25 Best SEO Essentials for Every Long-Form Blog Post

Best SEO Essentials for Every Long-Form Blog Post

these 25 best SEO essentials for writing every kind of post will not only work as the best SEO optimization tools but make you expert on how to do seo yourself before hiring an SEO Agency.

I love to write longer and detailed articles instead of shorter ones.

Want proof? Behold the lower detail covering each aspect.

Above is a screenshot taken on my recently written article and you can count the total words enriched in it.
It happens each time that I have to write about some articles about 6K, 10K, and 15K or above almost 20k words, in order to manage guides and tutorials for you

Why I have to do this?

After years of blogging, I have to “build a bridge over the sea” that long-form content is the best key technique to make you stand out from all others.

But it doesn’t mean that you are always in a try of writing more and more, rather there are some considerable things, and you have to opt for gathering audience on that specific article.

A lot of people think the formula is simple.

Too many people follow the simple formula:

Step 1:  Write a detailed article.

Step 2:  Generate thousands of followers.

In my point of view, the formula is OK!

But it is not so simple because many people write super long and in-depth article but they failed to generate sufficient traffic for what they deserve.

I’ve seen lots of people write super long, in-depth articles, but they’re not getting the kind of traffic they want.

If you are a non-SEO person and want to learn everything about SEO the here is the best SEO guide step by step by TheFanmanShow.

The reason behind Failure of Publishing Long-Form Posts?

They are failed because they are not considering the basic SEO factors, things that matter in your long-form article needs severely. It’s awesome! If you have written a well-detailed post but to make it rank worthy, still you need to doctor it up with Search Engine Optimization

Many of you are unaware even with the basics of SEO and it will be difficult for you to sprinkle SEO effects in it.

So, The Fanman Show has compiled a list of extraordinary SEO strategies, you must have to opt for every long-form article.

These will more than 100% help your content to rank better, glancing visibility and drive more and more traffic towards your site.

Everything beyond, these SEO Optimization Tips are not the harder one to use, so don’t you need to worry about, stay relaxed even if you don’t know anything about SEO. Just remember these point and use them while writing your masterpiece.

So, take a cup of coffee, open your favorite post in your blog and get ready to renovate your post with these 25 best SEO essentials. 

So, read this article carefully about the best SEO essentials, you will not only be able to write a great post content to publish but will also get rank to the Google SERP.

1. Keyword Research

In first and the foremost step from the 25 Best SEO Essentials, you need to find the best focus keyword(s) for your post. Make sure it must be topic oriented and choose that one, having a lower competition keyword.

Use Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush in selecting the keywords competitions.

2. Always Use Long-tail Keywords

The second from the best SEO essentials is that If you are going to write an article then you already have a focus keyword. But it is seen that not enough sites are using long-tail keywords.
The interesting thing about long-tail keywords and focus keywords is that the focus keywords are of high competition and take the time to rank in SERP and you have fewer chances of getting traffic from those keywords, while the long-tail keywords rank fast in SERP and generate more targeted traffic for you.

Here’s an example of long-tail keywords containing the focus keyword “make money”

Example #1, Related keywords

Example #2, of long-tail keywords containing the focus keyword “Compare pdf”

Example #3, long-tail keywords containing the focus keyword “write a book”

 

Well, if you are facing trouble to optimize your content with the best long- tail keywords, you can follow up the Google’s “searches related to” section.

3. The Perfect h1 Heading Tag

And the third from the 25 best SEO essentials is that:

Everyone visiting your web page notices the title (or h1) tag. So it necessary for your blog post to use h1 tag as the title of your blog post.

By focusing h1 tag to your title, you can amazingly attract and drive more traffic approximately 80% through this way.

Because by giving the h1 tag to post title is actually not only helping the search engines to better index your content but also aiding the human to better judging before getting involved in the article for reading.

So, the following essentials should be included in the h1 tag

• A long tail keyword
• Short but descriptive (25-70 characters)
• Give the reader a perfectly clear idea of what the article is all about?

