As I write this I realize the irony of this post. I’m going to tell you all about how important it is to write a blog consistently to boost your SEO, and yet this is the first blog I’ve posted in three weeks.
Word to the wise – don’t do as I say, not as I do.
But most of the time, do as I do.
This is a very rare occurrence for me to not blog weekly, but as you’ll understand, life got in the way. I know, excuses excuses. But I’m here now, and we’re going to go through this topic together because it’s a valuable lesson for you and for me.
I’m going to tell you how to write an SEO-optimized blog that works for your business and gets your practice seen in Google searches. I’ll show you how a blog can help your business.
A Blog Can Boost Your SEO
As I’m sure you’re by now aware, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s how you get found in a Google search. Google rewards consistency. Do what I did until this month – blog every week, if possible. If you want to maximize your time, outsource blogging to a copywriter to take it off your plate. Copywriters are always blogging for SEO success and know how to get you the results you need.
By blogging weekly, Google crawls your site more regularly. A blog can boost your SEO by moving you up in the Google ranking faster than if you didn’t have one.
It’s not just enough to have a blog. It needs to be SEO-optimized. You need to use keywords, meta-descriptions that are the proper length and include keywords, URLs that aren’t too long, and title tags that match your topic and are the proper length. Basically, you need a copywriter who knows their stuff to help you make the most out of an SEO-optimized blog.
How a Blog Can Help Your Business
Blogs provide resources to your clients and potential clients. They establish you as an authority in your field. They also drive more traffic to your website.
A good blog always has a call to action (CTA) that gets people to do something. This could be signing up for your email list, buying a course, or booking a consultation.
According to the Search Engine Journal, blogs increase people’s interest in your services. They engage current and potential clients as well as bring in new clients. Blogs showcase your services and the areas of therapy you care about. They allow people to know you better as a clinician.
How To Write an SEO-Optimized Blog
There’s a lot that goes into writing a well-optimized blog for SEO. Some of these I talked about before, but they’re worth mentioning again:
- Keywords
- Meta descriptions
- URLs that aren’t too long
- Title tags that aren’t too long or too short
- Blogs that are at least 1000 words
It’s not enough to pick some keywords to focus on. You have to research what people are Googling and then incorporate the keywords organically into your writing.
It’s also important to pick topics that are relevant to your audience. You also need to make sure you’re consistent with your content.
If you’re writing regular blogs, don’t duplicate keywords. It’ll help your SEO if you rank for different keywords every time you write a blog, so use brand new keywords in each blog.
This may sound counter-intuitive but write at a middle school grade level for readability. There’s a great website called HemingwayApp that allows you to copy and paste your text into it and it’ll rate your writing at whatever grade level it’s written. If you’re in America, you want to aim for grades 6-8 at the highest. That’s about 12-14 years old to those of you outside the States.
You also want to make sure you write titles and subheaders that are catchy. Get the attention of your readers quickly. Write for skimmability. Most people don’t read every word you write, so use bold and italic fonts to make things stand out and format your blogs correctly for headers and subheaders.
It’s also important that your blogs are long enough for Google to find and recognize. Anything under 1000 words is too short for Google to crawl. And honestly, it’s too short to get across the information you want to share. It’s not enough to just put some words on a page, you need to be thoughtful about what those words are, how many there are, and if they’re written organically for SEO.
Blogging For SEO Success
Blogs help your practice succeed by bringing more clients to your site. If you have a copywriter who knows how to optimize your blogs for SEO, they’re setting you up for SEO success.
Blogging can boost your SEO on your website just from the different amounts of keywords it uses. This means you’re more likely to be found in a Google search. The more keywords you rank for, the more visible your website will be.
Your blogs must be SEO-optimized, so they should be written by someone who understands SEO – preferably a mental health copywriter. Copywriters who write for therapists understand what you do as well as how to market you using SEO.
Set yourself up for SEO success by doing your research on what makes a blog well-optimized for SEO. The more you understand SEO, the easier it will be to communicate with your copywriter. You’ll have a better understanding of what they’re doing and the relationship will only be stronger because of it. Just like how your copywriter will be better for you the more they understand the world of mental health.
If you’re ready to hire a copywriter who truly knows the world of mental health, contact me to set up a call to discuss your blogging needs. I used to be a therapist, I write for therapists, and I know the world of SEO. I know it well enough to know I need to be blogging more, and so do you.