Writing a blog doesn’t have to be a daunting task. When I first started it would take me days. Now it typically takes under an hour to write a blog article. Having a system in place helps speed up the process substantially. I’ll outline how to write blog posts faster and more effectively by repeating a simple blog writing process.

Know Your Target Keyword

The first step to writing a blog article is performing keyword research. Now keyword research is a huge topic alone and if you need details on how to do that refer to our complete keyword research guide.

This step is critical because it confirms that the time you are spending to write a blog post is well spent because your audience is looking for that content.

There are times when you might write an article that is so unique and specific to your journey or your audience that a keyword wouldn’t be applicable. In those cases, you don’t need a shortcut to write a blog faster. Those stories almost write themselves because they are personalized stories you are sharing. It’s fine to share posts like that from time to time but if your goal is to grow your audience then make sure the majority of your content is keyword focused.

Create an Outline

Once you know the topic of your blog, start building an outline. Create a list with all of the items you’d like to mention in your article.

Once you jot down all of your talking points you can start organizing them. I like to do this with a bulleted list. Start rearranging and adding some structure to your ideas so the conversation will have a flow that’s easy to understand.

Look at the Top 10 Search Results

After you’ve written down all of your existing ideas and thoughts you want to mention, it’s time to take a look at what’s ranking currently.

Go to Google and search for the keyword you are targeting. Look at the top ten results that currently rank for that term. There are two things you want to look for while doing this.

First, make sure that the subject matches what you had in mind. If the results are completely different from the article you plan to write, in a way that’s so drastically different that the person looking at these results would never have any interest in your article, then you need to find a new keyword.

Search for a few other similar keywords until you start to find the right content for the article you have in mind. This doesn’t happen too often but every once in a while the language we use to describe something is vastly different than the general population and because of that the search results for that term are not as useful as we had hoped.

Once you are certain you are focused on the correct keyword, take a look at the results. Actually click through and take a look at the top ten search results. Scan through the subheadings on each article to get a good understanding about which topics are covered.

As you’re looking at the subheadings on the top ranking articles it will likely trigger more ideas for your own article. Go ahead and add those ideas to your outline. Remember not to copy the ideas though. The subheadings will act as idea starters and often remind you of topics you had wanted to include, but forgot about while creating your original outline. I make sure to never read the details on the top ranked blogs because I don’t want to accidentally word my article the same way as another.

I simply scroll through quickly glancing at headings to make sure I haven’t forgotten any talking points. I also take a look at visuals so I can get an understanding of what I need to do to stand out and improve on the top ranked pages.

Finalize the Structure in Your Outline

After reviewing the top ranked sites and adding any last minute ideas to your outline, make sure the outline is well organized. The outline should be in a bulleted list. The main bullets will be your subheadings. The secondary bullets will end up being your paragraphs and talking points.

Write the Intro

Once you have a clear outline write your introduction paragraph to give the reader an idea of what they will learn in the article. Make sure to include your keyword in the intro paragraph and give the reader a clear idea of what to expect.

Write the Article Body Using the Outline

After the introduction you’ll start writing the body of the article. To do this you’ll follow the outline you have created. Use the outline to remind yourself of the concept and then write about it.

Don’t worry about the grammar, that can be fixed later. Just take it one piece at a time and write whatever comes to mind. When you finish writing about that one topic, scroll back to the outline to remember what comes next. Continue writing about the next point and so on until you are at the end of the outline.

Write a Summary

After you’ve covered everything included in the outline, write a summary or conclusion paragraph. The goal of that paragraph is to summarize what was discussed in the article.

Once the summary is complete the blog article rough draft is done.

Edit the Blog Post

Once you have a rough draft finished, read through it in its entirety. Make sure it flows properly. Read through it at least once with no other goal than making sure it is coherent and all sounds good together.

After that, go back through the article to fix any grammar and spelling issues and do a more formal editing process.

Summary

Creating repeatable routines and writing often is the best way to speed up blog content creation. If you follow this process to create keyword focused content in an organized manner it will not only save you time but the article itself will be more effective and rank higher in search engines because it is created to answer questions people are looking for.

