Guest post by Holly Landis
Turn your content into a consistent customer magnet
If you have a website, you already know that encouraging the right people to visit is a high priority. Whether you’re using your site as a portfolio to show off your creative writing or a hub for your small business, having a basic understanding of how search engine optimization (SEO) works is a driving force for getting in front of those people.
While we always want to keep users as the focus for any marketing work, there are a handful of SEO techniques you can use to keep search engines like Google happy, too. Using your blog to build your professional authority and reputation is one of the best ways to consistently show up for your audience and climb the ranks of search result pages.
To niche or not to niche
You may have already seen some success with SEO, whether it was intentional or not! You’ll know that’s the case if you’re tracking your site analytics (more on that a little later) and see traffic coming from “organic” sources — that’s search engine users, to you and me.
Those users are looking for something specific and coming across your work, but how?
For most writers, a standard blog post will be at least 400-500 words long, if not lengthier. Longer doesn’t always mean better but, as a writer, you have the skills to know exactly how many words it takes to get your point across, and that’s exactly what both Google and users want to read.
And when Google likes something, it rewards you with more attention, aka better positions in search results and more eyeballs on your website. So whatever you do, keep writing those entertaining or informative tomes!
But now you’re wondering how you can elevate your content to really capture people’s attention, intentionally and with a defined strategy.
Enter: the great debate on whether or not to niche.
Becoming niche
If you choose to niche, you’ll often find that you gain authority quickly and become the go-to in a single topic. That can come with an increase in revenue and more eyes on your work, since you’re now a subject matter expert. And with specificity comes a gold star from Google.
With so much content to sift through, Google loves content that’s targeted and focused because it’s easy for it to understand. This type of content will often be rewarded with higher rankings in search results.
Search engines are smart enough to know which topics align with each other if you’re aiming to become a subject matter expert. For example, Google understands that “lawyer” and “attorney” keywords mean the same thing, so it takes both groups into consideration as one niche.
The same goes for “author” and “fiction writer” or “reporter” and “journalist.” This means that any search queries that use these phrases are seen interchangeably, so even if your site doesn’t mention that you’re a fiction writer, you’ll still likely appear in results for that query if you talk about yourself as an author.
Before you decide that niching is definitely for you, think about the niche you’re in very carefully. If there’s already a significant amount of competition in your field, standing out becomes a challenge. Consider different angles that would make you as unique as possible — for example, you’re a children’s author who only writes stories about magic.
Generally speaking, Google looks at blog posts on an individual basis, which is why niching works so well. But it does take into account the overall website when thinking about rankings, which is great if one post is very successful and drives traffic to other places on your site.
Even if you do decide to niche most of your blog topics under a single theme, don’t let the fear of Google stop you from branching out when you want to! For example, your theme could be incredibly broad, such as “life as a writer.”
From there, you have thousands of possible topics you can blog about, from the more informative posts that teach your readers how to edit or find an agent, to personal posts that detail your behind-the-scenes writing life or a snapshot of your writing space and what that says about you.
While each of these blog posts is a unique topic (which is what Google is primarily focused on when it comes to understanding the page and deciding how to rank it in search results), they all fit under that one niche to give Google a better overall picture of who you are and what you do.
Staying broad
Deciding not to niche doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It may take Google a little longer to work out exactly what you do if you have content on several different topic areas. (Lifestyle writers who cover childrearing, interior design, fashion, beauty, and cooking often fall into this category.)
But having a wider range of interests in your writing can actually help. By branching out into multiple topics, you have the opportunity to rank for an endless number of keywords and search queries.
This is particularly true if your niche area is very small and doesn't have a big audience. If only a few people each month are searching on Google for the type of topics you write about, you won’t see much SEO growth (even if the niche isn’t very competitive). If that’s the case, broadening out your topics can give you more coverage across search results and open you up to a bigger potential audience.
Choosing a direction
There’s plenty of advice out there, and there’s really no right answer. Everyone will have different goals, so weigh which is best for you. And as any SEO professional will tell you, it depends — seriously, this is a long-running joke of a catchphrase in the SEO industry!
Think of this like rings inside a cut-down tree: If your niche is very small and you’re not seeing much traffic to your site using very tailored keywords, you could need to expand your topic pool outward to the next ring of the tree.
If your topics are broad and you’re seeing people coming from all over the place but never actually contacting you or becoming a client or customer, you may need to scale back to a smaller ring of the tree to reach a more specific audience.
The best way to evaluate this is to look at two different data points in your analytics software:
The type of people coming to your site and how they’re behaving, i.e. are you getting a lot of organic traffic (like from Google) but very few leads? If so, broadening your topics is likely better.
