How We Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts in WordPress

Blog content creation is all about planning, outlining, writing, editing, and publishing SEO friendly blog posts. On the contrary, you will hurt your Website’s Google rankings if you write substandard blog posts. So instead, concentrate on writing what hooks and benefits your audience while at the same time being well-optimized for search engines.

It doesn’t matter which niche or business industry you run. Whether you write blog posts for product reviews or how-to guides, you ought to optimize them to be SEO friendly. So, we are sure this guide will help you write blog posts people will read, like, and share.

We’ve organized this article into five sections, which is the blog-post writing process. It is what we use at DIGting to write blog posts that are informative, inspiring, and SEO friendly. The writing process involves:

1. Content Research phase
2. Content Writing phase
3. Content Editing & Proofreading phase
4. Content Branding phase
5. SEO Content Optimisation phase

1. Content Research Phase

Surprisingly, the blog post writing process doesn’t begin with the writing phase. Perhaps writing high-quality content demands more than just exceptional writing skills. There are things we consider before getting down to write our blog posts, for instance:

• We first find an interesting topic relevant to our niche.
• Then, we gather extra knowledge about the topic we’ve selected.

Therefore, to all blog post writers, we recommend you make the research phase a priority while creating content for your website. First, it enables you to understand your topic to the core. Secondly, you can identify what your competitors have already published concerning your target topic. And lastly, you will identify the information gap that might give your blog post a competitive advantage.

In other words, this phase concentrates on gathering the necessary resources that make your blog post more informative and valuable to the users. Here are some of the things we put in place while preparing to write our blog posts:

We Research our topic

Topic research is the starting point of every successful blog post all writers should consider. It involves finding a suitable topic, analyzing its popularity, and gathering extra information we might need later while writing our SEO friendly blog posts. The best idea is to get an interesting topic that will hook content readers. But how do you know what interests your audience?

• Hint: All blog post writers must research the most common questions people ask. And the challenges/problems they face. Then, write your SEO friendly blog posts to answer these questions or describe a solution to these problems.

You can best achieve this by using tools like Quora to find user concerns, Semrush Topic Research tool to find an optimal topic, and Social Media forums to discover users’ pain points.

With these tools, you will identify your audience’s challenges. So, craft a topic out of this and conduct additional research to understand the subject matter. For each piece of information you get, we recommend you document it for future reference during the writing phase.

We created a complete guide that describes how you can use the Semrush SEO topic research tool. We’re sure this guide will help you find the most optimal and efficient topic to write about.

We research our competitors

Here are the things to do while conducting competitive research for your SEO friendly blog posts:

1. Using SEO tools to identify all the competitors for the selected topic.
2. Evaluating all the available blog content to get more ideas.
3. And analyzing the information gap available.

In other words, this step helps you determine your competitors for a given topic and how they perform in search engines. This is something we do for all the blog posts we write for our website.

5 Guidelines for successful competitive research:

• Determine who is writing what you want to write.
• Their domain authority and backlink count
• What content types are available for your topic (Are there videos or just text-based content)?
• What keywords are your competitors using for your target topic?
• Which image designs and concepts are already available in the published content?

The best way to find this information is to search your topic on Google. Then, examine each result (Videos, texts, and images) on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Additionally, consider looking at the People Also Ask section. In the end, you need to document all this information because it will guide you later when you start to write your blog post.

We research our keywords

Identifying your target users’ challenges and burning questions alone might not be enough. So, blog post writers must understand the language people use while searching for solutions online. Hence, the search terms users put in search engines (Keywords). In this case, keyword research will help you understand your target market and search intentions.

This step involves analyzing, comparing, and prioritizing the best keyword opportunities relevant to the selected topic. So, incorporate an effective keyword research tool like Semrush. This tool gives insight into how often people search for a particular word. And how those searches have changed over time.

3 Key things to consider while choosing a keyword for your blog posts:

• Consider a keyword with a higher traffic volume per month
• Choose a keyword with lower keyword difficulty (KD) in percentage (how hard it is to rank for a specific keyword)
• Consider keyword intent. Is the keyword you are using Informational, commercial, or transactional? It gives you an idea that sets the tone for your blog post.

In the end, you should have an illustrative document containing the information you have gathered in the research phase. This could include your target topic as a heading, links to the relevant resources, primary and secondary keywords, and a list of competitors.

Topic Research tools we recommend

Here are the 4 topic research tools we recommend for blog post writers, business owners, plus digital and affiliate marketers. Some of them are entirely free to use, while others offer free and premium services.

