I am sure that you know that creating content helps you to get up the Google charts and to be found on Pinterest. It also helps to position yourself as an expert, increase your website hits leading to improved like and trust from your ideal customer or client. But what makes a good blog post? A funny title? Fabulous photographs? There are many things that make a visually strong blog, but what makes a SEO enriched blog that will help your business? Here are 10 things that every business blog needs (and clue it is not a funny title!). If you want any more help, download our free guide to blogging here.

350 words or more

For your blog to be found by the Google robots, it needs to have 350 words or more - anything less will be ignored. But it is also important to not to write War and Peace - consider your end reader and how much time they have to consume your content. If you are writing educational blogs then get to the point. If you are writing inspirational posts use more photos and less text. We aim for 600-800 words in a blog post.

An inbound link

Think of SEO as a spider web of links between your pages and blog posts on your website. The better the spider web the better the SEO (of course there is SO much more than this to consider!!). Make sure that on every page and every blog there is at least one link to another blog or page of yours (an Inbound Link). Make suggestions of other content that you have created that your reader will find interesting such as this; “you might like our “How to set up a Pinterest account” blog to help share your content” . Make sure the link opens in a new window. Another idea is to list a few blog posts at the end of the post that your customer will find useful.

An outbound link

Just like the inbound link, you should always add an Outbound Link too - this is a link to another website. This is where we hear people get confused as why would they want to link to another company? The answer to this is to link to your social media, your Facebook group, some press you have had, a company you are collaborating with or to an event you are speaking at. This way it is still all about you!

A header image

Your website will look better if all blogs have a header image that show a bit of what the blog is about. But this also links through to Facebook and Twitter when you share it (or others share it) so you need one! If you don’t have access to great photos use a free image site such as Unsplash.

A Pinterest header image

Pinterest is a great visual search engine but you need to make it obvious that your pins in your boards click through to your amazing expertise content. Every time you write a blog, make sure you design a header image in Canva. Then add this to the bottom of every blog post with a clear request to your audience to pin it. When they do, it will pull through links to your content. We have done this at the end - go and have a look!

A key word or phrase

To get your blog ranking for a key word or phrase on the search engines you need to use it in the blog. Add it to the title, into the first paragraph and throughout your business blog. Then make sure you add it to any SEO tool or plug in that you use. If you use Wordpress, consider downloading the Yoast plug in which will really help you with your SEO.

Social media share buttons

Encourage readers to share your blog through adding share buttons or simply asking them at the end. The more people share your blog, the more people will read your content. Simple.

A Call To Action

Make sure you actively sell throughout, by mentioning your services or products but in a non spammy way. If you have an Opt In or Lead Magnet, mention it (see how we did that in the first paragraph). We would suggest you do this twice - at the start and at the end. See how we have done this at the end of this blog post!

Clear headings

Google rewards blogs that are easy to read and the easiest way to do that it to create clear headings (and make them H2 Headings). This breaks up the text making it simpler to read, plus it makes you more focused when writing as you are less likely to waffle!

Eye Catching Photos with Alt Tags

Not everyone loves words, many like a good photo. If you are writing a business blog add photos of you at work and your product throughout (or choose royalty free images as before). Make sure you add a clear description and an alt tag description of what is in the photo with your keywords too.

There are a lot more things to do to make a good blog including what to blog! To help we can help in four ways: