The best blog format will bring visitors to your site and provide Google’s search bots with the right information, so that your blog appears under search results. Coming up with good blog content is only part of the challenge. Getting your blog post in front of people who are searching is equally important. Let’s begin.

1) Keyword research is the most crucial step. Log out of Google or Bing so that search results are unbiased and not based on your personal search history. In Google’s search box, type quotation marks before and after the keyword phrase you’re searching. For example, “best blog format.” You’ll then notice below the search box it says 23,700 results. That means that Google has found 23,700 pages online with the phrase “best blog format.” That’s a great number because there’s not much competition and a post has a chance of coming up under Google’s search results.

Avoid using keywords with more than 30,000 results. 10,000-20,000 is ideal. For example, “how do I start a blog” has 346,000 results that come up using that keyword phrase and there’s too much competition to be seen. It would be best to blog about another keyword phrase.

Longer keyword phrases are best. The more descriptive your keyword phrase, the more likely you are to drive targeted traffic to your blog or website. “Best blog post” is shorter than recommend, but with only 23,700 searches, it’s worth writing about because the chances of the blog post being seen are higher.

2) Start by making sure that the title of your blog is formatted in H1, which can be found in the drop down box near the font, within WordPress. WordPress should automatically format the title of your blog post in H1, but you might not use WordPress or want to verify.

3) Make sure the next heading that brings viewers into your post is formatted in H2. Google’s bots look for H1, H2, and H3 formatted keywords. Mention keyword phrases again, in a link at the very bottom of the blog post and formatted in H3. That link will simply take viewers back to the top of my blog post. Linking back to the top in H3 serves two purposes, a back link and also the H3 format Google is looking for.

4) Links to other relevant websites or other blog posts are important. If you can’t think of backlinks to have throughout the body of your blog post, at least have links to your blog home page and social media pages in your blog post signature. This is where affiliate marketing comes in. Recommend products you believe in that are relevant to your readers. If readers click through and buy, you get paid as an affiliate.

5) Always optimize photos and images. Tag any images you include in your blog post with keywords and descriptions and even links to other pages within your site. The more information Google’s bots have to determine the relevancy of your site, the better. Royalty free images can easily be found online.

6) Google’s spiders/bots also look to find your keyword or phrase in bold, underlined and in italics.

7) The best blog format is around 500 words, with the keyword phrase mentioned five or six times throughout.

8) Syndicate your blog post and spread the word! Share on social media and everywhere you can think of.

It’s important to follow the best blog format if you’d like to appear within search results. Remember that your blog posts will exist online as long as your site is up and running. Taking the time to format it correctly in the beginning will make your effort pay off with views for years.

Source by Matt Nathanson