4 SEO Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
During your content strategy sometimes it is quite difficult to decide where you should focus your efforts. When this happens it is important to keep in mind some basic SEO strategies to help get you back on track and improve your content marketing strategy. To help you do this, here are some common mistakes to avoid while SEO blogging.
Ineffective Content
When writing post it is easy to be tempted to write for search engines and lose sight of the target audience. This is why it is commonly said to “write for the user” instead. When the content poorly written and contains too many technical words it often quickly loses the interest of the reader.
This is easier to do when you write blog post content to address a specific need and to inform the reader. When this is done effectively, you are able to improve your reputation as an industry leader through blog posts. But the exact opposite is the case if content is no longer effective.
One way to help ensure posts are effective is to take a moment to look at the entire post in its entirety. Read it from the viewpoint of being the reader and not the writer. If the title and subtitles do not tell you what the content is about, there is a lot of industry specific terms, or transitions are not smooth it’s time to make some adjustments.
Longer content should be split into smaller sections of no more than 400 words so that the reader is able to process the information. Images, links, and keywords should make sense with the content and enhance it instead of being a distraction.
Not Optimizing Keyword Structure
One of the best ways to optimize keywords is to do some keyword research. By taking the time to research your keywords, the content of the website will be easier for the user to navigate as it will all be linked together with one another by topic. It will also make it possible to know what key questions users will ask when searching, making it easier for the user to identify the answers on your site. This goes back to the idea writing with the user in mind, to improve the user’s experience.
When conducting keyword research look to answer these key questions: how, what, when, where, and why. Keywords and phrases should answer these questions in order to optimize the structure, and lets the user know what question the post will answer for them.
Lastly, when it comes to the use of keywords and phrases, many times writers are tempted to overuse keywords, thinking it will optimize their posting. However, this can actually work against you. It not only detracts from the structure of the post and does not hold the user’s attention. Not only that, but keywords and phrases can actually be used so much that it results in search engines treating the post like spam, making it no longer optimized for searching.
Instead, keywords should be natural, making the content readable for the user and hold their attention. If you are not sure, have someone else read your work and give their input if it appears easy to follow. If they quickly notice the use of keywords, they are probably overused in the post.
Not Being Consistent
Not being consistent can negatively affect many aspects of writing, and result in losing a user’s interest. This may appear obvious when it comes to text but an often overlooked aspect of blog posts is the issue of internal linking. The use of internal linking can help to ensure the success of your site, but they need to consistent and used strategically. By doing so, they can help to give your site authority and helps to provide added structure and pathways for the site. It helps to identify key information for search engines, and helps to index linked-to pages by the keywords used in the text.
A good rule of thumb for writing and optimized post is to include a minimum of three internal links in the post. For larger postings, it is possible to use as many as five internal links. By completing a gap audit of the site, it is possible to identify which ones have the greatest amount of authority. By adding internal links on these pages to others on the site it is possible to fill in the gaps on other pages which may be lower in authority.
Another way to help boost consistency on a site is to utilize a sitemap and navigation menu. The importance of a sitemap makes it easier for the site to be indexed accurately. In addition, when the site is SEO optimized it is able to be crawled making it easier to be identified by search engines so they can index it and keep their data up to date.
The use of a navigation menu on the webpage also helps to draw attention to pages on the site. So does updating information on a website with fresh information like news section of top digital marketing site SandCrestSEO. This is particularly important since after all, the purpose of writing post is to gain attention from search engines and drive traffic to your webpage.
Duplicating Content
This really should go without saying, but unfortunately it is not an uncommon practice for many posters. Besides being immoral, it will also negatively impact your standing with many search engines. Google will actually drop your ranking if they determine your content was taken from another writer and you did not give them proper credit and claim the words as your own.
Even if you provide a link to the original content on your webpage, just know that most search engines will only give credit to the original page. This does not mean you cannot get inspiration from other leaders in the industry, but make sure not to plagiarize their work. Instead, stick with writing your own, up to date, and relevant blog copy. It might take you a little bit of time, but really will reap greater rewards in the end.
