5 Key Features for Creating High Ranking Blog Posts

There’s no denying it, the title of your article can make or break you. Be sure to use words or phrases that catch your target audience’s attention and accurately portray what the article is about.  Don’t forget to incorporate key search terms to increase the likelihood of ranking well in online searches.

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but the truth is your post will look dull and boring without some aesthetics to keep your readers engaged.  Images are excellent ways to convey your message and tone to your readers, as well as create a more visual flow to your article.

Be sure you follow these basic rules:

• Use only media that you have the proper rights to
• Ensure your images are properly optimized for use online (not sure what that means?  Check out this short article.)
• Use only images that are high quality – no blurry images!
• If possible, try to utilize images of your actual products/services/employees instead of stock photos

It’s important to remember that website users do not read text from beginning to end like a page in a book.  Their attention tends to jump around as they are looking for content they feel is relevant to them.  This makes it your job to ensure they can find what they are looking for.

• Create properly formatted topic headings – use bold text, increased font sizes, or accent colors
• Separate different sections with spacing or different colored backgrounds
• Take advantage of text formatting tools like bolding, italics, bullets and block quotes
• Ensure paragraphs don’t get too long that they can’t easily be skimmed for content
• Incorporate relevant imagery to break up text

If the term SEO (search engine optimization) seems too technical for you, relax.  While there are SEO experts out there you can pay thousands of dollars to, you don’t need to if you can get a few of the basics right.

Anatomy of a Google search result and image “alt” attribute setting in the WordPress media gallery.

• Make sure your blog meta title includes your key words or phrases – The meta title is the title of the page that shows up in search engines.  Typically, “most” WordPress themes will automatically use your article title as your meta title, but many optimization plugins allow you to change it.
• Write an enticing meta description that includes key search terms your target audience might be searching for – The meta description is the short bit of text that sits below the search result.
• The link URL – be certain your main search words or phrase is included in your URL.
• Use your keywords and search terms naturally throughout the copy of your article.  Be sure to avoid overusing popular terms.  This is known as keyword stuffing and can actually hurt your rankings.  Using your keywords and phrasing even just a few times will be sufficient for search engines to understand your content.
• Don’t forget to use the image “alt” attribute – although not seen by the majority of your visitors, the image “alt” text is read by search engines. This is a prime opportunity to not only describe your image, but incorporate keywords relevant to your article.

This is the one that almost everyone forgets.  For every article you write, you need to consider, “What do I want my reader to do now?”  Even if your blog post is purely for educational purposes, you should have a “next step” path for your reader to follow, even if it is something as simple as referencing another related post.

Here are some call to action ideas:

• make a purchase
• schedule an appointment/consultation
• request a quotation
• leave a comment
• read additional information