To fully optimize your blog posts for inbound marketing, you need to keep one thing in mind – “content is king”. You might have come across this Bill Gates’s quote numerous times, but it’s worth reminding ourselves of it now and again.
The importance of high-quality website content can never be understated. This is what will attract the prospects to your website, and, if you offer a satisfying product, they’ll become your customers.
Yes, of course, your product will be your focus, but the part of your target market that hasn’t heard of your business will probably encounter your blog posts first. This is why well-written pieces that answer the audience’s questions and speak in a familiar language are most likely to attract attention, alongside with an alluring design that will go easy on their eyes and furthermore attract attention until hitting that subscribe button. If you’re on the hunt for a partner in your design challenges, look up these design companies in San Francisco.
So, now that we have that cleared up, let’s see what goes into first-rate content. Here are the top six strategies that can help you optimize your blog posts for inbound marketing.
1. Understand Your Prospects
As we’ve already established – the most attractive content is the targeted content. Therefore, one of the first steps in your blog planning should be research into your audience’s interests.
Of course, they will be interested in your product, and we will work around this interest. So, if you are doing floral arrangements, you will know one thing – your current and potential visitors are interested in this decoration form. Now broaden your focus.
When do these people buy floral arrangements? Which flowers are the most popular? How to incorporate them into different interior design solutions? These are just some questions your readers might be asking.
Your job is to answer them in detail. The answers will make your content personalized and naturally lead the audience to your website, and your traffic will go through the roof.
2. Build Backlinks
Backlinks are also in the domain of SEO. The reason they are an individual point in our little guide is that they fall under off-page optimization.
In addition, this is an element about which you cannot do a lot except reach out to other websites and ask them for a mention.
When making a list of bloggers and websites to contact, pick popular and reputable ones from your industry. Thus, you’ll ensure that only the best and most reliable sources will link to your articles. This, in turn, will help your blog build a positive reputation among the audience but also in the eyes of the search engines.
3. Optimize for Search Engines
Topic and title are just a couple of points on the list of things that should be optimized for search engines. Yes, we said the quality content is the priority, but SEO is an important element as well.
Think of it as of the stardust that will make the quality pop into the well-deserved spotlight.
Here are a few tips:
- Involve keywords in the body of the text
- Break up the text into smaller chunks
- Include keywords in the headlines for as many sections as possible
- Lean toward longer articles – (at least) 1200 words will give you more room for keywords as well as for a detailed explanation of the topic in question
- Meta description and image descriptions should also include some of the keywords
4. Consider the Visuals
Visual material plays a huge role in the overall impression and readability of the article. So tend to pick professional-looking photos to complement your text.
If there are complicated or tedious facts that need to be said, add some dynamics with a graph or an infographic. And of course, sometimes a video can also come in handy and make the blog post a more rounded piece.
There are also practical reasons to pick pro photos, especially for your featured image – this one will appear in the post preview wherever you share it. And using a low-quality image can turn off the readers which were drawn in by the topic.
Pictures are a part of the optimization as well, in a strictly technical sense. Namely, their alt text should contain keywords – this further contributes to the positive points the blog gets from Google.
5. Update Older Posts
Keeping posts up to date doesn’t only apply to the new ones. It would be best if all articles contained the latest information and the freshest news. So, go back to your earlier posts and review the content.
Some advice you have given here will probably need tweaking. Other “news” will have to be completely removed or swapped with new and correct info.
Additionally, you can add some completely new bits, to make an additional point or provide more complete answers to some of the questions.
So, keep in mind that blogging doesn’t mean just hyperproduction of new posts which would be irrelevant to the audience. It’s much better to keep the info in the existing and often-visited posts fresh and reliable. This will make your blog the favorite choice among the readers but also the search engines.
6. Hit the Right Topics
This is just an extension of an earlier-mentioned point. In essence, once you understand the mindset of your prospective customers, you will be able to pick just the right topics.
Now, topics are one thing and title something a bit different. Yes, they are closely related, but our point here is that titles need to be carefully formed. They should reflect the topic, but also attract attention, hint the text is fun and easy to read, and include keywords closely related to the topic.
Hmm, a huge burden for one line of text. Fortunately, there are tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush that can help you pick popular keywords for your topic.
Remember, the most popular keywords shouldn’t be overused. But those coming in at the second, third, or fourth place, these can easily rank your blog post high in the SERPs.
Final Thoughts
Try sticking to these strategies, and you’ll see your blog grow and gain a following in no time.
Also, always have your target audience in mind and aim to create content that is perfect for them. Answer questions that they are likely to ask Google and your reach will broaden for sure.
So, get cracking and prepare for success ahead!
