7 SEO Tips For New Bloggers

As a new blogger, you want to avoid becoming overwhelmed with everything that you need to be doing.

Being overwhelmed can mean the difference between an idea that exists only in your mind and a published blog full of amazing content that you created.

Instead of finding hacks and developing strategies, we’re going to focus on 7 easy to implement SEO tips for new bloggers.

To become a successful blogger, stack the odds in your favor by choosing a niche that you love to write about. One with a healthy amount of competition and a clear path to monetization.

If you’re interested in multiple topics, it could pose a challenge for you to narrow your focus down to one topic.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding on the niche you’re going to target:

• Is it a topic with organic search traffic? You want to be unique in the content you create, not in the topic you write about. Confirm that the niche has plenty of interested readers. Otherwise, you can forget about monetizing your blog down the road.
• Is there competition? Look for existing blogs and influencers who are writing on your topic. That indicates that the topic has a viable market. Competition is a good thing since it points the way to a popular, thriving space.
• Is this a topic you enjoy? Choose a topic you can spend day after day writing blog posts and do that for at least 3 years.
• Do you have work or life experience related to your niche? Love to explore the world? A travel blog could be fun. Are you an expert on social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn? Do you have a background in content creation that could give you an edge?
• Is there a way of earning money with your topic? How are other blogs in this space earning money? Blogging is hard work, so make sure there is a path to monetize your blog before you begin.

The success of your blog depends on how well you understand your audience.

When you begin to understand your audience, you create a strong connection with them. Use the language they use to show that you understand where they come from and what they want.

Quality content that resonates with your audience keeps them on your site. Quality will always outperform quantity.

If you don’t understand your readers’ wants and needs, your content will not provide any value to them, resulting in them bouncing to the next blog.

Determine who your target readers are. Conduct market research and keyword research. What blogs do they read? What podcasts do they listen to? Learn their challenges and goals. Then write your content in a way that solves those problems.

There is a lot of noise on the internet. Out of the 1.7 billion websites out there, there are roughly 600 million blogs.

You could spend hours writing a blog post filled with carefully researched, valuable information. But if no one reads it, then your blog doesn’t grow. That means no organic traffic, no page views, and no email subscribers.

As a blogger, one of the first skills you need to develop is writing catchy headlines. Ones that call out to your target audience, saying, “Hey! Look what I wrote for you, and here’s how you’ll benefit!”

Headlines should represent the content and be specific. That way, your target readers know exactly what it’s about.

Brainstorm as many headlines as possible. Many times, the first ones you come up with are “meh.” But if you keep going, you’ll write one that makes you smile with satisfaction. To help dial in your headlines, we recommend using the CoSchedule Headlines Analyzer.

Writing for online readers means delivering value in an easy-to-absorb format that is also optimized for SEO.

Here are some tips to make that happen:

• Write in a conversational tone, like you’re talking to a friend. If you read your post back to yourself and it sounds like a robot, start over.
  Make your post easy to read.
• Use subheadings to help website crawlers understand your page structure. People will also skim your post to see if it’s worth reading before committing their time and energy.
• Avoid walls of text. Write in short, punchy paragraphs. You don’t want your content to look like a terms and conditions page.
• Avoid rambling. Stick to one central idea and make your post only as long as it needs to be to get that idea across. People are impatient and will not stick around if they feel like they are reading a book. Keep it short and to the point.
• Add in screenshots and other images where appropriate to break up all the text.

Using data and references to back up your claims wherever possible adds value, making your arguments more concrete.

Including well-placed power words will energize your ideas. Providing examples will provide credibility in your writing.

Let’s be honest. You chose to blog because you love to write, but we all experience those days where writing is the last thing we want to do.

Writing can be tough at times and depending on how much your writing can lead to burnout.

A day or two off is not a big deal, but it puts you at the risk of losing momentum. Days become weeks, which then turn into months.

To prevent this, don’t write only when you feel like it. Write on a schedule. Be consistent.

As a new blogger, you have a decision to make: How often are you going to create new posts? Weekly? Monthly? Or even daily?

Decide on how often you’ll post and stick to that decision. Readers need that consistency.

Once you’ve created and published content designed for your target audience, the next step is to promote it on social media.

Be careful posting links to your work in Facebook groups. Many of them have strict rules about doing that. That could get you banned from that group.

Social media marketing is a huge topic. To keep things simple, pick just one or two social media platforms to start with. For our blog, we use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Try to choose the one where your target audience is most likely to be. Focus on it exclusively until you’re comfortable before you move on to the next platform.

The first step is learning how to do keyword research. Keyword research is the process of figuring out which words or phrases people use to search for information on your topic.

Showing up in Google searches requires plenty of high-quality backlinks pointing to your content from sites that Google sees as trustworthy authorities on your topic.

You also need to understand “searcher intent” or what someone is looking for when they type in those keyword phrases online. The trick is to make sure the content you create answers the questions searchers are asking.

An effective method is to type your topic keyword into the Google search box. Then look at the top results to see what content is ranking. As you start typing your topic into Google pay attention to the auto-complete options Google provides. Those are phrases that people have already searched on. Also at the bottom of the search results page, you’ll see related search phrases. Both are great tools for figuring out your topic and headline.

Another way to see what people are asking is to use AnswerThePublic. With this tool, you type in a topic name and get a list of questions people are asking about the topic. Another similar site is Quora.

Make a plan. Start by finding your topic and audience.

Then start going through the tips on this list one at a time.

Don’t think about all the tips at once. Remember, take one step at a time. Pick one tip and work on that until you’ve mastered it. Then move on to the next.

The more of these SEO tips that you implement, the more successful your blog will become.

Be patient and realize this won’t happen overnight. Give it the time and hard work it requires. Soon you’ll be reaping the rewards.