Ultimate SEO Tip List for Bloggers: Part One

As an SEO and certified Google AdWords expert, I often get asked a lot of the same questions regarding these two topics. Today, I am here to share my answers in a succinct, easy to understand way so that all your inquiries can be found in one place on my blog. I am breaking this ultimate seo tip list for bloggers series into three parts and by the time you’re done reading all three posts, you’ll be well versed in SEO for blogging.
Let’s get started!

The ULTIMATE SEO Tip List for Bloggers

How many times do I have to have keywords on website for it to come up in search results?
There is no magical number about how many times a keyword needs to be on a page. There are guidelines and I've got a nine step checklist for you. You're going to want the keyword in the first paragraph, the last paragraph and in a heading tag. I like to tell people it's like you're back in English and you're writing a term paper. You've got the introduction, the body and the conclusion, and you're telling them what they're going to read, what they're reading and what they just read. It should be at least in those three places (minimum), and then it should be at least once within the text and your text should be at least 400 words.
What about keywords for images on a website?
The keyword should be in the filename, the title text and the alt text. Do not upload photos named DSC001.jpg. That does seem like a lot of places, but once you get used to putting it there it will become more natural for you to do that. You always want to make sure you're optimizing at least one photo in each blog post. Check out this blog post on optimizing images.
How do I know where I currently land in search results?
There are a number of free tools you can use. This one from SERPs is super easy to use: https://serps.com/tools/rank-checker/. You can also search google.com to see if you are ranking. Another good way of tracking your organic results is to see what percent organic traffic you are receiving each month. If you are consistently optimizing your current posts and going back to optimize your old posts, you should see this number start to increase.
What are the most important things to do for SEO for every single blog post?
The first thing you want to do is do your keyword research. I always tell people, “Go to google.com”. A lot of people talk about AdWords planner, the keyword tool. But no, that’s not it. The big thing to do is go to Google and start typing in a search phrase. You might type in something like eating disorder support. So, you’ll see in Google that it is suggesting some phrases that you might use. You can move down to the bottom of the screen and see other related searches.
See how Google starts suggesting phrases for you:

Always check out the “searches related to” at the bottom of each search:

Maybe binge eating disorder support group was a search phrase you wanted to optimize a post around. Google tells you how many results there are on the web that are optimized around that term. Start just putting in keywords, putting in phrases. Ask yourself: are your competitors coming up or are things showing up that you think this is the space you want to be in? If so, look and see how many results, how competitive is this going to be, then take a minute to look at all the documents and see what they're talking about.
You need to make sure that you are doing content that is along the same lines of what is currently ranking. Example: if the top 5 organic searches are a video, you most likely will be not able to rank a 400-word blog post for that search term. Take time to do your research and check out your competition BEFORE starting your content. This is key!
What’s the next step after keyword research?
Next, you're going to want to create a compelling blog post title and use the keyword chosen. You need that key phrase in the title of your blog post. You also want it in the first paragraph, the last paragraph and one heading tag as well. You're going to want to make it naturally occurring within your text. You're going to want to in the filename of one image, the title and the alt text. You're going to create a meta description that includes your keyword and entices people to click your link. Don't forget to download my handy checklist.
What’s a meta description?
As I mentioned above, you are going to want to create a meta description that includes your keyword and entices people to click on your link. If you don't know what a meta description is, it's the sentence or phrase that shows up on Google search. Your goal is to tell people what this post is about and entice them to click on your link. While the meta description is not actually a ranking factor in SEO, if people click on your post and spend time on your site, that's a ranking factor.
The meta description is the text that shows up under the domain name:

What’s the final step?
Finally, it's not just enough to publish your blog post, you're going to need to promote it across all social media, get it out there, share it and continue to share it. You don't just share it the day that you publish it, you need to have a six-month blog promotion schedule for how often you share your posts.

Questions about SEO? Part 1 of the ultimate #SEO #tip list for #bloggers is here! #bloggingClick To Tweet
Stay tuned for the part 2 of The ULTIMATE SEO Tip List for Bloggers coming soon! Be sure and leave any SEO questions you have in the comments so I can answer them later in the series.
Cheers!