6 Blog Post Essentials To Complement Your Content

by Lexie

STEP ONE: Find a blog topic

The topic you choose for your blog post should attract people in your niche. It should contribute to the idea of becoming a source of valuable information or entertainment for clients and prospects. You’ve most likely heard marketers say that “Content is King,” well it’s true. Content is the only way to improve your organic SEO (without cheating). It is also the best way to get qualified web traffic and ultimately generate leads.

The best way to discover what to write about is to channel your audience. What would your target audience find helpful, useful, entertaining or interesting? There is no harm in utilizing other outlets, such as Twitter or Facebook, to ask your follower/fan/readers what they'd like to read about.

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STEP TWO: Include photos

There is a common misconception that you can simply throw a photo in a blog post without optimizing it and it’ll be beneficial... WRONG. Photos are indexed, so optimize them.

Personally, I like to use Photoshop to optimize my images. Here’s how it works…

  1. Open the photo in Photoshop
  2. Resize the image: Now this will depend on the dimensions of your website but usually under 1200 pixels in width is good

  3. Save the image for web devices
  4. Change the image name: Include your company name, photo source, the name of the blog post and even the location. It's important that your keyword is present in each image title. The image title will also be used as your "Alternate Text" within your blog post.

STEP THREE: Include relevant tags

Tags are keywords associated within a particular blog post. Your post being searchable within your website is important so don’t forget to add relevant tags/keywords associated with the content within your post.

**STEP FOUR: SEO title **

Title display in search engines is limited to 70 characters. If your title is longer than 70 characters it will be cut off from readers in SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). Your blog title should include the most relevant keyword for your post. That keyword should be as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

STEP FIVE: Make it sharable

PLEASE include social sharing options. If you are writing a blog post you want people to have the option of sharing it on various social outlets. If you label a portion of your website “blog,” people will expect it to be sharable.

STEP SIX: Allow people to comment

I know it is a little scary imagining that every Tom, Dick and Harry could leave obscene or potentially harmful comments on your blog posts. Rest easy…you can make it so each comment must be approved prior to being published. You have the option of not publishing whichever comments you so choose. But, do not simply disapprove a comment because someone doesn’t agree with you. Transparency is important in any social outlet. If you can’t take criticism then you have no business writing online. The times it is appropriate to disapprove a blog comment is when the comment is offensive, uses profanity, or spam.

Content is the most critical aspect of a successful blog. Once you've mastered content creation, these steps will ensure success. Your content is complemented by optimized images, searched with relevant tags and a proper title, repurposed with social sharing options, and engageable with a commenting mechanism.