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About six months ago I got one of those ideas that wouldn’t go away. Instead, it continued to grow. The idea was to share what we’ve learned about camping off-grid in a micro trailer. After one year of ditching the tent and camping in the trailer, we knew we had a new obsession. Camping has been completely changed for the better. And my husband and I have a new habit of always trying to improve both our trailer and our camping routines.

We got to the point where we felt like we had information worth sharing with other families interested in doing the same thing, camping off-grid in a micro trailer and making lasting family memories. We wanted to both share the knowledge and preserve the memories. And we decided YouTube was the best place to do that.

Six months ago, we created our YouTube channel and we have been posting content every single week. We thought we’d go over what we’ve done with the channel, what we’ve learned, and how much money we’ve made with it. That way we can give you an idea if having a YouTube channel would make sense for you.

Creating a Plan for Our YouTube Channel

We knew from the beginning that we needed to have a clear plan for our channel and not create content at random. We first decided which types of videos we would be creating. We came up with three different categories.

First, we would create videos of our camping trips. These videos would have no voiceover but instead show what a trip could look like if you decide to visit that campground. These videos are meant both as family keepsakes and to give a clear idea of what that particular campsite and campground look like. For details about the location and to add extra value it was decided that each of those videos would also have a corresponding campground review blog article that discusses the good and the bad.

Next, we would create educational content. These videos would all have one specific theme and would include footage of one of us speaking. We would mix in video footage of camp trips to help illustrate our point, but the goal of these videos is to help people either with the trailer, camping off-grid, or camping with a family.

And finally, we would create content showing our camping recipes. Specifically we would focus on cooking on the Blackstone while camping. Our trailer came with a Blackstone, and we would never camp without a Blackstone now, so it felt like content that was important to include. It was also content that we were having issues finding on our own on YouTube so we thought it would be good to create it.

In addition to the YouTube channel we knew we also wanted to start a blog. Each video would have a corresponding blog article. The plan was to create the blog off of a modified version of the video transcript. Using the transcript would save us time but we knew it would need to be reviewed and altered slightly to make sense for a blog post.

And lastly, to grow our blog we planned to leverage the ClearPath Online DIY SEO Tool and follow the SEO tasks provided there to grow website traffic and help gain an audience.

Leveraging Affiliate Marketing

We knew many of our videos would highlight particular products. So we decided early on it would make sense to do some affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you partner with retailers and receive a personalized way to link to products so the experience is the same for the user but the retailer can identify the referrer and give a small fee for the referral without increasing the price to the user.

Affiliate marketing made sense because it was a win-win. Highlighting products without linking to the exact item is a pain. Adding the exact link is a benefit and convenience for the viewer. And if we generate sales it makes sense we would earn a small commission if it comes at no extra cost to our viewer.

Even though we do have many affiliate marketing links our number one goal is to help the viewer. So there are still times we add a link to a product even though we don’t get any monetary value from the link. Providing accurate information in a convenient format is more important than earning a small affiliate referral fee.

And we only ever recommend products we’ve used and tested. It’s not worth getting an affiliate commission for a product we haven’t tested. It’s more important to be a trustworthy source.

How Much We’ve Earned From 6 Months of Affiliate Marketing

We have signed up for two different affiliate accounts. We’re using Amazon and Battle Born. So far we’ve only made money from Amazon but that makes sense. Battle Born is where we purchased the equipment for our solar upgrade and that’s a project that takes months of research before you’re ready to commit. So I expect that to be a longer funnel.

To be honest, I added Amazon affiliate links because I thought it made sense. It seemed like a good idea since I was already recommending the products. I didn’t have any expectations so I was thrilled when it started making anything.

The first two months we made nothing. The third month we made just slightly under twenty dollars. The fourth month we made over forty dollars. And the fifth month we made one hundred and ten dollars. The sixth month hasn’t been calculated by Amazon yet.

So far I have been very happy with the income from affiliate marketing. I don’t expect this to be a steady stream of income, but anything we get is a welcome bonus.

Monetizing on YouTube

We are hoping to be able to monetize on YouTube so we can get a cut of the ads that already play on our videos. YouTube has some metrics you need to meet before you can monetize your channel. We need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Right now we are at 143 subscribers and 1,654 watch hours.

So, we have a long way to go with subscribers but I’m very happy with our watch hours. I thought that would be the more difficult metric to reach. Although we are already six months in and not even halfway on either of these metrics I’m still hoping we will reach these goals within one year of posting weekly content. So that gives us six more months. They are picking up some momentum so I don’t anticipate the next six months to go at the same speed as the first, I expect us to keep growing.