Here’s an example:

4. Using helpful Subheadings is a Great Idea

Before diving into subheadings, I have a suggestion that

Do not go keywords crazy with your subheadings!

If search engines ever found your focus keywords plotted in every available place in your article they count and classify it as Keyword Stuffing.

Instead, your subheadings should help readers navigate the content.

Because the purpose of subheadings is to break up the whole article into segments and help the readers to navigate into your article so that they can easily understand each and every aspect of the content.

Off-Page SEO Tutorial – Off-Site SEO Quality Link Building Strategies 2017

That’s the h1. Now let’s look at the subheadings (usually h2 or h3):

We usually stick with the h1, h2, and h3 tags. Let’s take an example of using all these tags.

Now let’s go through the subheadings h2 and h3 tags by considering the best SEO essentials

What Is Off-Page SEO?

Off Page SEO Optimization By Understanding Google

The first one is optimized with h2 tag and the second one is adjusted with h3.

See how these break up the article? You can get a good idea of the entire article just by reading the subheadings. (But you don’t get the whole picture.)

The Fanman Show has already written an article on A Well Crafted HTML Code Be The Harmonizer For Search Engines here, you can also find the ways to properly use the all the headings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6)

5. Implement Schema Markup – MostImportant From the Best SEO Essentials

Don’t be panic, if you are not a programmer then simply understand that Schema Markup is an algorithm or a set of code lines, search engines use to analyze your content.

Specifically, it breaks down each part of your content and tells search engines what those parts mean.

It just breaks down your whole article into segments and conveys the search engines the idea about each segment.

For example, if the writers use schema markup in their article title, search engines will know that’s your title and index it as a title.

You can use a free Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to add markup to your article.

Let’s know how to add markup by using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper

Check the radio button of “Article”, as we are marking up an article.

Now, Click “Start Tagging.”

On the next page after loading, you will find two panes like this:

After marking everything, you can click on “Create HTML” button given in the upper right corner in the right pane of the “Helper”.

What next now?

Ok just copy the HTML and replace your original HTML source code with this marked up generated HTML.

You can also use JSON-LD (a microdata tool) by clicking on the microdata drop down menu button and select JSON-LD (The Fanman Show Recommendations)

6. Find Influencer and Share Your Content with Them to Receive Backlinks

This is a used and result-oriented SEO strategy I ever found.

If you succeed and win the attention of the multiple influencers, you can avail the chance of rising traffic towards your blog post.

You can use the following template to bring the influencer in your domain.

The basic purpose is to get backlinks, either they are going to share your post on their blog or on their social media pages.

Be careful on demanding a backlink straightly, because no one has a so soften heart to get you traffic. Although if he/she likes your content, will give you one or more backlinks, you want.

7. Optimize your Post (Blog) URL Structure

It is seen that shorter but descriptive URLs deliver a better user experience and also helpful for the search engines to rank higher on their first page.

“One of the best SEO optimization tips is giving shorter but descriptive URL”

This is the kind of URL I’m talking about:

Compare that to this complicated and bad URL:

OR

Moreover, your URLs should contain keywords but focus on long-tail keywords.

8. Include outbound links

One of the simplest ways of enhancing your post’s SEO is outbound links.

Including outbound links to your posts will increase your article’s SEO automatically.

You should include 2-4 outbound links for every 1000 words. If you have an article about 4000 words, don’t be panic to use outbound links just do it but do wisely.

I am not allowing you to include in every paragraph rather use wherever needed.

9. Use internal linking

Which is more important either external linking (or outbound linking) or internal linking?

In my point of view, internal links have the same importance as the outbound links as it is the vital part of the On the Page SEO.

Be careful again don’t go crazy for massive internal links rather use about 2-4 times in every post.

So, you should link to your own site less than you link to other sites.

10. Use LSI keywords to Support Your Focus Keywords

LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing and referring to the keywords that are absolutely similar to your focus keywords and can be counted as one of the great technique from these  ongoing best SEO essentials

For example, if your focus keyword is “on the page SEO,” some LSI keywords would be “on page SEO techniques” and “on page SEO checker.”

