Keyword Phrases are like Content Rocket Fuel

While there are many entrepreneurs and small business owners who write a blog because they like to write and express their ideas online, most people want someone to read it. If you want someone to read your blog, you need traffic. And you don’t just want a little traffic, you want as many people as possible to share your blog with. The best way to reach these people is through the search engines. And the best way to show up in the search engine results is to optimize each of your blog posts for a specific keyword phrase.

Step 1: Find a Keyword Phrase

Don’t just sit down and write about any subject that enters your head. If you really want to appeal to people, you need to write about things that they want answers to. Start by researching a good keyword phrase to use in your post.

Keyword phrases, or Long tail keywords, are more specific and usually longer than more commonly searched for keywords. They are the actual words that someone will type into a search engine. These keyword phrases get less search traffic, but will usually have a higher conversion value, as they are more specific.

Ideally, the phrase that you use should have a decent number of people are searching for, but which has a relatively low number of competing websites. Keyword tools such as the Google Keyword Tool (which is part of Google Adwords) and Ubersuggest.org will help you identify these phrases.

Step 2: Create your blog post outline

Once you know what you want to write about, it’s time to start working on the content, start to outline your post. Make sure your title contains your keyword phrase and that your post itself will deliver on the promise of that title. It is also important to use the keyword phrase in at least one of their header tags (H1,H2), but you need to make sure that you won’t have so many instances of your phrase that Google sees you as a spammer.

Step 3: Write high-quality content

With a good outline in place, you should be able to sit down and write your post quickly. At this point, don’t even think about your keyword phrase, except to make sure that you’re sticking to your topic. You’re writing for people first and search engines second.

Once you’re done writing, go back and make sure that you do have the keyword phrase 2 to 3 times in your post, depending on the post length. The last think you want to do is “stuff” your article with a specific keyword. If you find you’ve done that by accident, just go back and vary the phrase a bit or use other words as a substitution.

Step 4: Keywords in Social Media

Be sure to use these keyword phrases in your social media posts too… This will surely earn some love from the search engines.

Step 5: Keywords in Image Alt Tags

Always add at least one image to your blog post. It should be something relevant to the content, naturally, but it should also have your keyword phrase in the alt image tag and image description. You’ll be able to see the places to input these when you click on the button to edit the image in WordPress. Another reason to add a description and tag is that Google can read

Another reason to add a description and tag is that Google can read text, but it cannot read images. By adding a description and alt image tag, you’ve give the search engines something to read.

How will you work keyword phrases into your content? Please share in the comments below or on our Facebook page.