As long as we keep posting weekly content our numbers should continue to climb. Since there is more content available to be consumed there are more opportunities to gain watch hours and subscribers.

Growing Our Website

Having a blog and a web presence was an important piece for us. We use the videos as our primary content and create the text based on the video transcript. This makes the project much easier to tackle so we can focus on creating high-quality videos.

We started with a completely new website. We didn’t own the domain before, we started at ground zero with absolutely no visitors. After six months we now have over 300 monthly visitors and it’s growing each month. About 80% of the traffic comes from Google search results. The rest comes from social accounts (including YouTube) and direct traffic.

The Costs Involved with Our YouTube Channel

So far the costs involved have been very minimal. We intentionally tried to start with what we have and not invest a bunch of money from the very beginning. We wanted to see if this was something we were interested in continuing with and get a better idea of the gear we needed before we started spending money.

Camera Cost

Of course one of the most important parts of creating a YouTube channel is having a camera. All we’ve used so far is the camera built into our phones. Now, this is good and bad.

When we started my phone was actually broken. It had died for no apparent reason and a new version of the phone was about to be released. Instead of buying the current (about to be outdated) version I decided to wait. In the meantime, I borrowed a phone. While it was a nice phone (and I was grateful to have it) the camera was not as nice as my old phone. There was a moment where I told myself I couldn’t start the channel until I got my new phone.

I luckily have a husband who reminded me that was a bad mindset and I shouldn’t let something like that stop me. So I didn’t. I now have a nicer phone but the quality is still far from perfect.

What I’ve learned though is having my phone available for recording is a big reason why I’m able to make these videos. It’s convenient and I always have it. If I upgrade to a standalone camera the quality will likely improve but the content will likely decline. Anything other than my phone wouldn’t constantly be with me so it would be more difficult to capture all of the content I’d like to include.

So, my camera cost has been nothing because I use whatever phone I own as my primary camera. It is possible this would change in the future or we may add a camera such as a GoPro for extra footage. But right now this seems to be a benefit so it’s easy to capture the content that’s important to me.

Hosting Cost

Another possible cost is hosting. YouTube is free and doesn’t cost anything to host videos. But, if you start a blog as well there is a hosting cost involved. We already have a host we pay for monthly so this was not an added cost to us. But, if you need a host you can use Bluehost which is as low as five dollars per month.

(Disclosure: The Bluehost link is an affiliate link. By purchasing through that link you help support ClearPath Online at no additional cost to yourself.)

Transcripts Cost

Transcripts are very helpful both to add captions to the YouTube videos and to use as content for blog articles. For the majority of the transcripts I’ve listened to the video and typed them all out myself. This route is completely free but very time consuming. Depending on the video it would sometimes take me three hours to complete a transcript. I started realizing this is a bad use of my time.

For my more recent videos I used Rev.com. They have an option to have the transcripts computer generated instead of having the work done by an actual person. This route is extremely cheap, only twenty-five cents per minute. I gave this a try and while it wasn’t perfect, it saved me several hours for each video.

I had four videos transcribed for under ten dollars using Rev. I plan to continue using their service going forward. It was money well spent for all the time I saved.

Editing Cost

Since I edit the videos myself there isn’t a cost for an editor. I happen to already own the software I use for editing as well so that was another cost I was able to save. The software I use is called Camtasia. The software costs $300 but it is a one-time fee.

Where I did need to spend some money for editing was buying music. Camtasia did come with some music that works well for background tracks. But, once I used all of those tracks I didn’t want to repeat the same songs. I wanted a larger library. I only use music for our campground videos but if they all had the same songs it would be very boring.

So I started using Artlist for background music. It’s only $16 per month and it makes the process of finding music super simple. There are several search options that you can use to filter the results including the mood of the song and if there are vocals or just instrumental. It makes the editing process much faster when finding the right song isn’t a huge challenge.

Our Future Plans for Our YouTube Channel

We are six months into our YouTube channel and we’re having a ton of fun with it. We definitely plan to continue creating content and growing our channel.

