format blog posts that your readers and Google will love.
Learn more: 10 best social media automation tools to increase engagement.
1. Create a page plan
To format blog posts in a way that attracts the attention of search engine bots requires an understanding of what they want. Search engines visit sites to be served relevant content. Therefore, it is important to know what search engines look for and how to present the information appropriately.
You’ve just taken on your first blog writing project and you’re scrambling to put together all your resources. What now?
The first step is to create a simple outline of the page plan because it will tell you what goes where on the page, and by doing so it helps Google rank your work more effectively.
Creating a page plan for your blog posts is the simplest way to ensure that you’re covering all of your bases. In turn, this ensures that each post will be optimized in its entirety and complete with the correct type of data.
2. Craft a catchy title
We all love a great headline. It can make the difference between a reader clicking or not, and reading or not.
There are millions of blogs in the world and many people creating content on the same topics. To make sure your blog posts stand out, you should try and craft a catchy title that will ensure they get the attention of individuals who may be interested in what you have to write.
To craft a catchy title, start by answering the question: How will people search? What words will they use to discover your blog post? Consider how your title will be searched, and write it using the words that people will use.
However, make sure that your title isn’t too long – 60 characters in length should be sufficient for most titles. Long titles with too many keywords and phrases may look impressive, but you may end up with a piece of content that people won’t want to read.
3. Make the most of headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings provide an opportunity to break up your content while driving home the message you want your reader to take away. It’s also the easiest way for search engines to understand what you’re trying to say.
Put your text into hierarchies of headings and subheadings. We’ve already seen that H1 is the king of all headings, so use it to introduce the topic at hand whenever you can.
In some cases, for SEO purposes, H2-H6 is not as important as H1. Still, try to fill out your page with various levels of headings, including an H2 for each major section in your article and at least an H3 for each sub-section in each major section.
Your readers do not have as much time to read your content in-depth as you do when you first write it. Subheadings can play a major role in making sure that you help them consume it at a glance. A lack of headings and subheadings is often cited as a reason for content obscurity, so use them!
4. Make sure your introduction captures the essence of your post
A good blog post introduction should make your reader want to keep reading (and continue subscribing/sharing). It’s one of the most important parts of any blog post. Why? Blogging is only an effective method for generating traffic if readers continue to read, engage with, and share your content.
The reason we read introductions is to understand what is going to be in the body of the article. They set the tone of the article and often hint at its main points.
As content writers, we always search for ways to better tell our stories. By creating a captivating introduction, you’ll have a solid foundation for compelling content. Wipe out the cobwebs with an effective opening sentence that grabs your readers and compels them to read on.
As a rule of thumb, your introduction should not be more than 3 -5 paragraphs and each paragraph should not be more than 300 characters.
5. Meta descriptions should include keywords
Meta descriptions are the hypertext fields used by web-search engines to generate descriptive snippets of content for search results pages. By including meta descriptions, webmasters can improve the chances that their users will see appropriate search result snippets on search engine result pages.
A good description should match the meta content elements and be descriptive, engaging. It is tied to on-page SEO as you want to include keywords that are relevant to your site so include keywords but make it a good description!
This section is one of the few areas where I say don’t copy and paste descriptions from somewhere else as it could get you in trouble with Google or other search engines.
Always try to write a meta description for each page on your site yourself. That way you know what is being said about each page.
SEO is all about getting links from high-authority sites in the industry. Google attaches importance to inbound links from other sites. The more a site is linked to, the higher the authority of that site.
So make sure to tie your blog post to another piece of content on a relevant, high-authority site, such as “How To Do X” or “Top 10 Best Practices for Y”. Chances are that if you give away this useful information for free, people will link back to it and point their readers towards it.
You should use a mixture of your links with external links too. In addition, remember that Google knows a lot about the reader and his/her interests. That’s why it is important to link to high-authority sites to increase trust.
7. Use high-quality images and add alt text
You must provide captivating images to match your topic. Also, you should use alt text (text added underneath your image) for the images and videos. This will help search engines index the image and understand its context with your web page.
To do this correctly, you should include alt text in your graphics editor before you upload your image to your blog or website. Besides, adding alt text to images not only improves your SEO rankings but also helps visually impaired people access images through screen reader programs.
8. Break up paragraphs
One of the best ways to format your blog posts is to make your content more readable by breaking up your paragraphs. Research shows that people tend to skim when reading, looking for bits of information.
It’s common for content creators to have a blog post filled with one monstrous paragraph. While this works in theory, it doesn’t work in reality.
It’s difficult for people (and search engines) to read that stuff, and you might lose your reader if the content doesn’t grab their attention right away. As soon as you can, break up paragraphs into smaller sentences.