What kind of progress you’re making in search results, i.e. are you improving in your ranking position for keywords that you want to appear for? If you’re steadily moving up the results and seeing more traffic coming in, you’re likely doing well within your niche.
SEO takes time (up to a year in some cases), so you’ll need to give it more than a few weeks to see any meaningful information. And in the meantime, there are plenty of notable businesses and individuals out there who have made both niching and staying broad work for them, so you can explore for ideas of your own.
Influencers with large followings have generally moved from niche to broad as their audience has expanded and they’ve changed as people. Bloggers like Zoe Sugg, Anna Newton, and Lily Pebbles all started out in the beauty and fashion space and, although still post this type of content, have moved into a more general “lifestyle” category now that they have children and own their own homes. Their audience has continued to grow and attract new people along the way.
On the other hand, marketers and writers like Rachel Vandernick of The Vander Group and Kat Boogaard have become well known in their fields for their targeted, industry-focused blogging. Their audiences know they can turn to these writers’ posts for advice on marketing, writing, and running a freelance business because all of their work has centered around these topics.
Ultimately, to have any kind of success online, you need to know the answer to: “Why does my audience care about this content?”
If you understand your audience, you’ll be able to predict how they search, what they’re looking for, and why. And once you know those details, you can optimize your content to be exactly what they’re after.
So how do you find out that information?
Take the time to think about who exactly your writing is for, and then go to the places where you might find them. This could be through joining a community group, networking on social media sites (running Q&As or polls on Instagram is a great way to get content ideas from your followers!), or by setting up an email newsletter to stay in regular communication with your audience.
Let your words do the work
Keyword research is one of the biggest areas that new-to-SEO writers overlook but can make a significant difference in how search engines categorize your writing.
Like anything that’s new, there’s a learning curve when you’re getting started. But breaking this down into smaller chunks does help. Think of it in terms of something that all writers are familiar with — research!
You may see older SEO advice telling you to focus posts around just one keyword, like “romance novelist.” Google no longer works this way and instead thinks in terms of topic clusters. It’s more natural, and it works better for both Google and users.
As humans, we usually don’t talk about something using a single phrase over and over again. Instead, we’ll discuss a topic more generally, using different words to reference that topic throughout a conversation and branch off into adjoining subtopics to explain ourselves. How we use Google when searching for something we’re interested in is no different, and the Google algorithm has been adapted to mirror this.
Instead of search engines looking through a webpage to find a single phrase (as they used to, about a decade ago), rankings are now determined based on the synonyms and subtopics that a page mentions. It’s the best way for Google to understand what a page is about and what kind of queries that page helps to answer (e.g. informational, navigational, transactional).
As you get started, think about the phrases your audience might look for to find the type of work you do. How can you group these into a bigger topic cluster?
Hubspot and Moz offer resources for additional learning, if this is completely new to you. But you can dive right in by going to the source and Googling random phrases to see what comes up. Are other writers or small businesses like yours appearing in the results? If so, jot down those phrases.
Tools like SEMRush can also help you snoop on competitors if you have some sites in mind. Simply plug in any URL and see which words that site is currently ranking for (also handy for seeing if your own site is already appearing for any phrases!).
Once you have a handful of keywords, you can add them into your blog posts. Repeat this process for every piece of content so your posts are specifically targeted to a theme that fits under your wider content umbrella.
7 ways to optimize your posts before publishing
1. Add keywords to your copy
You’ve got your list of keywords ready to go, but it’s important to not go too crazy here. One to three keyword phrases per 800-1000 words of copy is plenty. Anything more than that is considered “keyword stuffing” and will be flagged by search engines as possible spam. This is also why it’s helpful to use synonyms and related phrases throughout a post, rather than simply repeating the same phrases over and over again.
Remember, be as specific as you can in individual posts and save other phrases in the topic bucket for another day. Use the phrases as naturally as possible throughout your blog post. No jamming-in-wherever-works or robot language over here, please! Always write for your readers first, search engines second.
2. Break up your text with headers or visuals
No one wants to be confronted with a wall of text, so break up your post with headers, bullet points, lists, or images. The more scannable your post, the better. Google understands pages based on heading elements, where an H1 is your biggest or main title, H2s are subheadings, H3s are sub-subheadings, etc. Each heading is given less priority as you go down the order.
When you’re laying out your post, you should have a single title and H1 tag. From there, use an H2 to make your first point, with several H3s as subsections. Then repeat that process until the end of the post. Your blog post should look something like this:
H1 - Title of your post
H2: The first idea
H3: Sub point
H3: Sub point
H4: Sub point
H2: The second idea
H3: Sub point
H3: Sub point
Different formatting options also make it easier for Google to read your post, which gives you a greater chance of being understood and ranked for relevant searches. It’s really important to remember that these are a technical element of your blog post (essentially, you’re “coding” these headings as a header, rather than plain old paragraph text). Don’t use different headers only for visual purposes.