Our primary goal for the channel is to be able to monetize it through YouTube. We also plan to grow it to the point where we can open an Amazon store which provides higher commission rates than the standard Amazon affiliate program.

And if the channel continues to grow we will use any profit it generates to upgrade our equipment. Eventually we would like to get a GoPro and start focusing on high quality video and audio.

Summary

So that’s where we are after six months of weekly YouTube content. The videos are getting easier and faster to edit. We are having a ton of fun. And we are even starting to make some money. If you’re interested in checking out our videos you can find them at RoginaRoaming.com.

We plan to do a follow up to this article in another six months. At that point we will have an entire year of weekly YouTube content. My hope is I’ll be able to tell you we have monetized with YouTube. Either way though I’ll provide an update on our progress and let you know how things are going.


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The Bing Webmaster Tools are one of the few tools you want to setup on your website from the beginning. They are packed with insights, data, and tools that you can use to improve your website. And the data begins that day it’s setup, so even if you aren’t ready for it yet, start collecting the data. Here’s how to setup Bing Webmaster Tools.

Are the Bing Webmaster Tools Worth Using?

Before we go over how to setup Bing Webmaster Tools, let’s discuss if it’s even worth using. The short answer is: yes! First of all, it’s free, so why not? Second, for all of the same reasons you setup Google Search Console on your site, you’ll want to setup Bing Webmaster Tools as well. These tools provide feedback directly from the search engines! The only thing better than getting feedback on your site straight from a search engine, is getting feedback from two search engines! Just because you get the majority of your organic search traffic from Google, doesn’t mean you should ignore Bing.

If that isn’t enough to convince you, the Bing Webmaster Tools are packed with features you won’t find in the Google Search Console. It has a keyword research tool, allows you to run a site scan to identify SEO issues, and even offers free conversion optimization tools such as heatmaps and session recordings with Microsoft Clarity.

Setting up Bing Webmaster Tools

Before you start, make sure you setup Google Analytics and then setup Google Search Console. These installs build on each other. Google Search Console is easiest to setup when Google Analytics has already been configured. Similarly, Bing Webmaster Tools is easiest to setup when Google Search Console has already been setup.

So, before you install Bing Webmaster Tools, setup Google Analytics and then Google Search Console. Now you’re ready to setup Bing Webmaster Tools.

  1. To get started with Bing Webmaster Tools go to: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/.
  2. Click Get Started and sign in.
  3. You can choose to either import your site from the Google Search Console, or add it manually. Click import under the Google Search Console option.
  4. Follow the prompts to continue and log into your Google account.
  5. On the Import from Google Search Console screen select the domain(s) you want to import.
  6. Click Import and then you’ll be redirected to your new dashboard.
installing bing webmaster tools

That’s all there is to it! Now your site is verified with Bing Webmaster Tools and you can start getting valuable insights to optimize your website.


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Google provides a free tool for website owners to see potential issues and gain insights not available in Google Analytics. It’s called the Google Search Console. We’re going to walk through how to setup Google Search Console on your website.

Why Should You Use Google Search Console?

Before we discuss how to setup Google Search Console, let’s discuss why you should. Or maybe the real question is: why wouldn’t you use Google Search Console? The Google Search Console contains data and utilities meant to increase your website traffic and visibility on Google. This information is coming directly from Google. That same search engine that you are working hard to rank on. So, why wouldn’t you listen to the personalized advice they are offering your website?

The Search Console is what Google uses to communicate issues and errors to website owners and administrators. This is the tool Google uses to contact you and give you free advice, just take some time to listen and maybe you’ll see some search improvements.

What’s the Difference Between Google Search Console and Google Webmaster Tools?

Google Search Console was previously named Google Webmaster Tools. You may still see references to the old name around the internet, they are really interchangeable. Google Search Console and Google Webmaster Tools are the same thing, but Google Search Console is the new and current name.

