I was brainstorming themes for this blog when spring rains suddenly washed the skies in my neighborhood. A deluge poured from the clouds. Roof gutters strained to contain the water. Thunder and lightning tortured the air and small furry things went into hiding to wait out the storm.
Afterward, the landscape transformed and became a vibrant green. Birds sang. Trees bloomed. The furry things munched new tidbits for lunch.
That genius nature. She knows that a balance of certain elements is essential to creating abundance.
My theme had arrived from the sky: ELEMENTS.
By now you know that creating a regular blog keeps your site fresh and your traffic growing. But do you know what essential elements your blogs should contain? Ensuring each blog is composed of the right components in the right balance aids in the search engine optimization (SEO) of your site.
Let’s discuss.
First the deluge
Open the floodgates: Start by doing some research on each blog topic. Get your information from respected sources that are current. Read as much as you can or talk to experts if time allows. If you discover a good idea while researching, make sure to give credit to the site that inspired you with a link, or directly quote anyone you’ve interviewed. Citing every reference will help your site visitors learn to trust you.
Besides being the right thing to do, linking to other sites (establishing external links) will improve your rankings and site visibility. Don’t hesitate to refer to your own website or library of past blogs as well (internal links). Yoast, a leader in website optimization, explains that Google follows links and each link gives your linked pages more weight or importance. This, in turn, helps your site SEO. Find out more about kinds of links and linking strategy from Yoast.
A little thunder and lightning
Spend some time crafting each blog. Make your blogs personal and interesting. Do you want your blogs to be serious, spicy, funny, irreverent, or educational? Develop your own genuine voice or manner of writing or hire a writer to help you.
You can punctuate each blog with keywords, but those words shouldn’t overpower your piece. You want your human readers to enjoy your blogs. Never write a blog solely with search engine bots in mind. Check out our blog on Black and White Hat SEO for more on SEO practices that are good, bad and ugly.
Nature loves order
Ensure you create your blogs with master headings and subheadings that flow in logical order. If possible, optimize your headings with keywords.
Long-tail key words can be particularly useful in headings. Those are keywords unique to your service or product that can help your site to be found more easily. See this article on WordStream to learn more about long-tail keywords or check out our previous blog about optimizing your content for voice searches.
Engage the senses
We are visual creatures who get joy from seeing an endless blue sky or the crisp white of a fresh baseball jersey against the backdrop of a verdant field.
In other words, readers love it when you compliment good writing with images that relate to your blog. Use powerful images that convey emotional meaning. Just ensure you have the rights to use each image and credit photographers or artists when you should. Check out our past blog to discover great free resources for stock photography.
To help search engines find your site, don’t forget to neatly title and describe every image with metadata. Include keywords in your descriptions and use alt tags to help users with screen readers understand your content. Forget to include metadata and you’ll miss out on a great opportunity to add valuable SEO information to your blog. To learn more about image optimization, check out this excellent blog by Semrush.
Grab an umbrella
Feeling a little swamped? Need help with SEO practices or blog writing? We founded Sublime Creations to help customers just like you weather storms and get the answers they need. We are an eco-friendly company providing local and small businesses with website consultation, design and personalized training solutions. Contact me online or call me to schedule your free 30-minute consultation to discuss any business online listing questions you might have.
