Written by sifat islam

Both newbies and experienced bloggers share a common predicament of finding the right seo keywords for blog posts. The creative part of writing often seems to be at odds with the technicalities of SEO.

It doesn’t help when some resources harp about ‘keyword density’, ‘exact match’, or ‘LSI keywords’. For most blog writers, such SEO jargon can be confusing.

Yet, if you want to rank via Google SEO, keywords must be part of your strategy. However, some writers tend to over-optimize their content and end up getting penalised instead of being rewarded by Google.

So, what’s the ‘ideal’ keyword optimisation that you should apply to your blogs?

Read on and have your questions answered in this article.

SEO Article Writing VS Ordinary Blogging

Before we explored deeper into SEO keywords for blog posts, you need to understand the differences between SEO article writing and ordinary blogging.

Both may be involved in writing hundreds of words, but they are not the same. The process that each type of writing goes through is different, and so is the result in terms of SEO ranking.

Ordinary Blogging

Ordinary blogging is all about putting thoughts into words. It is purely a creative activity, with no regards of SEO optimisation. Often, you can find such blogs hosted on Blogger or WordPress, where individuals pen their experience into blog articles.

These blogs were never created with commercial intent. Thus, they lack marketing strategies, call to actions, or a structured way to deliver the content.

The owner of such blogs may not be concerned about whether they are getting traffic or whether the traffic converts. For most of them, blogging is a hobby, and some treat the blog as their personal diary.

SEO Article Writing

Unlike ordinary blogging, SEO article writing is done with marketing goals in mind. Articles are created with the intent for marketing and educating a specific target audience. You’ll often see SEO articles on business blogs, affiliate marketing websites and e-commerce.

The aim of SEO writing is for the articles to eventually rank on search engines like Google and generate organic traffic. Therefore, an SEO article will have a specific structure and standard of writing.

It takes more than creative writing to create an SEO-optimised article. Keyword research and optimisation play important roles to increase the chances of ranking on Google.

An SEO article is harder to create as it combines both writing, SEO optimisation and elements of marketing.

Whether you’re generating awareness with content, or attempting to turn visitors into leads, SEO writing requires a specific set of skills that a casual blogger may not possess.

What’s the right choice for you?

If you’re content with jotting down personal experience on your site and sharing it amongst your friends on social media, you’ll do well with ordinary blogging.

There’s no need to dive into the world of SEO, particularly on how to establish SEO keywords for your blog posts.

However, if you intend to monetise your blog in one way or another, and has set your eyes on the potentially immense traffic from Google, keyword research is a must.

The same applies if you’re initiating a content strategy to generate leads through your business website. Rather than paying yearly renewal fees with nothing to show, you can create SEO-optimised articles on your website to generate search traffic.

When done correctly, the blog articles would eventually rank on Google, thanks to the well-optimised keywords.

Now, if SEO content writing is what you’re after, the following sections will be crucial.

Must my blog post contain all of my SEO keywords?

When it comes to placing SEO keywords in blog posts, most writers assume that all of the relevant keywords need to be included.

For example, an article may target a long tail keyword of ‘how to practice yoga at home’. If you run through the topic with a keyword research tool, you may also get relevant search terms like

• How to start a yoga practice at home
• Yoga poses for beginners
• Yoga tips for beginners

There’s a tendency amongst writers to include every related keyword in the article, hoping that it will make more sense for Google.

While adding dozens of keywords worked in the past, it is an outdated and often ineffective SEO technique today. Google has outgrown its limited intelligence with a series of evolutionary upgrades.

With its latest search algorithm, Google can determine the relevance of an article without solely depending on keywords. It takes in other factors to determine if a particular article matches the search phrase entered.

Even if you’re not placing an exact match of the primary keyword, you may still rank on the first page of Google.

Here’s the search result for ‘how to practice yoga at home’. Note that the top-ranking result is not targeting the keyword at all.

The long-tail keyword never appears in the article, but Google still decides it deserves the top spot.

If you click into the article, you’ll learn why.

Keywords are still crucial but avoid keyword-stuffing

We’ve proved that Google can rank articles without overly-relying on SEO keywords for blog posts. Does this mean that keywords are no longer important when writing an SEO-optimised article?