Setting up Google Search Console

Setting up Google Search Console for your website is pretty straightforward. Before you start, make sure you’ve already setup Google Analytics. That makes the process super simple. Then, follow these steps:

  1. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/.
  2. Click Start Now and login to your Google account. (Make sure it’s the same Google account you used for your website’s Google Analytics account.)
  3. Under URL Prefix enter in your website URL and click Continue.
    • You can enter the URL under Domain instead. This is preferred because it allows you to set it up once and see all variations of the domain (https, www, etc.) but it requires DNS verification. The other method allows you to verify with several different methods including Google Analytics. If adding a DNS record isn’t a problem for you then go that route. If you want the easiest possible set up though then just stick with URL Prefix. You’ll have to set it up multiple times to see data from every variation of the URL but setup is super simple and is finished in seconds.
  4. You’ll need to verify your website. If you have Google Analytics setup, and you chose URL Prefix, then using Google Analytics to verify is the easiest option. Otherwise, you can choose HTML file upload or HTML tag and follow the prompts to verify within minutes.
installing google search console

Unless you choose the Domain configuration instead of URL Prefix, you’ll want to repeat this process for both the www and non-www versions of your website. If you use https, then those versions should also be added for both https and http. Which means there would be a total of four site variations added to Google Search Console. Google sees all of these versions as separate sites and adding them all to Google Search Console will give you full visibility. Seeing data for all of them will allow you to verify everything is configured properly.

When you add a new web property, Google will send you a message outlining some steps you can take to improve the search presence of your website. Go through those steps and implement the ones that make sense for your web property. They include items such as adding all website variations and adding a sitemap.

Check Your Google Search Console Monthly

Setting up the Google Search Console is only the first step. It won’t do you much good if you never look at it. Try to login monthly to confirm there are no issues.

A few common tasks to check include:

  • your sitemap is still successfully submitted
  • your site is still being indexed
  • there are no manual penalties or security issues
  • reviewing crawl errors

When you first start the account you may find several issues and recommended improvements. Invest the time to get those cleaned up. Once you get the initial issues taken care the monthly checks won’t take long.

If you need help staying on top of the different tasks you need to perform within the Google Search Console you can leverage the ClearPath Online DIY SEO Tool. It’s prepopulated with prioritized digital marketing tasks, including everything you need to monitor within the Google Search Console. And it’s already set up to stagger them out so you have a short list each day based on your personal digital marketing needs.


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It’s important to have a strategy for WordPress categories and tags so you are using them in a manner that makes sense for your readers. The technical aspect of adding categories and tags to a post in WordPress is straightforward. What’s much more complicated is understanding when and why to do it. So, I’m going to talk about strategy and how to decide which categories and tags to add to each article. Here’s a strategy for how to use categories and tags in WordPress.

Think of Categories and Tags as Collections

Both categories and tags should be thought of as collections. You’re creating collections of content. Once you think of them in that manner all of the other decisions are simpler and make more sense.

Don’t Duplicate Categories and Tags

Now that we’re thinking of both categories and tags as collections, there is no reason to duplicate them. A collection of cookies is a collection of cookies whether it’s a category or a tag. Having two identical collections isn’t a benefit for the reader. It makes no difference to the reader that you consider one to be a category and one to be a tag. It doesn’t add any value. So, there’s no need to have both.

Aim for One Category

Try to only add one category to each article. It should be the one category that best describes the article. This is sometimes easier when you leverage parent and child categories. If you can assign a post to a child category, it can be part of the larger parent category as well without needing to assign it to multiple categories.

Only Create Tags for Items Worthy of a Collection

When creating tags remember you are creating a collection. Don’t create a tag if it’s so specific that there will only ever be one article in it. What happens then is that the tag page will be competing with your article. Since it would make more sense for the reader to go directly to the article than viewing a collection of one article, just skip the tag so it’s more likely the article will be found instead.

Do What’s Best For Your Readers

The primary strategy to follow when creating categories and tags in WordPress is to always do what’s best for your readers. If multiple categories make sense for your site and help your readers, then do it. But, likewise, don’t add as many tags as possible because you think it’s helping SEO. Add them only if it makes sense for the people you want to attract.


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Everyone makes mistakes. And when it comes to SEO, it’s no different. There are ways you can self-sabotage your SEO efforts. Here are ten common SEO mistakes to avoid so you don’t hurt your search rankings.

Talking to Everyone

The first mistake is writing content that speaks to everyone. When you talk to everyone, you talk to no one. You need to write in a way that resonates with one particular person. This is your target audience. If you write to one person, you will attract many more like-minded individuals. To make this easier, create a persona so you have a clear idea of who you’re talking to.

