Not long ago, I wrote an SEO Checklist for bloggers that outlined the three cornerstones of search engine optimization and search marketing. Today I wanted to create an even simpler and more streamlined SEO checklist that you can use to improve your daily optimization routine. Using these SEO basics, you’ll be able to establish a strategy of your own and apply it to your current blog or business to improve your search rank.
Most experts recommend using keywords, rather than keywords, because you have a greater chance of ranking well with this strategy. This is primarily because keywords are more unique and less likely to have already been optimized on numerous sites than single keywords. Because of this, there is more chance to find optimization opportunities that haven’t yet been exploited.
Related: 5 Ways to Improve SEO and Get More Traffic
How to Add Keywords to Your Blog
Keep it simple. Here’s how to get started adding keywords to your blog + a free plugin to help you get it done!
- Focus on 1 keyword in each post or page.
- Your keyword should be aprox. 2-4 words in length (research: long tail keywords).
- Always do keyword research (Google Keyword Planner). Look for keywords that have between 10,000 and 70,000 local monthly searches, and “LOW” competition.
- Use the Yoast SEO plugin to customize your Google search snippet and meta description. Click the “Page Analysis” tab to be sure that your post is optimized.
- When adding an internal link, click the link icon in your post editing tools and then select the “Or link to existing content” option to easily search related posts and pages.
- Create new posts with your most popular or target keywords every month to ensure that your website continues to rank for these terms.
Related: 3-Point SEO Checklist for Bloggers
Where to Put Keywords in Your Blog Posts
Where do my keywords go? Your super simple SEO checklist.
Ever wonder where to put the keywords in your posts to make the biggest impact? Welp…here you go!
- Keyphrase in title, minimum of 40 characters, max of 60 characters
- Keyphrase in an h2 and/or h3 heading
- Keyphrase 2-5 times in post content (depending on article length).
- 1 in bold
- 1 underlined
- 1 in first paragraph
- 1 in last paragraph
- 1 internal link to a related post using your target keyphrase as anchor text
- You can combine attributes (ex. 1 bold keyphrase in first paragraph, hyperlinked to a related article and 1 underlined keyphrase in last paragraph)
- Keyphrase in “alt” text on first image in post
- Keyphrase in your post url. You can edit this by changing your permalink just under the post title to resemble something like this ‘apple-pie-recipe‘
- Keyphrase in meta description. The WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast (see below) allows you to customize this setting.
Mike Matus says
HI Chantilly,
I love the Yoast SEO optimizing plugin tool Joost de Vaalk and his team created. It is great for optimizing on-page content and making sure your keywords is not ‘over used’.
We are lucky with having Yoast on WordPress, it is a pity Drupal and Joomla don’t have that as a plugin. Do you know of an plugin like Yoast that could be used for Drupal and Joomla?
Thanks Mike
Cityfortal says
nice