Best blog writing tips?

[mikepcservice]

So guys, since I am moving away from local pc repairs here in NY which has been non-existent since Covid, I want to test writing one weekly blog myself for my pc repair site just to see if it will increase calls/traffic. I will be focusing on Online work trying my hand at SEO, Web design and especially website repair and maintenance.

This is the sum of what I have put together for Blog writing from all that I have learned on this forum, in youtube videos, Yoast and other articles like Neil Patel, Moz, Hubspot and others. I would appreciate very much if you guys can advise on anything at all which may not be accurate or can be improved in any way please? Thanks in advance guys.

BLOG Writing:
Meta Title:
Use raw actual kw [Test different titles]
Incorporate numbers Eg: [5 ways to design a web page]
Include an offer
Add a teaser

Meta Description:
No more than 155 characters
Consider the meta description the invitation to your page, you have to think about your user and their (possible) motivation to visit your page. People need to know what they can expect to find on your page and how you can help them.
Add kw
Include a call-to-action [Find out more!, Call us today! Get help now! E.t.c]
Do not use same info in multiple blogs.

Slug: Actual kw

Content:
Try for at least 350 words but the longer the better
Use only fresh and relevant content which will be beneficial for the reader
Do not sell your services but link to them
Use bullet points whenever possible
Use main kw in one h1 heading and two h2 subheadings and only a few times in content
Main kw in first paragraph
“Near me or nearby” in one subheading and once in content
3 Secondary kw’s each in subheading and once in content
One outbound link to any popular high DA site
Few internal links to main pages
Link from one blog to another
Link from main pages to blog

Images:
Large quality responsive images
Photo must match topic/kw
Compress image on Squoosh.app
Check page speed on google’s pagespeed
Filename should tell what the image is about
Make Title and Alt tags different – Use kw in both
Caption should tell something specific about the image
Use visual aids if possible in content

Videos:
Video content must match topic/kw
Kw in both title and description
Host video online like on youtube

 

[ElizabethRule]

I think this is a good template for keyword optimization. Depending on the topic, the blog piece can be over 350 words (that seems a bit short).

I think your next step is to define your audience so you know who you are writing to/for. Define demographics, locations, interests etc. Knowing what your content will look like and how to optimize for keywords is important, but understanding the audience is arguably more important. The keyword optimization comes naturally that way.

So, write content your audience is interested in that you can demonstrate expertise in. Problems and questions your target audience has about your services in a great place to start.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@mikepcservice, is the primary goal to impress / convert, or to rank? There needs to be one goal that towers above the others.

In general, cranking out blog posts is not a feasible way to rank. Even when it works, static pages usually work better, for a variety of reasons.

For blog posts, you'll probably want "impress and convert likely customers" to be the main goal. If the main goal is to rank, then you'll want to focus on service pages and the like.

Also, you can do all of those steps and the post still won't rank for squat. Partly because your choice of topics matters more than anything else (they need to be relatively "niche"). Partly because the rankings of the post depend largely on the backlinks of the domain, and partly because blogging is a rough way to get links (as in it takes a long time, especially if you're just starting these days). This is where my concept of the "seed audience" comes in: you need a small initial audience of people who will find your posts useful enough that they hope and expect you'll tell them when there's a new one. Over time, some of those people share your posts, send them to friends/family, and link to your posts or help get them in front of someone who might. At first, that "seed audience" can just be your email list of current/past customers. For a while, you have to scrounge your readership. It's slow, but if you send that small core audience useful stuff, their numbers will slowly grow before (eventually) picking up quickly. I guarantee you it's more doable, more likely to work out, and less frustrating than the "throw everything into a post and then throw everything into outreach" approach. That's just wall spaghetti.

 

[mikepcservice]

So, write content your audience is interested in that you can demonstrate expertise in. Problems and questions your target audience has about your services in a great place to start.

Thanks. Yes, my template is based on a 350 word article which of course I know is short but for myself now attempting this I will need to start small until I can learn how to write longer content. I don't intend on becoming a content writer myself, I have 2 good content writers for my client and main SEO site. I simply want to test fresh content writing on my old pc repair site to see what it does without back linking.

I will add what you've written to my template, appreciate it!

 

[mikepcservice]

@mikepcservice, is the primary goal to impress / convert, or to rank? There needs to be one goal that towers above the others.

In general, cranking out blog posts is not a feasible way to rank. Even when it works, static pages usually work better, for a variety of reasons.

For blog posts, you'll probably want "impress and convert likely customers" to be the main goal. If the main goal is to rank, then you'll want to focus on service pages and the like.

Hmnn, I will need to let all of what you've written soak in a little Phil [thanks] but for now, since I cannot backlink to the Service pages as I am moving away from pc repair, are you saying that blogging for ranking purposes will be a waste of time?

 

[Phil Rozek]

Unless the posts are specifically designed to answer very specialized questions that (1) a few people type into Google and that (2) nobody else has addressed, then yes, for ranking purposes it's a waste.

 

[mikepcservice]

Well yes, that makes sense to me, blogging the same info as many others is not really "fresh" content.