If you have carefully read my article so far, I have mentioned in “Google’s Search Related to”…, actually these are the LSI keywords and we can say call them as the long tail keywords also.

There is a tool even that has made an easier way to find LSI keywords at LSIGraph.com

Just enter your focus keyword, checkmark on the “I’m not a robot” then click on GENERATE button.

11. Get the title tag right

We all know that the “First Impression is the Last Impression”.

So, the user’s first-most attention goes to the Title Tags when they found you search engines.

As the title tag would be the title of your blog post in the search engine result pages.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Just you have to be sure about your focus keyword in title fully describing the purpose of about the whole article.

The title must remain in between 70-71 characters.

12. Develop an SEO-friendly Meta Description

Together with the title tag, the Meta description helps your page stand out in the SERPs.

You also have to be sure about that your Meta Description should be fully supporting to the title and explaining the summary of the post (to provide the better idea about the whole article).

You should have to optimize your meta description short and:

• Should remain in between,135-160 characters
• Use your focus keyword
• Should present a clear picture describing all aspects of the article
• Should be convincing and more compelling the reader to check what contained in it.

Below is the superb example of writing description comprehensively.

The above Meta Description in simple words is exactly telling you what “The Fanman Show” blog is all about and that’s what I am trying to explain you.

13. Choose Responsive Theme to Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

If you are not using a mobile friendly theme then you are in a big mess.

Creating and publishing posts to your blog as mobile friendly is not just about using responsive themes

So, you also have to really think about your post should properly display on mobiles.

For example, using even responsive themes and playing with conventional tables with multiple columns in the post will not fully entertain the users. So you also have to create responsive tables.

Making your post mobile friendly involves the following:

• First, you have to limit your paragraphs not exceeding 3-4 lines
• Secondly, use short sentences
• Thirdly, use photos and video illustrations and proper white spaces to break up the article.
• Don’t forget to use the h1 and the subheadings to give a proper shape.

What you and other will gain through all this? It will increase the user’s readability on both mobile and desktop and of course an increase in traffic to your site as well.

14. Analyze your site speed

Below are the “The Fanman Show” statistics regarding site speed.

SEO optimization google think tanks are of the viewpoint that, more than 45-50% of the customers leaves a website if it loads in more than 2 seconds (depending up the page load time)

That means your site speed has to be pretty darn fast. If it’s not, you could lose some serious traffic.

What does it mean? Your site should be pretty fast enough otherwise you will lose some serious traffic.

You can increase your site speed by:

• Simplifying your design
• Reducing server response time
• Enabling compression (minifying CSS, JS etc.)
• Optimizing images
• Leveraging browser cache

Once you have done with your site speed improvement considerations, you can check it by the following site speed tools.

1. Pingdom Tools
2. TestMySite

15. Optimize body text for your keyword

Of course, you can’t forget to include your focus keyword in the body of your article. Don’t use it every chance you get, and be sure to mix in your long-tail and LSI keywords.

I usually use my focus keyword at the beginning and end of posts. I also typically use it in at least one h2 subheading.

16. Use Your Focus Keyword Early on

First, Brian Dean says your keyword should appear in the first 100-150 words. In my experience, this is absolutely necessary.

This will help Google crawl your content and understand that your focus keyword is important.

17. Keyword frequency

How much times a keyword appears in your written article is known as Keyword frequency.

There are multiple viewpoints on keyword frequency, some says 2-3 times in a blog post and the other SEO think tank suggest 10(Keywords)/1000 (words)

Here’s what I recommend: For long-form blog posts, use your keyword about 4-6 times. But also use your long-tail keywords and LSI keywords. You can use these every few paragraphs.

Here are the “The Fanman Show” suggestions, use your keyword about 4-6 times in long-form posts along with long-tail keywords and LSI keywords after every few paragraphs (write paragraph not more than 4-5 lines)

But, remember one thing, use keywords naturally rather using them blindly without sense.

