3 Ways to Transform Your Blog Into a

SEO Machine
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by Carrie Morgan 43 Comments

Image via BigStockPhoto.com

 When my daughter turned two, the only people that showed up to eat
birthday cake at the party were immediate family members – mom, dad and her big brother,
Adam. Why? Because we didn’t send out invitations or put any effort into getting
guests to show up.

While this may be perfectly fine for a family event or a toddler that doesn’t know the
difference, who wants to put time and effort into a business blog if readers aren’t showing
up? Over 80% of blogs stagnate with no traffic and few readers but, like Jillian’s
birthday party, the problem often lies with how people are invited to participate.

Simply having one doesn’t make it generate results.

What are the most effective ways to get blog posts read?

 Sharing on social media

 Using an email list to distribute new posts
 Purchasing Google or Facebook advertising to drive awareness
 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Using ALL of these options is ideal, but if you can only chose one, then SEO gets my vote
every time.

If you have a few hours to invest, here are 3 ways to transform your WordPress blog (or
website) into a search-friendly traffic generator.  All of them are free, other than the time
you’ll invest.

1. Install a good SEO plug-in.

My favorite free SEO solution is WordPress SEO by Yoast, which makes it easy as red
light, yellow light, green light. Pretty easy, right? Make sure to keep in mind that simply
installing this plugin isn’t helpful in and of itself – but many bloggers stop at this first step.
Its real power lies in understanding how to use it correctly and choosing the right
keywords.

2. Do keyword research.

Head over to the Google Keyword Popularity Tool and invest some time in keyword
research to better understand which keywords drive the most traffic. The trick with
keywords is to never assume you know which ones are best; ALWAYS do research to
ensure you are using popular keywords that best suit your product, service and/or blog
topic.
If you use localized keywords for your SEO efforts – such as “az life coach” or “life coach
in phoenix” instead of just “life coach,” you are much more likely to rank well – with the
added benefit of landing more targeted readers. This is especially important if you are a
local business.

I recommend creating a free account on AdWords (or log-in to your account, if you already
have one), then search for the keywords you think are most likely to be searched. Adding
your city and state will give you local search results to review, plus some great ideas for
blog posts that fit what people are looking for. Using the keywords you entered, Google
will bring up a list of other relevant keywords that were actually searched for in the
previous month. I prefer to export them to Excel, get rid of unnecessary columns, rank them
from most to least popular, then save the document for easy reference later.

3. Choose one keyword, then include it in your post permalink, title, and
first sentence.

Make sure you have WordPress set to name the page URL as your post name (which can be
changed in settings> permalinks> post name), this will automatically put the keyword in
your post URL – also called the permalink. This is an essential component for SEO
success.

Then, simply use the default text for the “SEO title” field at the bottom of the page (which
is your title plus the name of your blog), and copy the first sentence of the post into the
“Meta Description” field. If good writing dictates NOT using the keyword in the first
sentence (which happens often but is not optimal), then paste in the first blog sentence that
DOES have the keyword in it, or write one that uses the keyword and describes the post in
a way that people will want to read it. Put the keyword in the “Meta Keywords” field, then
you are all done.

SEO magic happens when you identify one keyword to focus on, then put it in the
trifecta of permalink, page title, and page description.

Make sure that keyword is included in the body of post a few times, is relevant and
appropriate, and then hit publish. While there are other steps and tactics that help boost
SEO, that’s fodder for another article!

One last note – be sure and offer multiple ways for readers to subscribe. If you can’t
convert them to subscribers via email or RSS and/or they aren’t seeing your new posts
show up on social media, odds are good that they won’t think to return to your site. Your
SEO may bring them to your blog the first time, but it may not bring them back. Keep this
in mind as you consider and implement these strategies.

Want more detail on mastering Yoast and SEO? Head over to the Yoast Definitive Guide to
Better Ranking.