Creating the Wrong Content

When you create content, it’s important to focus on topics you want to be known for. You don’t want to write an article about a one-off thought that isn’t related to the focus of your website. You want to make it easy for the reader and search engines to know what your site is about and what you want to be known for.

Not Having Meta Descriptions

Most bloggers understand the basic on-page optimizations that improve SEO. The one optimization that is frequently forgotten is the meta description. The meta description doesn’t directly impact search rankings but it does play an indirect role.

The meta description is the snippet of text that appears below the title and URL in the search results. It helps the reader better understand if your site is a good match for their query and it can help increase click-through rates.

meta description in search results

Too Much Fluff

When writing content remember to focus on quality over quantity. You don’t need every article to be 3,000 words long in order to rank. Don’t add a bunch of extra fluff just to try and increase word count. Write as much as you need to fulfill the promise of your headline. Stick to the topic. It’s okay to link out to other articles with more information. Don’t waste your readers’ time by adding unnecessary content to the article so they have to hunt to find the information they are interested in.

Generic Anchor Text

When you add an internal link in your blog articles don’t add generic text such as click here for the link. Use relevant text in the existing article text to add the hyperlink. This is another signal to search engines explaining what the page is about.

Not Targeting a Primary Keyword

This is the number one issue I see when I do SEO audits for other bloggers. You need to have a primary keyword in mind for each page and optimize accordingly. Perform keyword research to make sure the keyword you are targeting isn’t too competitive. You want to find keywords that have low competition and still have some monthly search traffic.

Not Refreshing Old Content

There are multiple reasons to keep your content updated. First, Google wants to rank fresh content so if an article hasn’t been updated in years it will be harder to rank. Second, if an article is popular you want to make sure it’s still accurate so readers will have the best experience possible. If a reader goes to your site and finds outdated information they won’t be as likely to return or trust your brand.

On an annual basis you want to review your most popular pages. Review the most popular pages and make sure the content is up to date. This is also a good time to add images, charts, or videos if it adds value. Sometimes when trying to meet a posting deadline it’s easy to not add extra media items. Once the post has proven to be popular and a good source of traffic it’s a good time to revisit it to see how you can improve the experience.

Not Performing Daily Digital Marketing Maintenance

SEO is not a one-time task. To continue to grow with digital marketing and improve search rank you need to keep working on it. You need to check for crawl errors, broken links, and indexability issues. All of this can be simplified with the ClearPath Online DIY SEO Tool. It’s prepopulated with prioritized digital marketing tasks. And it’s already set up to stagger them out so you have a short list each day based on your personal digital marketing needs.

Not Using Free Tools

Another mistake is not using the free tools provided by the search engines. The most popular tool is Google Analytics which tracks data from your website. The less well known, but equally important tools, are Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. These tools are also free and they are where the search engines attempt to communicate issues about your site.

None of these tools pull in historical data. The data begins the day you set it up. So even if you aren’t sure how you’ll use the data and worried you won’t understand it, it’s still a good idea to set it up. That way it can start collecting data so it’s there for you when you are ready for it.

No Call-to-Action

The last mistake is having no call-to-action (CTA). Getting traffic to your site through SEO is great. But ultimately you want that traffic to do more than read your article, right? Maybe you have a newsletter signup, maybe there’s a book you have for sale, maybe you have a course. Whatever your goal is, you need to have a call-to-action button that asks readers to take that next step.

In Summary

Mistakes will happen. The important thing is being able to recognize where you can make improvements. Use this list as a guide to set some goals on areas where your blog can be improved so you can continue to improve your search rankings.


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We all know writing content based on keyword research is important. But, once you have your desired keyword, how should it be used in your content? Here’s how to optimize keyword placement in content.

Don’t Optimize Too Many Keywords

First, don’t try to optimize several terms on one page. You want to have a primary keyword to focus on. You can have secondary keywords but they should be natural variants or related to the primary. To find out more about secondary keywords and the ideal number of keywords you can view the guide on how many SEO keywords to use. The important thing to remember for the following advice is you want to focus on one primary keyword when optimizing for SEO.

Add the Primary Keyword to Title, H1, and First Paragraph

Go through the on-page optimization checklist and make sure your primary keyword appears in the key text elements of the page. This includes the title tag, the H1 tag, and the first paragraph. The earlier the keyword appears in the tags the better, but it’s important to make sure it’s optimized in a way that makes sense to the reader. You never want to compromise usability to improve SEO.