18. Keep in Mind User’s Intentions

A blogger which is well aware of user intent is actually a most successful amongst all. Your user’s intent makes your keyword more effective. Because keyword is a query or the way the user is searching for answers in the search engines. Obviously, there exist various kinds of users thinking differently the same intent in multiple ways. If you successfully find their intent collectively, you can better optimize your keywords for that intent.

Obviously, there exist various kinds of users thinking differently the same intent in multiple ways. If you successfully find their intent collectively, you can better optimize your keywords for that intent.

There exist three types of user intent.

1. Navigational Intent: Users with Navigational intent are searching for a certain type of page or a website. For example, he or she is searching for Facebook, Twitter pages, or Citibank or Parco Website etc.
2. Informational intent Users with Informational intent are looking for a piece of information. For example, he/she is searching for Signs of Cancer, London Flats prices or iPhone 7 reviews.
3. Transactional Intent, Users with Transactional intent are serious buyers and are searching for buying or purchasing something. For example, he/she is searching for Jubilee insurance or buying LED lights online.

So, what you have to consider is all about user intent, with your focus keyword along with long-tail and LSI keywords.

For example, if you are going to write an article on your focus keywords like “iPhone 7” but you are creating a product page then immediately change it with “buy iPhone7”. Doing so, you actually have invited all those users who have Transactional Intent.

19. Include LSI Keywords in h2 Subheadings

You can boost on the page SEO by making a small change by using LSI keywords in your h2 subheadings.

But not necessarily, use wisely and naturally, if it fits in that part of the content.

20. Make social buttons easy to find

Social shares = free links. Make the most of this opportunity by using extremely visible social sharing buttons.

Social shares will create free links for your specific post, so it is necessary to use social shares button to your blog post.

I use buttons that remain in the middle of the page (as shown above), so whenever the page is scrolled up and down these stick with the blog post.

21. Acquire a Featured Rich Snippet

The 21st from the best SEO essentials is;

Getting a rich snippet of your blog post is not only the best way to increase the chance of being displayed on Google’s first page but it sprinkle amazing effects on a result with a small picture.

Featured snippets are those handy boxes that show you a preview of the content and often answer a question:

Other Example of Rich Card, Rich Snippet is:

22. Avoid overuse anchor text

A very technical point from the best SEO essentials,

Be careful on using exact match anchor text otherwise get ready for penalized by the Google.

23. Syndicate your content

People are a bit conscious about syndicating their content because of duplicate content.

Know about how to safely syndicate your content.

 

Do not syndicate your every post but the ones which you think will be of interest to a certain audience.

Use LinkedIn Medium for syndication.

24. Always Use Title Modifiers

The second last from the checklist of best SEO essentials;

Sometimes, adding an extra but efficient words to your title will generate more traffic and increase your chances to appear in the SERP.

Also, these words will increase an LSI keywords with long-tail keyword effect that is more suitable for being found in organic search.

Words like “best” or “easy” are often searched, so it makes sense to add them to your title.

For example, top, top 5, best or easy words are often searched by the human psyche, so it makes a better sense to use them in the title.

The Following list can be useful for modifying your title:

• Best
• Checklist
• Tips
• Guide
• Simple
• Easy
• How to
• Review
• Fast

 25. Use Various Titles for Your h1 and Title Tag

the last from the checklist of best SEO essentials,

Remember, you are not allowed to use title tag and h1 identical but you can use your focus keyword in your title tag and h1. Both have a different effect on your On the Page SEO.

Use long-tail keywords in title tag and h1 for a keyword phrase or vice versa.

It will increase your chances to be found search results with keywords.

Conclusion

If you are working hard and writing a long-form content but still not being found in SERP, then you’ll get a lot of help to get the result you want by the above checklist of 25 Best SEO Essentials.

Long-form content better works if only optimized with the solid SEO tactics as the above 25 points.

 

This is not even a comprehensive list, although, this handy checklist which will ultimately guide you on how to do SEO for website step by step or when writing fresh and editing your published post.

Make a better use of my advice and you’ll see a few posts, your blog/pages get better ranking and drive more traffic.

Which of these techniques are you going to use from the above suggested best seo essentials? Share your viewpoints with me through your comments to make it better for all the bloggers.