Blog formatting will impact the SEO success and user experience for your content. Here’s what you need to know about setting up your blog.
How you format your blog will impact SEO rankings and how long a website visitor stays on the page to read and peruse your content.
Some companies believe that the content is all that matters. If you do your keyword research and write high-quality content, nothing else matters. Sure, keyword research and effective copywriting are crucial elements, but you can’t ignore blog formatting.
Here are some of the most crucial elements on your blog formatting and how to execute them well.
Have you ever gone to send a link to a friend or post it to social media and discovered it was crazy long? That’s not to say you want tiny URLs for all your blog content, but you don’t want it to include a long string of backslashes, such as:
www.blogcontent.com/news/blog/contentcategory/this-is-my-blog-name
Instead, you should simplify your URL structure to eliminate some of the details between the backslashes.
You do not need to have your full blog title in the URL. But you do want to ensure that your focus keyword is there because it will impact your SEO rankings.
Never should you allow your CMS to use a random list of numbers. This is bad for SEO and just messy looking if a user tries to share the link. Use the important words from your title separated by hyphens for the best results.
Blogs that have no opportunities for a reader to share their contact information or browse product listings won’t produce quality business results. Bring in calls to action to read other content, download a helpful piece of content, get a quote or reach out to a company representative with questions.
You don’t want to interrupt the flow of reading often, but you do want to give users an opportunity to take the next step with your business. Or to learn more about the topic by reading other articles.
The end of your article should always close with a call to action. That doesn’t mean it has to be a buy now button, but it should take the user on a journey to explore more content and learn more about you.
Links give search engines context for how content relates to one another. Ideally, you want the anchor text for your hyperlink to be the target keyword the page you are linking to is optimized for.
For example, if you are writing about running shoes and want to link to a full review you did on a pair of Nike running shoes, you’d link the text “Nike Zoom Alphafly NEXT% 2” to your review article on that specific shoe model.
Building those internal connections will help readers navigate to learn more while also providing valuable connections for search engines.
External links also help build a foundation for the topic you’re discussing and show research for that article. It tells search engines that your content is reliable because it’s linked to other reliable content.
For external links to provide the greatest value, they need to be to websites with strong domain authority. That will tell you the website’s reputation and SEO value.
Without headings, your content is challenging to read and search engines have a harder time understanding the content.
A good distribution of headings for every 300 words or so will help make your content readable while also telling search engines about the content that follows.
Headings should be logical though. You can’t just stop the content to insert a heading for the sole purpose of SEO. Instead, write the content with headings in mind to create a clear, logical flow.
When using headings, reserve H1 for your blog title. H2 will be what you use for major headings throughout. H3 helps you dive deeper into content within H2 content. And in rare instances, some blogs use H4.
The heading you use should help signal whether the topic is a subset of what you discussed above or a new thought or topic that you’re transitioning to.
Breaking up your content using bullet points and numeric lists will make it easier for your users to skim the content. Seeing these lists will also make your content seem less intimidating.
You can call content to attention using a list or just make your content look more inviting. Don’t insert a list just for the sake of it, but when the content presents the opportunity, take full advantage of it.
Great content still needs to be broken down into smaller chunks. Short paragraphs and sentences will make your content more readable.
That’s not to say your content should look choppy. Or that longer sentences have no value.
But overall, you want your content to look inviting to the reader. And no one wants to read large chunky paragraphs with complicated sentences that challenge their minds too much. Your users are likely here for leisure or to learn about a topic.
Inserting images and visuals can help readers understand the content and make your blogs enjoyable to read.
You don’t want the content littered with visuals to the point where they are constantly interrupting the flow of the user’s reading. But a visual every 300-600 words will help break up the content and make it inviting to view.
You can use images related to your topic or create custom graphics. Graphics can be illustrations of your topic or they could be graphs and data from the content.
A table of contents will provide context for what your readers will learn about from your content. And a table of contents allows a user to jump down to the section of content that answers their question or provides the details they need.
Inserting a table of contents will also show search engines that your content is well organized and inviting for your readers, which can increase its rankings with time.
Audio and video content provides another way of consuming content. Blog visitors might like the opportunity to transition from reading to listening to information about the topic.
Additionally, these other types of content provide favorable results for your SEO. That way, you serve the needs of your readers while improving search rankings.
There are many benefits of adding video content to your blogs. They can make your content feel more human and personable while showing how to do something or adding greater context to it.
Once you reach the end of your blog content, you have to consider what you want your reader to do next. Ideally, it’s reaching out for more information on purchasing from you. But they might not be ready to do that just yet.
So you need to add links and buttons to keep reading relevant content. This might be a listing of other blogs related to that topic or category. Or you might have a full listing of recent articles.
Ultimately, how you format your blogs will be a deciding factor in whether your blog content helps elevate your website and draw in interested parties. New Light Digital has content marketing expertise. We can format your blogs for the best results and ensure strong distribution across various channels to earn you the greatest traffic and interaction for your content. Schedule your free consultation now.
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