Write in a Natural Voice

It’s important to write in a natural language. Use your own voice and tone. Write in a way that will resonate with your audience. Keywords shouldn’t play a role here. If the content is about the keyword you’ve chosen, it will naturally come up. The word or phrase and it’s variant will appear in your writing if that is what the article is about. You don’t have to put extra effort in including them in the article.

So, there isn’t a firm number of times you’ve used your keyword to determine if it’s too much or too little. If you feel you need to figure out if your keyword appears enough, here are some guidelines.

Your keyword may appear too often if:

  • The content isn’t enjoyable to read
  • The content doesn’t make sense
  • The same phrase appears in every other sentence
  • The wrong tenses are being used throughout the article

All of these issues can occur when the writer is determined to use the one primary keyphrase exactly letter for letter in every possible instance of the article.

Your keyword may NOT appear often enough if:

  • Your keyword is not in any of the headings on the page
  • Your keyword is not in any of the paragraphs on the page

Although these issues listed could indicate you need to use the keyword more, it’s also possible you are okay. If the exact keyword wouldn’t be as meaningful to the reader it’s okay to use synonyms and close variants.

You need to use your judgement. Make sure the content makes sense for the reader and worry less about how many times the exact keyword appears in the article.


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Creating consistent blog content is important. You know you need to create a content plan and write your content in batches. But, scheduling your blog post doesn’t mean it’s done. Once the article is published there are a few tasks you’ll want to do to further optimize your content. Here’s what to do after publishing a blog post.

I like to break up my post publishing blog routine into four different categories. They are grouped into: site improvements, internal linking, social outreach, and SEO.

Post-Publish Site Improvements

After you publish a blog article there are a few places on your website that can be modified to help optimize the new post.

Disable and Redirect Any Outdated Version

First, if the article is an update instead of an entirely new article, make sure to disable the old article and add a 301-redirect. Of course, this only applies if the updated version is a completely separate page from the original version.

Embed Media

If there are any additional media sources that can be embedded now that the article is live, such as a podcast or YouTube video, then add them.

Add to Category Pages

Add the article to any relevant category or resource pages. It’s possible your site is set up to do this automatically. If not, just take care of it manually.

Post-Publish Internal Linking

Add Internal Links FROM Related Articles

Review any existing articles on your site that can be related to the new post. If there’s an opportunity to add an internal link to the newest article, do it.

Add Internal Links TO Related Articles

The opposite is true as well. Look at the new blog article. Make sure you are linking out to any existing articles wherever you have relevant content.

Here is a full guide on internal linking that covers both of these processes.

Post-Publish Social Outreach

Create Graphic for Social Media

Use a tool such as Canva to create a graphic to use for a social media post. Whether your primary network is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn; a nice graphic will increase the chance people will stop scrolling to read the post.

Schedule Social Media Shares

Schedule out as many social media shares as reasonable for the article. You don’t need to use as many social networks as possible, but schedule shares on the social networks that you have decided work for you and your audience.

The trick is to not share the identical post every time. Instead take a quote from the article, change the headline into a question, or share different subheadings. Find different pieces from the article to share. That way, you can share the same article multiple times, but it isn’t annoying for your biggest fans. And if someone wasn’t interested the first time, maybe they will resonate with a different part of the article and decide to click on a later post.

Space out the shares however you feel comfortable. I normally share about two weeks after the first post and then monthly after that.

Send to Email List

Make sure to send the new article to your email list. Either send it as a one-time blast or add it to a sequence. If you already have a sequence of content you use as your newsletter then add it where it makes sense in your sequence.

If it is timely content related to a current event or if you don’t have an email service provider that allows sequencing, then just send it as a one-time email.

Post-Publish SEO

Confirm Keyword Placement

Confirm the primary keyword appears in the Title, H1 tag, and first paragraph.

Write Meta Description

Confirm there is a meta description with the keyword included.

Track Rank

If you use a tool such as Ubersuggest to track rank, add your new keyword so it is easy to monitor.

That’s it, that’s the routine! Writing content can be time consuming. So, you want to make sure you’re getting as much value out of the content as possible. Following this post-publish task routine will help ensure your content starts ranking and bringing in traffic.


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