How to Write SEO Friendly Blogs That Add Value for Your Customers

When it comes to writing SEO friendly blogs you might think there is a dark art to it and it’s something you don’t want to mess around with or get wrong. But worry not, it’s quite easy to write blogs that will gather organic search traffic, just be prepared to put in a little bit of work. 

While initially you might be tempted to jump straight onto ChatGPT and tell it to write a blog about a particular subject and hey presto, you copy and paste – job done. However, this approach misses out several vital steps to writing effective blogs for SEO. I’ll take you through some of the steps that I take with my own blogs and advice I give out to my clients. 

How Do I Find the Best Keywords and Topics for My Blog?

Before you put pen to paper, so to speak, you need to research. Keyword research is a vital first step and shows you what your audience is looking for, the popularity of a particular topic and the key questions they have. You can use tools such as SEMrush or Ubersuggest which have a keywords ideas section which you can type in some keyword ideas and see the suggestions that come up. Your aim is to find keywords with a high Search Volume but a low SEO/Keyword Difficulty. These are your best chances for ranking higher and being seen.

Another thing to look for is the ‘intent’ of these keywords and you’ll find there are four types on intent. Here are the types of keywords to look out for:

• Informational: Users are looking for an answer to a question or general knowledge
• Navigational: Users are trying to reach a specific website or page
• Transactional: Users are actively looking to purchase a specific product or service but are still comparing options
• Commercial: Users are ready to buy or engage a service and are looking for a provider

Finally, you want to find the top questions your audience has on that topic. Using your main keyword, you’ve identified you can usually find a questions tab within SEMrush or Ubersuggest etc. You can also use services like AnswerThePublic or, as I do, you can use perplexity to ask the top 3-5 questions your target audience are searching for online.  

Now you have all the info, it’s time to start using it all!

You could always get somebody to do this step for you to save you time, like me! My 12-month Blog Plan service gives you topical keywords, audience questions and suggested titles all for £50.

How Do I Use Keywords Effectively for Optimal Reach?

You now have a much of keywords, you may think that you need to add them everywhere so that Google will pick them up? Well think again! Stuffing a load of keywords into your blog will have the opposite effect and Google will penalise you for this! Plus, it doesn’t read naturally to your audience and they are more likely to click away. To avoid this, simply think of your main keyword as your overall topic and you want to talk around that. Make sure it’s clearly in your blog title and used in the first 100 words of your content. This shows anyone coming in from search and quickly scanning the first section of your blog that your content is relevant to what they are looking for. 

You should also now have some supporting keywords that you can use throughout your blog, so as not to be so repetitive and avoid keyword stuffing. I highly recommend you use Yoast or RankMath, where you can clearly signal the main keyword and your supporting keywords. However, make sure that you’ve never used these keywords before, you want to avoid duplication at all costs, you don’t want your own pages competing against each other.

Earlier you also saw the intent of the keywords in your list. You can use intent to shape the tone and format of your blog content. For example, if your research shows your topic is mostly informational you can produce how-to guides or if they are mostly transactional you can create comparison content comparing your products or services against others. Intent is super important and is an asset in effective blog writing. 

How Do I Write Blog Posts That Have Value?

When it comes to blog writing for SEO, what you say and how you say it is the most important part. Your own experience and expertise are the most valuable assets you have. While it’s true Google doesn’t care about how you write your blog content, it is however interested in new, valuable content. More importantly, your audience is more interested in what you have to say through your own knowledge and experience. Yes, it’s very easy to use AI to write a blog for you, but that’s just a rehash of content already out there! Use AI as a tool to polish off your writing or help your structure your blogs if you like, but don’t 100% rely on it to write it all for you. Your knowledge and experience are what makes you stand out from the crowd. 

In my experience, I’ve found that bogs written from my own perspective on a human-to-human level, perform better and I’ve also noticed they are more likely to be ‘indexed’ by Google. We’ll cover Google indexing soon, don’t worry.

How do I structure and optimise a blog post for SEO?

You might have noticed that this blog itself features headings, images and clear paragraphs. Imagine if you came onto here and were faced with a wall of text, would you stay and take any of it in? Probably not, I know I wouldn’t. The main reason for structure is of course to make it easier to read for your viewers, but structure also plays a part in SEO. 

Just like you, Google needs to ‘read’ your blog to understand what it’s about, the main points and whether it’s relevant for users searching. Structuring using heading tags (h1, h2, h3 etc.) breaks the content up into subsections that can be picked up easily and read by computers as well as people.

Why isn’t my blog showing up in Google search results?

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into your blog, only for it not to show up on Google at all! Trust me, I’ve been there many times, and it can be very disheartening, but fear not, there is usually a reason and a solution. 

Google Search Console will tell you what pages are not indexed, which simply means they are not being shown on Google, and the reason for this. While they don’t give you a specific reason, you can usually tell from the explanations. Most likely, your content is seen as too thin or the quality is poor, this is usually indicated by ‘crawled – currently not indexed’. There are a few other reasons which you can dig into. 

Generally, good quality writing from your own knowledge and experience, avoiding duplication of content and setting-up redirects correctly will usually mean your blog will be indexed by Google with no trouble. If you are seeing that many of your pages are not indexed and you feel like it’s going over your head, then it’s time for an SEO expert, like myself, to step in.

Hopefully this guide has given you a fair amount to go on and you might think that there is more to SEO friendly blogs than you first thought. There are of course other aspects of SEO such as meta descriptions, schema and internal linking that are another set of blogs themselves! 

You can get 12 blog ideas complete with keyword research, audience questions and suggested titles all for £50, saving you time to concentrate on running your business.