No.

Keywords remain a crucial element if you’re hoping to rank on Google. It’s just that you don’t want to be obsessed with keywords and end up over-optimising the article.

When you’re more focused on keyword density than the article’s quality, you may end up committing a BlackHat SEO sin; i.e. keyword-stuffing.

Keyword stuffing is a practice that goes against Google’s policy. It involves excessively placing keywords in the article to manipulate search engines.

Here’s a classic example of keyword stuffing for the term ‘yoga practice at home’.

Since Google Panda update in 2011, websites that practice keyword stuffing are heavily-penalised and lose ranking in an instant.

Keyword-stuffed articles are unnatural and unlikely to engage the readers. It’s contrary to Google’s goal of providing the best articles that match the users’ purposes.

Whether it’s a single keyword or a list of them, you’ll want to avoid injecting the keywords into the article. An article will still rank for a related keyword that does not appear in it.

Turn your attention to writing an article that answers the user’s query, and you’ll be safe from getting on the wrong side of Google.

How to come up with SEO keywords for blog posts

If you want to write an article that ranks, you’ll need to start searching for keywords that are used by your targeted audience on Google.

A keyword can be a single word or consist of 4-5 words like ‘health benefits of yoga’. A short and long keyword will have a different implication on SEO, which we will explain in detail later.

But first, how do you start searching for keywords?

Here’s a simple keyword research guide.

1. Brainstorm for possible keywords

You’ll need to put on a thinking cap and get into your reader’s shoes, figuratively. Think about what they could possibly be looking for when searching for topics in your niche.

To get those keywords flowing in, think in terms of problems, products, and questions that users may be interested in.

List out all the possible keywords in a spreadsheet.

At this point, you don’t need to worry about search volume or potential traffic yet. What you need is a huge list of keywords to start with.

2. Expand the keywords

For every keyword that you’ve listed down, there are a few more that may be elusive. Here’s how to expand your list of keywords.

Head over to Google and search for a particular keyword in your list. Then, scroll down to the ‘People Also Ask” section.

3. Determine keyword search demands

Writing an article is a laborious process. From a commercial point of view, the resources committed to an article must be justified.

However, not every keyword that you’ve discovered will bring a reasonable amount of traffic. Some may have only a handful of searches a month, and it’s questionable if you ought to write an article out of a low-traffic keyword.

Therefore, the next step involves determining if the keywords would attract sizeable traffic. You can invest in premium SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, and use their keyword research tools.

Alternatively, you can use free tools like Ubersuggest to find out if it’s worth the effort. For example, the term ‘practice yoga at home’ has an estimated 480 searches per month, according to Ubersuggest.

If you’re getting less than 10 searches per month, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to build an article around the keyword.

4. Evaluate keyword difficulty

It’s always nice to find keywords that attract large numbers of traffic. However, you may face fierce competition for such keywords.

When a keyword is dominated by established websites, it becomes harder and longer to rank for it. This is why it’s essential to evaluate the SEO difficulty of the keywords.

Again, you’ll need a keyword tool to do that.

Note that the search term ‘practice yoga at home’ has a higher keyword difficulty of 20 compared to ‘how to start yoga practice at home’, with KD of 7. It will be considerably harder to rank for the former compared to ranking for the latter, long-tail keyword.

If your website is relatively new and yet to establish an authority in the niche, it’ll be better to stick with long-tail keywords. Despite the lower search volume, it’s easier to rank, and the numbers could add up to impressive monthly search traffic.

Long-tail keywords are also beneficial in terms of providing clearer search intent. For example, it’s hard to determine what the user is looking for if the keyword is a generic ‘yoga practice’. He/she could be searching for general information, tips, books, courses or yoga-related products.

Meanwhile, a long tail keyword like ‘how to start yoga practice at home’ has a very defined search intent. There’s no doubt that the user is looking for resources that will guide him/her into practising yoga at home.

From a marketing perspective, it is easier to reach out to the users when you’re clear of what they are looking for. It helps to determine whether an article should be purely informational or has more commercial intent to suit the nature of the keyword.