7 Quality Blog Post Essentials For Google
If you want your blog posts to perform as well as they can in Google and the other major search engines, you should follow a proven template that will give Google what it wants to see.
There are 7 basic elements that will make your blog post ideal for a good ranking
Word Count
300+ minimum word count (but more is better as long as the article warrants a longer post)
Keyword Density
A keyword density for your primary keyword or phrase of around 1% within your page content.
Your Primary Keyword
Include your primary keyword in the right places;
- once in your post title (40 – 70 characters)
- once in your meta Desc (160 characters max)
- in each image alt text as part of a longtail phrase
- in the post URL
- in an H2 heading tag
- in your first paragraph of content.
Additionally, use that keyword throughout your content to a density of around 1%.
An image (with alt text) or video
Make sure you have permission to use the image, name it so that it includes your primary keyword or phrase e.g. a-professional-xyz-service.jpg
Page Headings
A correctly constructed post will have;
- One H1 tag (in WordPress this is dynamically generated from your post title).
- One or more H2 tags (one of which should include your primary keyword or phrase).
- One or more H3 tags (one of which should include a variation of your primary keyword or phrase).
Contextual Linking
Contextual links are links from within your content to other related content. If you reference another site in your article you can link from that reference text straight to them. Alternatively you can use important keywords in your content to link to related resources. (Beware of the overuse of exact match anchor text in your linking – the bulk of your links to sites you want to rank well should be either ‘Brand’ Links or ‘URL’ variation links)
This is an example of how your contextual links should look in your content;
Link Text Variety
If you were to write 100 posts on 100 different sites and use keywords within the content to link to your main site, the keyword that you choose should be 100 different variations. The days of keyword spamming backlinks are long gone, so always thing less is more where linking is concerned. If you are not sure what you should do, use a brand link or URL link as these are the safest links to create.
External links to an ‘authority’ site – sites such a Wikipedia, .gov or .edu sites are good because they demonstrate that you are referencing proven authorities on the topic. (Make sure the links go to relevant pages)
Latent Semantic Indexing
You should also use latent semantic indexing (LSI) to include related phrases as these help to reinforce the subject matter of your post. Latent semantic indexing is basically word association. The search engines know that a chair, seat, settee, sofa, bench, stool, are all related terms, so they are associated within your content.
Rather than overuse a single variation of a term repeatedly, use different words to describe the same thing because this looks much more natural and make it look less like you are chasing a keyword and more like you are writing for the reader.
If you follow this basic structure for all of your posts then you will see your posts rank better in search. In turn, your posts will then be found by more visitors who will read more of your content and your blog will grow.
About the Author: The Million Pixel Driver Blog helps bloggers to get started blogging using the right structures and strategies to succeed online. Million Pixel Driver is written by Dave Holland an SEO and Blogging professional based in the UK.