Thing is then what can one do for fresh content regarding the service pages?

 

[Phil Rozek]

Adding:

• customers' reviews
• "success stories," "case studies," etc.
• FAQs from customers or leads
• photos
• videos (even low-rent slideshow videos)
• new offerings, like variations on the service
• a list of places where you've worked, places where your customers have come from, or where you offer this or that service
• prices: either yours, or whatever is the going rate for this or that
• internal links on other pages to the page
• internal links to other pages or posts
• more and/or better subheaders (like H2s) that make it easier to skim the page
• page jumps
• captions under photos
• better ALT and/or title elements on photos
• links to and images of awards and other distinctions
• offers, like for pro bono work
• a page- or service-specific contact form, geared toward people who want that particular service, and optimized to the gills
• anything you've learned or thought of that the reader would find useful

 

[mikepcservice]

Thanks a million for this list! To be clear you mean instead of doing monthly blogging, I should instead keep updating/rewriting the existing service pages content adding what you've written above?

 

[Phil Rozek]

More adding to and improving rather than rewriting, but yes.

 

[mikepcservice]

Nice! I think I get it now, just simply keep adding updated info here and there within the content and indexing right away. Will be a nice option to keep extending the length of the page's content.

Also this method should work nicely for me since finding a lot of content to write about would be my main struggle. I figure if I can add even one paragraph a week with a new secondary kw then this will work great for me.

 

[mikepcservice]

More adding to and improving rather than rewriting, but yes.

Last question on this please. After time with regular added content the page's contents will grow to be very long at some point so is there any limit for how long the content should be for google? I can't imagine having a page of say 20k words as an example might be productive?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@mikepcservice no such thing as too long; only too boring. If you make it useful for the reader and easy to read, the right length will shake out naturally.

 

[mikepcservice]

Thanks, oh wait, sorry forgot to ask this. Since google is indexing every 2 weeks or so then no need to update any page on a weekly basis so should do only bi-monthly updates?

 

[Phil Rozek]

No need for a schedule. Just work on the page when you have something good to add. If you can make it a great page right out of the chute and won't have more to add for a year, that's fine. If the 1.0 version is rough, but you just want to get it up and indexed, then maybe you do work on it the following month. You get the idea. Wouldn't think about it too much. (I try to keep my few remaining brain cells on other tasks.)

 

[Conor Treacy]

I think @Phil Rozek covered this nicely.

For long content, and I've read some REALLY long content on the web, it's specifically designed for that special type of person There are only a few dedicated people that will read a 15,000-word article on a topic, but a how-to or technical guide can easily hit those targets. Way too long for the average user.

As Phil said, it's really about keeping the persons interest. There's no magic number from Google. A post should be as long or as short as needed to answer the question the user is asking. Sometimes that's 200 words, other times it's 1000.

As your post gets longer, it would probably naturally break up into multiple separate posts too, so don't worry about the schedule or length. We used to post daily, now we post every couple of weeks, but the quality of the post is much more relevant. Give me one outstanding article once a month, and I'll take that over 10 low-quality posts.

 

[cfazio]

I have had success with topical relevance strategies (creating content for ranking purposes).

Google wants to provide the user with content that best matches the intent of their search query - intent is key.

"People also ask" section are some of Google best clues about what you should be writing about to satisfy perceived intent.

I use the tool Frase as a starting point to see what general subtopic entities need to be covered.

Take your main keyword you want to rank for and make great content that is good to read, beneficial for your users, and touches on the topic entities that Google wants to see.

At the bottom, start a "Frequently Asked Questions" section. This is where you include the "people also ask" topics that Google pops up in the search when searching your target query. Provide a good 2-3 sentence answer to the question, then write an in depth blog post about each topic, and link to the proper blog post from the corresponding faq.

Besides the people also ask clues that Google gives, just doing good research and finding clearly relevant subtopic clusters should be done too.

Add faq schema also.

Once you have like 10 faqs on the page you want to rank with corresponding blog posts (that have strong interlinking where possible) - you will start to gain alot of topical relevance.

Have ranked using this strategy with 0 backlinks for competitive keywords. Beating out sites with hundreds of thousands of backlinks and high da in organic serp.

Its just a basic content pillar and subtopic pages strategy... most people don't want to invest in the hard work that it takes.

Koray Gubur had some pretty advanced stuff on this. Guy has produced some insane results.

 

[mikepcservice]

Hey guys, when writing a blog around a focus keyword which you already have a landing page for, Yoast is showing under "Improvements":

Previously used key phrase. You've used this key phrase once before. Do not use your key phrase more than once.

What do you guys do when writing multiple blogs pushing the same kw please?

 

[mikepcservice]

Hey guys, for landing and blog pages, Yoast shows the focus kw's should be included in the first paragraph but how important is that for ranking purposes? I have seen many blogs which does not have it this way and also many blogs start out by first having a few questions listed for what the article will be about then the content below it.

 

[chadkimball]

It does help to have your main target keywords in the first paragraph. Doesnt need to be much though, google can figure a lot out from context.

How is the computer repair business? I see huge search volume for it, has it picked up more now that people are more relaxed about covid?