SEO Checklist for Blog Posts (Free 20-Point PDF Guide)

4 مهر 140212 مرداد 1402 از bill slawski

We hope this free SEO checklist for blog posts makes a great addition to your search engine optimization toolkit.

Follow these checklist items for improved SEO rankings:

• Your primary and secondary keywords are repeated 3-4 times for a 1,000 to 2,000-word blog post, and a maximum of five times for longer posts.
• Keywords are spread throughout the post so it is not only top-heavy or bottom-heavy for the target phrases.
• Keywords are included naturally within the content and make sense in context.

11. Content Satisfies User Search Intent

If you’ve ever attempted to read through a blog post that contains large blocks of text, then you know what a frustrating and fatigue-inducing experience it can be, especially when your goal is to scan through and find a specific piece of information.

If your post doesn’t help your users achieve their intended outcome, Google is unlikely to rank the content highly for its target SEO keywords because the ranking algorithm measures user satisfaction signals.

Your blog post title is the first thing search engines crawl and display in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for users to see. If you want to ensure that both Googlebot and people know what your content is about, then your primary keyword should be placed at the start of your title tag.

3. Meta Description Includes the Top Keywords

External links to credible, high-authority sources can enhance your blog post’s credibility by providing evidence for your key points and improve user experiences by providing readers with links to useful third-party resources.

Check out our related guide for a deeper dive into this important SEO topic: Internal Linking Best Practices for SEO.

18. Post Includes External Links to High-Quality Sites

Making your H1 header different from your title tag also sends mixed signals to Google, which can cause the indexing algorithm to display the wrong one in the SERPs and, ultimately, harm your organic search visibility.

To confirm that your blog post images are well optimized, follow these SEO blogging checklist items:

• One image is focused on a single target keyword.
• The file name includes the target keyword.
• The ALT text includes the target keyword while sounding natural.
• The caption or other surrounding text includes the same target keyword.

20. Includes Relevant Schema Markup

For table snippets, include a 3-column table (no more and no less) with similar heading names and an equal number of rows as the current ranking snippet. Look at the ranking page to see how many rows the table contains so you can do the same.

16. Post Includes Important E-E-A-T Signals

Here’s how to check that your blog post satisfies user search intent:

• First, run your primary keyword through Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool (it’s free to sign up and use) and look under the Intent column to determine which one of the following intent types your post should meet:
  • Informational
  • Commercial
  • Navigational
  • Transactional
• Next, search for your keyword on Google and review the top-ranking pages. These are the posts that Google has determined best satisfy the user intent for that search term.
• Finally, compare your content to those posts to ensure you’ve fully covered everything you need to cover to give readers what they want. And that the post is structured in a similar way that users clearly prefer.

12. Blog Post Has a Competitive Word Count

To ensure your URL is SEO-friendly, check the following:

• The primary keyword is used as an exact match phrase.
• Individual words are separated by hyphens.
• The URL is 60 characters or less.

5. H1 Is Identical to the Blog Post Title

E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) establish credibility and trust with both users and search engines, making your content more valuable and reliable in the eyes of your audience.

These H2 subheaders offer a golden opportunity to optimize your post for your chosen keywords to improve keyword rankings. Try to incorporate each of your secondary keywords into their own H2 tag to boost on-page optimization signals. Having one instance of each keyword in an H2 subheading is enough for on-page SEO.

7. H3 Subheadings Include Keyword Variations

Tools like Surfer SEO can analyze the top-ranking blog posts for a keyword and use that data to provide a list of helpful recommendations on optimizing your blog post, including the word count you should aim for to successfully compete for a top spot in search results.

The whole point of your blog post’s introduction is to make it clear what readers will learn or gain by reading your content to the end. As a result, the first paragraph on the page is analyzed by search engines for keyword relevancy.

All search terms have a specific intent behind them. For example, a user searching for “how to write a blog post” likely intends to find practical step-by-step instructions (i.e., information content), whereas a user searching for “blogging tools” is either researching products to try (known as “commercial investigation”) or is ready to purchase one.

Here’s what to look for to ensure you’ve used internal links correctly.

• The anchor text is relevant and descriptive, giving users a clear idea of what they will find when they click the link.
• The blog posts are highly relevant to the topic and provide additional value or information that complements the current content.
• There are no broken or redirected links.
• Links are set to open in a new tab to avoid users accidentally leaving your post.

As you outline your blog post, you’ll want to use H2 subheadings for the main sections of your content.

Next, you want to answer the user’s query directly below the H2 subheader in the format that search engines like Google are rewarding for the current Featured Snippet. It may be a short paragraph, list, or table. Essentially, you want to create something similar to the ranking snippet.

Another way to confirm that your blog post is well-optimized for keywords is to make sure all keywords are repeated in the content.