TL;DR
Keyword-targeted blog posts are an effective way to capture and attract search engine traffic by optimizing posts for specific keywords and phrases. This can benefit your website both in the short- and long-term, allowing you to target topics that wouldn't be worth devoting permanent content to and for posts such as how-to articles to rank quickly and continue to bring in traffic for months or years. A three-step process to targeting keywords with blog posts includes researching a relevant keyword, narrowing down the topic, and then writing and optimizing the post. With the right keyword research tools and a bit of practice, targeting keywords with blog posts can be an easy and effective way to bring in more traffic.
What are keyword-targeted blog posts?
Keyword-targeted blog posts are an effective way to capture and attract search engine traffic. By optimizing posts for specific keywords and phrases, you can capture more visitors and direct them to your website.
Why keyword-targeted blog posts?
Keyword-targeted blog posts are beneficial both immediately and in the long-term. Firstly, they allow you to target topics that wouldn’t be worth devoting permanent site content to. You can get the most out of a hot or trending topic and then let the post be buried in the archives once the trend has passed. Secondly, blog posts such as how-to articles, can rank quickly and can continue to rank well and bring in traffic for months or even years.
Examples of keyword-targeted blog posts
Here are some examples of keyword-targeted blog posts:
- Recipes: Food blogs are a great example of this. People often search for specific recipes, so it’s important to title and publish posts with the right keywords. For example, if you search for “tomato sauce with butter onion”, the top result is from Smitten Kitchen.
- Evergreen how-to: Our blog has a post from 2009 on how to find anyone’s personal email address, which continues to bring in lots of traffic. This kind of post can be applied to an endless number of niches.
- Timely hot topic: During events like the World Cup, lots of people search for related topics. Some people took advantage of this by writing posts about filtering vuvuzela noise or where to buy vuvuzelas.
How to target keywords with blog posts
Here’s a three-step process for targeting keywords with blog content.
Step 1: Identify keyword opportunities
Before you can target anything, you need to determine what keyword phrases are likely to bring in relevant traffic. Depending on your goals for the post, you can use Google Trends or Google Suggest to find keyword phrases. You can also use traditional keyword tools, such as our Free Keyword Tool, to research current events.
Targeting Keywords with Blog Posts
If you’re a blogger, one of the most important things you can do to grow your readership and search engine rankings is to target specific keywords with your blog posts. This article will provide a step-by-step guide to doing just that.
Step 1: Research a relevant keyword
The first step in targeting a keyword with a blog post is to research a relevant keyword. In other words, you want to find a keyword that is related to the topic of your blog post and that has a good amount of search traffic.
To do this, you can use a keyword research tool, such as Google Keyword Planner or WordStream for SEO (shameless plug). Simply type in a word or phrase related to your topic and you’ll get a list of related keywords, as well as their estimated search volumes.
Step 2: Narrow down your topic
As a topic, “guacamole” is a bit broad. You’re extremely unlikely to rank on the first page for that keyword. You’ll need to pick a narrower topic that will still appeal to a good number of readers. If you use keyword grouping software, like WordStream for SEO (shameless plug), you can quickly find a variation that is both specific and relevant. Otherwise, use a keyword tool—and your best judgment—to determine a suitable phrase.
Step 3: Write and optimize your post
Once you’ve chosen a topic, the actual writing is easy than ever with BloggerAI! Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing your keyword-targeted post:
- Use your keyword in the title tag: This is a key signal for search engines.
- Include the keyword in your text: Even if you’re doing a video post, you’ll want some text on the page (in this case, the recipe). Use your keyword, and relevant variations on your keyword, in the text.
- Use the keyword in meta tags: This includes the meta description, the file name and alt text of your images, the title of your video, and its description.
- Include internal links: Use internal linking to your advantage. For example, if you have an index page of videos and another of dip recipes, add a link to the video from both, with optimized anchor text.
- Promote your post: Don’t forget to promote your post—on Twitter, Facebook, etc. This encourages external linking as well.
Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? In fact, targeting keywords with blog posts is rather easier than doing so with web pages, since you don’t have to worry about how they fit into your site architecture. (In addition, promotion is often more natural.) And keyword research is as good a way as any to come up with topics to blog about.