1. Semrush: An all-in-one tool suite for topic, keyword, and competitive research. We use it to track our keyword strategy, perform SEO audits, and search for backlink opportunities for the blog posts we write. Try out Semrush by creating a free or premium account to enjoy all the features available for content marketing.
2. Google: This will help you find other blog content related to your target topic. Check the Video results from the Video tab on Google. Also, examine image results using the image tab on Google.
3. Quora: A crowdsourced question-and-answer platform that relies on an active community for content and development. Navigate through Quora to find the most asked questions. Then, create your SEO friendly blog post to rotate around a solution to these questions.
4. Social Media Forums: Use discussion forums built around specific topics and interests. You might land on an exciting thread your target audience is most interested in—for example, Facebook groups and Twitter lists.

2. Content Writing phase

The writing phase involves documenting your findings to create the first draft of your desired blog article. It rotates around the idea of creating content by humans for humans. In other words, writing helpful content that serves a purpose for users and not just to rank in search engines.

In fact, Google’s Helpful Content Update (the latest Site-wide ranking signal) emphasizes that blog post writers should be mindful. This algorithm checks how closely a site page follows Google’s core search guidelines. Hence, it analyses if your website content benefits your users. Otherwise, the algorithm will down-rank the entire site.

To be safe, blog posts and content writers should create high-quality content that users love. Hence, we recommend you think about your users first while you write your SEO friendly blog posts. Everything else comes in later.

11 Tactics for writing SEO friendly blog posts Google will consider helpful:

• Introduce your topic and clearly explain the basics without confusing your readers.
• Support your claims or factual statements with valid statistical data from trusted sources
• Organize your blog post into sub-titles to help your readers understand it easily (create a content outline). 
• Expand your points with descriptions that explain your ideas well 
• Avoid plagiarizing other people’s work. 
• Create content focused on people instead of search engines. In other words, show expertise in the topic by addressing users’ needs.
• Stick to your area of expertise and don’t go off the main topic
• Discuss only those topics you have experienced or acquired deep knowledge about
• Provide a genuine and sufficient answer to searchers’ questions
• Never try to answer a question that has no proven or confirmed answer. 
• Always follow Google’s guidelines for creating helpful content that addresses users’ needs.

Above all, you need to understand who you are writing for (your target audience and their needs). Are they expert or naïve users? This way, you can know whether to use industrial jargon or simple language for them to understand.

Blog post writing tools we recommend

Here are the blog post writing tools all content writers should use. You may decide to use their free or premium versions. It depend on your needs.

1. Google docs: An online free word processor that allows you to create, edit, and collaborate with others on documents. We usually write our blog posts in Google Docs since it enables our content writing team to collaborate remotely. You can also try out other Google Workspace tools.
2. Microsoft Word (MS Word): One of the leading applications for processing, creating, sharing, and editing Word documents on Windows PCs. It is the easiest and most common way of documenting blog content. You can get the latest version of MS Word or purchase this one convenient subscription of Microsoft 365 for business. It includes premium Office apps, 1 TB of cloud storage, and advanced security for all your devices.

3. Content Editing & Proofreading phase

Content editing is the process of fine-tuning blog articles by reviewing content flow, readability, and ease of understanding. It aims to improve your content’s quality to a standard appropriate for your readers.

It is at this stage where blog post writers correct errors, make sentences more straightforward, and precise, and pay attention to your brand voice. If you haven’t discovered your brand voice, this brand voice guide will help you get started.

You should note that website content with grammatical errors affects content marketing and SEO. Perhaps who wants to read content with clichés and grammatical errors?—so, to look professional, edit and proofread your blog articles at all levels. As a result, it will increase your credibility, user experience, and search engine rankings.

7 Guidelines for editing your blog posts before publishing:

• Break long sentences into clear, simple points for people to understand in a single read. 
• Use more active verbs and powerful words to increase clarity most simply (drop passive voice)
• Focus on spelling, grammar, punctuation, tone, voice, and sentence structure, one at a time.
• Keep your brand voice consistent throughout while writing your blog post.
• Double-check facts and statistical claims to confirm you’ve included valid sources to support them
• Read out loud for your ears and tongue to catch grammatical errors, typos, and awkward phrases.
• Limit the usage of industry jargon.

Editing tools for fine-tuning your blog posts

We use two content editing tools to write and fine-tune our SEO friendly blog posts. First, we edit our content in Hemingway, and lastly Grammarly. Both are essential for blog post writers.

1. Hemingway: A free web and desktop app that can improve your writing style by making it bold and clear. Hemingway highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors using different colors for you to spot them quickly. We use Hemingway to improve fluency and the readability of our blog posts. You can get started with Hemingway for free today.
2. Grammarly: Another cloud-based typing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes. It supports free and premiums users. You can only spot and fix misspelled words, imperfect grammar, and punctuation mistakes for the free version. In contrast, the premium version does everything and much more to take your writing from good to great. 