Focus on dividing lengthy paragraphs into shorter, more readable chunks. Doing this will not only aid users in scoping out the content; it will also help you avoid some consequences. Note that the total collection of paragraphs within a section should not be more than 300 words.
9. Write longer articles if you can
Writing longer articles is one way to go about SEO. It allows you to include more keywords in the article. While it isn’t guaranteed that Google will bless your post with a higher ranking, it will surely help.
For example, if you write about accounting and finance-related topics in 2000 words and another article, you write about just 1000 words, chances are that the former will be ranked higher because of its length.
Be sure that each word you write conveys a sense and contributes something to your goal. The search engine will index and recognize articles with proper format and keyword placement throughout them.
Longer blog posts that are well-written are better than shorter pieces that lack proper formatting.
10. Include a call to action in your outro
You probably already know that your blog posts need to have a beginning, middle, and end. Your introduction and conclusion may be important to you as the blogger or even your readers.
Think of your blog post outro as the equivalent of a checkout counter display. It’ll be the last thing your readers see before they check out and move on with their lives.
A call-to-action (CTA) should be included in the body of the article, but for maximum effect consider including it again at the end.
A CTA is simply a marketing term for a type of content that prompts the reader to do something. It could be telling them to check out other posts you have on your blog or you could ask them to sign up for your email newsletter.
It’s a prompt to take action, with a link or slogan that guides what to do next. Think of it as double insurance that your content gets seen and shared.
FAQs
What should I do to make my blog posts SEO-friendly?
Simply be human. Write from the heart, and let your personality shine. Using a popular blogging theme to get the basics in place is a great start, and will provide you with consistency and easy updates as your blog grows.
Having at least 1,000 words is recommended by Google as a good length for rankable text.
Make sure that images are relevant, large, and clickable to provide users with interesting content and encourage them to visit your site.
Learn more: 8 things you can do right now to boost your rankings.
How do I know if my article is SEO-friendly?
SEO-friendly means that the article is readable by users and search engines alike. It means that most normal people should be able to read the article without having to spend time figuring out what is written on it just so they can understand what it means.
Also, SEO-friendly content is written with the intention to help the reader. In order for you to do that, your article should: address a specific topic or problem, including a solution, and look like something that the reader would be interested in reading.
This does not mean that the article should be filled with all the popular SEO keywords. That would make the article look like spam. In addition, there are several tools to check your website’s SEO.
What makes a successful blog?
A successful blog is optimized for Google search. There are four rules to creating a successful blog: title tags, meta description, meta keywords, and the body field of your content. If these four items are properly formatted, you will get the ranking you deserve in the search engine.
In addition, there are many reasons why a blog can be successful. One of the most common is consistency in blogging regularly. Blogging about topics that the visitors want to read and engaging the readers with helpful information is another reason.
What does ranking on Google mean?
Ranking on Google means that your website is the hit of the party. It means that when someone types a keyword into Google, your website will be amongst the top pages that Google chooses to show them. The higher you rank, the better because people find your website more easily.
Who should start a blog?
Anyone. Blogging is fun and rewarding for many people. No one can tell you whether you should start one because it depends on your goals and your motivation. Do know that you don’t have to have a blog to be a traveler, digital nomad, or writer.
Having a blog can be an extra wonderful bonus but it’s not a necessity. Those who go about blogging in the wrong way (without having the necessary audience base already waiting for them) will find themselves against many walls and burn out fast.
Learn more: Profitable blog niches that will make you a ton of money.
What makes a blog stand out from the competition?
Simply put, a blog stands out when it is full of value to the reader. A successful blog is built on delivering this value repeatedly over time. Nonetheless, this isn’t always easy to do, but hopefully, these 10 tricks on how to format blog posts can help you achieve this goal!
Learn more: How to carry out competitor research.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a seasoned blogger, or just starting to dip your toe into the world of blogging, it is wise to find out how to format a blog post. In this article, I’ve covered 10 tricks on how to format blog posts.
In addition to helping your readers find what they’re looking for, the right format helps Google understand what your page is about. It’s also worth noting that there are some simple steps you can take after you’ve written your blog post to make it ready for search engine indexing.
With this new knowledge, you might be looking for the best blogging platform, as you will need to write posts that Google will love. Check out my post on the best blogging platforms that will help you blog like a pro.
The blog has an entire section devoted to WordPress if you choose WordPress as the best cms platform for you. It will be an invaluable resource for all of your WordPress needs.
I hope you enjoyed this post on how to format blog posts. I encourage you to share this article with your friends, especially those who are planning on starting a blog.
Adios Amigo!