If your H1 text is formatted a particular way and you want to use this throughout the post, it’s better to work with a website designer to reformat your H2s or H3s to look similar. Google isn’t looking at your post from the visual side of things. Instead, they would see that you’ve used several H1s on a page and this can be incredibly confusing.
Beyond this, you can’t really over-format from Google’s perspective, but remember that it needs to make sense for the reader to follow what you’re saying. If too many headers are distracting, make your content sections a little larger. If you’re looking at a wall of text, add in some more headings.
3. Write a catchy title
Think like a journalist or editor for this one. Make your title as appealing as possible to encourage people to click on the post. If you can, try to use at least one of your target keywords in the title and main heading so that it flags in Google and clearly says “this is what this post is about.”
4. Add links to other site pages
Internally linking to other pages on your website is one of the biggest SEO signals to search engines. They help to establish the general framework and architecture of your site so that Google can navigate it more easily and spread “link equity.” Otherwise known as “link juice,” this is a way for pages to pass along value and authority that they’ve built up to other pages of your site. If you have other relevant content, include a link to it from somewhere within the main copy of your new post.
There’s no difference between having internal links open in a new tab or window vs. loading in your current window, but you’ll want to make sure that any links going offsite (to another website) always open in a new tab or window.
Links are also a great way to encourage users to move around the site and spend more time reading other content. Overall time-on-site is something Google takes into account (since it’s an indicator of relevancy), so keep people interested. Across most industries, the current average time for most sites is around 54 seconds.
5. Don’t forget a CTA
You’ve written a great post, but now what should your reader do? Tell them explicitly what you want from them with a call to action (CTA). This can be anything from “check out my writing” and a link to your portfolio or “subscribe to my newsletter” if you want to build your email list.
At the very least, you should include one CTA at the end of your blog post. Not only is this directing your reader to do something, but you’re also adding an internal link to keep search engines happy (and likely improving your user time-on-site as they go to another page).
6. Check your post’s URL
If you’re using a content management system like Wordpress or Squarespace, a URL will autogenerate based on the title you enter, but these can be edited. Remove filler words like “and” or “the” to keep the URL as short as possible. While having a short URL is not a direct ranking factor, if Google has to choose between two, it will usually favor the shorter one.
If you’re using a keyword in the title, this should be pulled into the URL, but if not, try to get one in here, as this is an area Google looks at for rankings.
Similarly, you’ll want to remove the date from the URL to keep your posts “evergreen,” or timeless. Google typically prioritizes recent content, so if there’s no date attached, you have a better chance of appearing in search results for longer.
7. Add a keyword to your metadata
Finally, edit your metadata before going live. Most systems like Wordpress and Squarespace have a dedicated place for you to make updates.
Your title tag and meta description are the text that shows up within a Google search result, so it’s vital that you make a good impression here. Use a preview tool to write these and see exactly how they’ll look to a user.
For example, a title tag for this post could be “7 Ways To Rank Your Business Blog Higher In Google” and a meta description could be “Looking for ways to attract more customers or clients? Find out how SEO can transform your blog from a light read to a consistent lead magnet.”
Include a keyword in the title tag at a minimum, but remember to keep it short and snappy — the current guidelines are up to 60 characters for a title tag and 120 characters for the meta description.
What’s next?
Some of this can feel daunting, especially if you’re used to simply writing and hitting publish.
While the more technical steps add time to your publication process, once you’ve done it a few times, they’ll become second nature. Taking the time to go through even just a few of these steps can help you to be found more easily and rank higher on Google. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and SEO drives more than 1,000% more traffic than social media posts. So even a little extra work on your site can go a long way to opening your writing up to a huge potential audience.
One final step
Make sure you have some form of analytics set up on your site to measure your success. Look at where your users are coming from to get to your site — you should see these listed as “Channels” or under the Source/Medium tab in Google Analytics. This will break down your data by how users found you, whether that’s:
direct: coming straight to your site by typing in the URL or from a bookmark
organic: a search engine
Social: Instagram, Twitter, etc.
referral: links on other sites that take users to your site (such as if you’ve written a guest post on another blog, and they’ve included a link in your bio to your website, like you’ll see with mine below)
If you spot an increase in organic traffic or referrals from Google, you know your newfound SEO skills are paying off!
About Holly Landis
Holly Landis is a writer and digital marketing consultant, specializing in on-page SEO, copywriting, and content. She works with small & creative businesses around the world who want to be more intentional with their digital strategies and grow organically on channels that they own. As a Brit now living in the USA, you'll usually find her drinking copious amounts of tea at her desk, but she always makes time in her day for cuddles with her two rambunctious cats, Muffin and Toast.