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SEO for Blogging 101
Hamilton WordPress Meetup - August 12, 2020
Natasha Burtenshaw-deVries

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What is a Blog?
““Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term
used to describe websites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of
information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links
to articles on other websites, usually presented as a list of
entries in a reverse chronicle order.”
Source:https://wordpress.org/support/article/introduction-to-blogging/

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Why Run a Blog?
• Write about topics of interest to your audience
• Share news, updates, press releases etc.
• Show off your personality and share expertise
• Generate income through sponsored posts or affiliate links
• Increase your website’s organic search traffic

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How do you write good
blog posts?

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Write. Content.Good.

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1. Writing
3. Promoting
2. Publishing

7.
Writing

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Step 1: Choose a Great Topic
• Write about questions that readers are asking
• Choose topics that address different stages of the
marketing funnel
• Write about relevant or trending topics related to your
website or what your audience cares about

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• Can’t go wrong with a question
• Embrace emotion, excitement and mystery
• Use numbers and lists
• Incorporate your targeted keywords
• Aim for a length of ~50 characters
Step 2: Craft an Attention Grabbing Title

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• WordCamp Niagara 2019
• Blog Writing Tips
• Toronto FC Team Profile
Step 2: Craft an Attention Grabbing Title
• 4 Things I Learned at
WordCamp Niagara 2019
• The Beginner’s Guide
to Writing Fantastic Blog Posts
• Why Toronto FC is the
Greatest
Soccer Team in the World

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• Make use of simple, natural language
• Incorporate the phrases people are actually searching for
• Write shorter sentences and paragraphs
Step 3: Write for Humans

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• Use keyword stuffing
• Plagiarize
• Obsess over algorithms, length or
any rule or best practice anybody
claims to be true
Do NOT…

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• It depends!
• Quality and comprehensiveness > quantity
• Moz Whiteboard Friday – Content Comprehensiveness
https://moz.com/blog/content-comprehensiveness
• My personal opinion? No less than 500, aim for 700-
1200
What’s the Best Length for a
Blog?

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• The average blog post length is 1,050 words
(Source: Orbit Media)
• The average word count of top ranked content in Google
is between 1,140-1285 words (Source: SearchMetrics)
• On average, only 18% of companies’ blog posts are over
750 words (Source: Curata)
• Longer, in-depth blog posts generate 9x more leads than
short ones (Source: Curata)
• Source and More Blogging Statistics:
https://getcodeless.com/blogging-statistics/
What’s the Best Length for a
Blog?

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• About the tool: https://yoast.com/use-content-analysis-yoast-seo/
• Full list of factors they analyze: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-readability-analysis/
Yoast SEO Content Analysis

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Publishing

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Step 1: Include Headings
• Make use of headings, don’t just post a bunch of
paragraphs
• Google has recently said having more than H1 is
okay...I’m still sticking with one

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Step 2: Create Internal Links
• Link to other blog posts and pages on your website
• Provides additional information for readers
• Helps Google crawl your site
• Consider the Topic Cluster approach and focus on linking
to specific Pillar Pages
https://blog.hubspot.com/news-trends/topic-clusters-seo

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Step 3: Fill Out the Meta Info

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• Set the alt text for images
• Optimize and properly size your images
• Consider adding schema markup
Step 5: Other On-Page Factors

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Promoting

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Step 1: Submit for Indexing

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Step 2: Post to Social

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Step 2: Post to Social
Source: . https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-seo-experiment/
“As you can see from the results above, there appears to
be a strong correlation between social activity and rankings.”
-Hootsuite

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Step 3: Other Promotion Strategies
• E-Newsletter
• RSS Feed
• Link outreach
• Guest posting

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Make the Most of WordPress Plugins
• Automatically post to social media
• Send new blog posts to subscribers via e-mail
• Schema markup
• Redirects
• Analytics
• Speed optimizations
• SSL

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So, In a Nutshell…
• Write good content
• Don’t forget on-page optimizations while publishing
• Write good content
• Promote your post for an extra boost
• Make the most of WordPress plugins
• Write good content

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Questions?

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Let’s Connect!
• https://natashabd.ca
• Twitter: @natasha_bd