Organic Marketing | 10 Steps to Optimize Your Squarespace Blog Posts for SEO
Blog Overview: Organic marketing is a digital strategy to build a strong brand presence long-term. It involves using free methods such as SEO and interesting blog posts to create brand awareness and attract customers with useful content. Here, we’ll chat about why blogging is an effective organic marketing strategy, and best blogging practices you can implement on your own site to organically (and consistently) increase traffic and establish your business following.
SEO is a common theme around here, I know! Having a good SEO ranking on platforms like Google can have a snowball effect on your business. A key way to achieve SEO success is to use your blog strategically to generate organic growth. Blogging is the #1 reason I get found on Google. Unfortunately, you can’t just create content without a strategy, writing about random stuff unrelated to your business. (Although that would be super fun!) There is a larger strategy behind blogging as an organic marketing tool to grow your business. Once you apply that, you’ll reap the rewards (long term!).
Why is blogging an effective way to boost SEO?
1. Google loves blogging & it boosts your SEO
Google loves content that is high-quality, unique and is regularly updated. By infusing your blogs with keywords, you will have an even higher chance of being found by your ideal clients online. This organic traffic will help your business grow naturally (without having to invest more and more into marketing).
2. Blogging enhances business credibility
By sharing your expertise and knowledge of your niche with your clients and followers, you will be showing your credibility in the marketplace. Credibility works to build trust with your clients and will keep them coming back for even more content that is relevant to their business and/or lives.
3. Blogging increases your visibility & develops relationships
Speaking to the first point, if Google loves your high-quality content, more clients are likely to find your website organically. If your content shows your credibility in your niche, your visibility will increase from them sharing or referring your work to others.
4. Digital consumption is only growing
It is no surprise that the use and consumption of digital resources is huge and only continues to grow. It only makes sense to continue to provide valuable content followers are craving. You are bound to reach someone 😊
These are just a few reasons why blogging is still a great investment of your time to grow your business organically.
Here’s 10 Ways to Optimize Squarespace Blog Posts for SEO:
1. Focus On A Clear Niche
Before you commit to writing anything for your blog, ensure that you are focused on writing topics that align with your niche. Creating blogs just to have content on your website is not an effective approach. For your content to be ranked high on Google, it needs to have value to your client base. So, think about what topics would align with your services or brand
2. Select Effective Keywords & Know How To Use Them
For each blog, have specific keywords in mind. Keywords are the specific phrases that visitors type in on Google when searching for relevant content. Use these keywords as often as possible throughout your blog article. A best practice is to select unique keywords for each blog you create. This helps Google differentiate between your content and provide visitors with the write option. If your blog posts all have the same keywords, this might make them rank lower on Google since it won’t know which ones are best for the visitors.
3. Optimize Blog Length
When using blog posts as a marketing tool, it is important to keep in mind the attention span of most readers. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should write shorter blogs, however. In fact, Google sees longer form blogs as more valuable content. Each blog should range in 1,000-1,500 words to perform better on Google and attract more visitors. To keep readers engaged, break up heavy blocks of text with clear headers, and add bullet points or lists where possible. Also, limit each sentence to a single thought to make it more digestible.
4. Include Images
Throughout your blog posts, use lots of images, videos, and screen shots. Visual materials are proven to entice readers to keep reading and stay on your page for much longer. Keeping blog readers engaged and on your site for longer lowers your “bounce rate” (the time it takes for someone to leave the page). Lower bounce rates = great for SEO! Google will notice it as engaging/helpful content that people are enjoying. You’ll be rewarded with a higher SEO rank!
5. Optimize Images
Optimizing your blog post images involves 2 thinks:
Making sure each image is less than 250 KB:
This helps increase your site’s speed. Faster sites are ranked higher by Google, since they tend to keep visitors for longer. Although images can really slow down your site’s speed, they are important for lots of other reasons. By reducing the file size, it’s a win-win for your website & SEO.
Adding names to each image:
Since Google can’t read your image, it needs a way of identifying what the image is. Adding alt text to each image helps Google know what the image is. Keep the alt text relevant to your topic or blog title so Google has more words to index, and push your SEO rank even higher.
6. Add Internal Links
Adding links to your site that link to other pages and resources that could helpful is like “voting” for that content/page. As well, internal links direct visitors around your website. Keeping site visitors on your website is a huge win in Google’s book. Get linking!
7. Be Intentional About Heading Tags
Squarespace and other web design platforms have the ability to have Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and even Heading 4 (thanks Squarespace) tags. When selecting sizes of your heading tags, make sure they are sized according to their hierarchal order. For example, Heading 1 should be the biggest and boldest, Heading 2 should be slightly smaller and less bold than heading 1, and so on.
This is important since Google can see the size and boldness of each heading. It will assume when you are using Heading 1, that it’s the most important, and will rank that information higher. This is something to keep in mind when setting your website styles in the first place. And then again when you’re adding headings to your blog posts.
Make sure to use your blog post headings in order of importance so Google can pick-up on the important content.
Example:
This is an important title for your Squarespace SEO Blog
This is a less important title for your Squarespace SEO Blog
This is general body text for your Squarespace SEO Blog
8. Post Consistently
To maximize blogging as an organic marketing tool, you should plan to post new blogs consistently. Posting at least once per week is a good standard to get going. It is always important to prioritize the value of your content over the quantity of articles. As mentioned, Google loves high-value content! You are more likely to rank higher on Google with fewer, high-quality blog posts than many lower-quality posts.
9. Optimize Your Blog Title
The more clicks your blog gets on Google, the higher Google will rank your content. Having a blog title that people actually want to click is incredibly important. To help increase your clicks:
Use numbers in your title (e.g., 5 Ways to Improve Blog SEO in Squarespace)
Use brackets in your title (e.g., Blog SEO Tips for Squarespace (Checklist included!))
And, as always, use your keywords!
10. Promote Your Blog & Keep Posts Shareable
Whenever you create a new blog, it is so important that you share the new content with the world! First of all, you’ve put your time and energy into creating the content, and you deserve others to see your work! And, showcasing your content on your preferred platform(s) (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) helps Google see the activity of your content. More activity with your content helps Google see it as valuable and will ultimately lead to a higher ranking for related searches.
Each time you post, make sure it is possible for others to share it as well. Every time someone shares your content, new markets open for you and your business. Your growth rate will continue to increase at an organic rate (without having to put additional time or resources into marketing!).
I hope you feel more encouraged to invest your time in blogging and reap it’s long-term rewards.
