SEO Optimized Content: How To SEO Blog Posts If You Don’t Use WordPress

SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of writing optimized content for your blog, so search engines can find it.

It’s common knowledge that you need SEO on every single blog post you have on your site, and a lot of people use WordPress plugins to accomplish that.

Now, what happens if you’re not using WordPress?

How can you determine what items you need to address or how to make your content SEO optimized?

Keep reading to figure out what your personal SEO checklist should include!

1. Determine what you are optimizing your content for.

How do you do this?

First, choose a keyword phrase.

When choosing this phrase, try to find a long keyword phrase so that it is more specific and narrow. You can play around with the wording as you add it to different places in your blog post.

2. Where should your keyword phrase be included in SEO optimized content?

1. Title of your blog post
2. Meta title (optional) – this is a backend tool that tells search engines what your post is about
3. In your first sentence – if you are unable to include the keyword phrase in your first sentence, try to get it into your first paragraph.
4. Meta description – most sites will allow you to add a meta description, which is like a preview or brief summary of what your post is about on search engines. Keep note of the length of your meta description as it may get cut off on the search engines.
5. In a heading within the blog post
6. In scattered places in the post – SEO rankings used to be about mentioning the keyword phrase as many times as possible (also known as keyword stuffing), but things have changed! It is still ideal to include your keyword phrase approx. every 300 words into the post.
7. In the alt tag of your image – wherever you upload the image in your blog, whether that is in the beginning or in the middle, there should be an area to edit the technical info on the image. One of the most common places to edit this information is the alt tag. It is also helpful to include a title and description for your images.

3. Include both internal and external links in your blog post

An internal link is a place on your page that links to another page on your site. This could be your About Me page, a related blog post and/or a sales page.

External links will bring your readers to a different site. This link should relate to the topic of your blog but not compete with it directly, so a Wikipedia site explaining the history and definition of your topic works well.

4. That’s it – you are on your way to excellent, SEO optimized content!

This was a checklist for how to SEO optimize content if you’re not using a free WordPress plugin to guide you through covering your basis through search engine optimization.

SEO is a long game to play; it is a lengthy process. Finding a keyword phrase and optimizing your post will not automatically plop you on page 1 of search engines, but it’s a very important part of creating content.

Paying attention to SEO will bring in more traffic for you and eventually move your ranking up on search engines! No matter how focused you may or may not be on SEO, cover your bases!

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