4. Content Branding phase

Content branding involves the tactics you deploy to improve the recognition of your brand and its content. The aim is to create readily available loyal readers or customers for the SEO friendly blog posts you write. And the most effective way to achieve this is by consistently keeping your image in front of their eyes.

To achieve this, always put your company logo, brand colors, and slag in your blog post image designs. This way, readers will always see your brand image when they read your blog posts. As a result, it will help keep your company firmly in the mind of your potential customers. That is the power of visual branding.

Besides, visual illustrations like images and videos improve the visibility of your website content. It is because pictures make your content more appealing to the readers. And that is why content with images gets 94% more views than content without images.

So, the idea is to create unique blog post images representing your brand. This way, people will quickly recognize your brand, remember your content, and give you business.

7 Tips to consider while creating custom images for your blog posts.

• Create compelling, illustrative inline images that describe your points faster.
• Design all featured images with compelling headlines that captivated users’ attention.
• Use the right size and dimension for your blog post images.
• Always stick to your brand colors while creating custom images for your website content.
• Have your logo on every featured image you create for your blog articles. 
• Include any relevant images in your website articles to make them more appealing.
• Always provide social media preview images for your WordPress website content.

Graphic and branding tools to use

We recommend these three graphic design tools to help you create an appealing brand image for your website.

1. Canva: A graphic design platform for creating social media and blog post graphics. It can also assist in designing presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. Canva comes with powerful features that will unlock your creativity. Besides, it’s accessible to every individual and team. But, to unlock premium features and create professional designs, you will need to upgrade to Canva Pro.
2. Adobe Photoshop: A graphic design and photo editing software developed by Adobe Creative Cloud. Use Adobe Photoshop to create unique, custom images for your blog posts. You can start your design journey with a 7-day free trial of Photoshop before upgrading. Try out all Adobe Photoshop and updates in the latest version of Photoshop here.
3. Adobe Illustrator: It is a vector graphics editor and design program by Adobe Creative Cloud. It gives you the power to create logos, icons, sketches, typography, and complex illustrations. In addition, Adobe Illustrator helps you design unique, custom images for your blog posts like Photoshop. You can try out illustrator for seven days before upgrading to the premium version.

Note: We designed all the blog post images in this article using Adobe Illustrator.

5. SEO Content Optimisation phase

SEO content optimization is the last stage before publishing our blog posts. It involves using technical and on-page techniques to write SEO friendly blog posts that rank in search engines. There are two main reasons we optimize the blog posts we write for search engines.

• First, we want to ensure search engines find and understand what our articles are all about
• And we want to boost the SEO quality of our blog posts by positioning them for readers through keyword usage.

So, at this stage, we assume you’ve already copied and pasted your article into the WordPress content editor. After, use SEO tools like Yoast SEO or Rank Math to optimize your blog articles with the selected keyword. However, we recommend using 1–2 long-tail keywords throughout your blog content.

8 SEO blog post optimization guidelines you must follow:

• Include your keyword or its synonyms in the article’s headline, opening paragraph, and other subheadings
• Add internal links to other related articles on your website.
• Add external links to other websites relevant to your blog post.
• Optimize your article for mobile devices
• Add Alt tags to your blog post images.
• Provide an optimized meta description for your website content
• Make your content shareable on social media.
• Generate relevant structured data from schema.org to make your blog post more SEO friendly.

WordPress Plugins for SEO friendly blog posts:

Here is our best pick for on-page SEO tools necessary to write SEO friendly blog posts. The two offer free and premium services you will definitely need.

1. Yoast SEO: It’s the number one WordPress SEO plugin that will assist in the optimisation of your blog posts for search engines. Millions of websites currently use Yoast SEO to boost the visibility of their content. So, it can also help you. Try out Yoast SEO free version or purchase the premium version.
2. Rank Math SEO: The only WordPress SEO plugin that uses AI to help you write SEO-friendly blog posts. Rank Math offers a variety of options and features, such as Keyword rank tracking. Better Rich Snippets & Schema Markup Support. 404 Error Monitor & Broken Link Checker · 1-Click SEO Audit · Robots. · Automatic SEO image optimizer and many more. You can try out Rank Math today and see a difference in search engine rankings.

Conclusion

Writing blog posts that will rank on Google is a process that requires you to learn every day while also following the best practices of web content. Additionally, SEO is a vital aspect any business should adopt since there are many SEO benefits for businesses. We hope this guide has helped you know how to write SEO-friendly blog posts your readers will like. The information in this documentation will benefit mostly those businesses that need digital marketing.

Please keep in mind that we partner with companies that offer some of the tools listed in this guide. So, we may receive a commission when you click on our links and signup or make a purchase. It, however, has no bearing on our reviews and comparisons.

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