[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It’s one of the most commonly asked questions I hear, “Did I do all that ‘SEO’ stuff right!?”
SEO is one of those things added to your editing to-do list, that is somewhat hard to fully grasp the importance of. Many just know it should be done, but how do you know if you’ve done everything you can to boost the SEO-power of your content?
Well, it’s simple. I’m going to share with you a tried-and-true SEO Checklist you and your team can use when editing your content!
Now, I will still stick to my disclaimer that not ALL content lends itself to “green light” status. However, following these key steps will help ensure search engines can most importantly find those SEO nuggets they are scanning for and hopefully rank your content appropriately.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Read the content thoroughly, searching for natural focus keywords!
Before you can truly identify the “organic” themes in your content, you’ve got to read it! While reviewing the content, be on the lookout for the presence of focus keywords or natural keywords found within the copy.
So, what happens if you aren’t seeing a focus keyword or nothing is jumping out at you? One of two things:
1 >> Maybe this particular piece doesn’t lend itself to out-of-the-park SEO – that’s OK! Not every post is going to and the more you force it, the less organic it becomes!
2 >> If the underlying theme is there, but the focus keywords are not, add them in. In a natural way of course! Interwoven in the content so sentences still flow and make sense to the reader.
You could take this one step further by doing a quick Google search on the keyword or phrase you’d identified and see what is currently ranking – essentially scope out the competition and make any adjustments based on what you see!
Craft a title that will serve two very important purposes.
Writing post titles is not as easy as it seems. There are people who their sole job is to write headlines and titles, so don’t get frustrated if writing post titles is like pulling teeth!
However, thinking of your titles as serving two purposes might help you in drafting the perfect headline!
Your post titles need to: a) be creative and attention grabbing and; b) include your focus keywords and phrases.
Sounds challenging I know, but here are some good examples:
Ok-ish Post Title: “Why I Love Breastfeeding: Tips and Tricks”
SEO-awesome Post Title: “Breastfeeding Advice for New Moms in {City}”
So, why is the second example better?
It specifically targets a group of moms “new moms” as well as localizes your content to your specific city/location.
Plus is maintains an attention grabbing quality by focusing on the important keywords: “breastfeeding”, “advice”, “new moms”, etc.
Images sure are pretty, but put them to work on the backend too!
Obviously having on-brand, images add compelling visuals to your content that are nice and pretty! Which is very important, however images can work for you from the backend too. You’ve just go to tell them how!
Be sure to change ANY image titles to something that is RELEVANT (say it with me rel-e-vant!) to the content itself, like the focus keyword. For example, instead of “IMG_121388937rw8978we9.jpg,” your title could be “lunch-tips-toddlers.jpg” or “toddler-eating-healthy-lunch.jpg”
Lastly, be sure to also ALWAYS add “alt text” to your images!
There are 2 very important reasons to take this extra step:
#1 >> Opportunity to organically include your focus keyword in your on-page content. The Alt Text is the content that pulls along with your image in Google indexing.
#2 >> In order to follow ADA Compliance measures, screenreaders need to be able to identify what the contents of your pictures are. They will read out loud the Alt Text to tell visually impaired individuals what the image is of.
The more you include your focus keywords on the backend, the better! Images give you an opportunity to do that two-fold!
Identify your focus keyword and tell Yoast about it!
We’ve got this pretty amazing tool installed called Yoast SEO. You may have heard me mention it a time or two (or thousands)! It truly is one of the BEST tools for ensuring the steps you’ve taken above are working for your content!
With that being said, once you’ve identified your focus keyword or phrase and have integrated that keyword or phrase throughout your content organically, it is time to tell Yoast! I won’t bore you with those specific directions here, but check out this Yoast SEO Settings resource for the details!
Last, but certainly not least, set your “keyword” focused tags!
Tags are often not considered as much as they should be in terms of SEO benefit. View them as another opportunity to connect your content with the keywords or phrases you want to be associated with in search results!
Tags needs to be specific to the content itself, including but not necessarily limited to your focus keyword and phrases as well as variations of it![/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]
SEO Checklist
✅ Craft original content approximately 600 – 800 words.
✅ Identify the main topic or key phrase for the post
✅ Do your research by running a Google search on that topic and view top-ranking posts to get an idea of the benchmark
✅ Include key phrase in the headline of the post
✅ Optimize the URL to include key phrase
✅ Write a meta description that include key phrase
✅ Optimize images by including the key phrase in the Alt Text section
✅ Include 3 – 4 internal links to related posts
✅ Include at least 1 external link to a relevant website or topical article
✅ Use heading tags (H2, H3, H4) to incorporate sub-topics (a least 1-2x a post)
✅ Keep content fresh by keeping it updated and relevant[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Related SEO-Goodness” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23be377e” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”10″ item=”3938″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1642038381398-3ecbac3b-0b06-9″ taxonomies=”214, 74, 569″][/vc_column][/vc_row]