8-Point Checklist for Writing a Fully Optimized Blog Post

To improve your overall blogging strategy, you have to learn how to write a fully optimized blog post. To help you out, we’ve put together an 8-point checklist that will guide you through the process.

Checklist for Writing a Fully Optimized Blog Post

Blogging. It’s such a powerful digital marketing tool, yet so many people still struggle to figure it out. Writing a blog post that hit’s the bull’s eye with the target audience is quite a challenge. But, it’s worth investing your energy and time into. This is because blogging will help you raise brand awareness, build a stronger brand identity, and reach the people who are crucial to your business.

Take a look at the steps below for writing a fully optimized blog post and learn how to nail each new post that you write. Let’s get started!

1. Do Topics Research

In order to write a killer optimized blog post, you need to nail the very first step in the process of its creation. That step is choosing the topic to cover.

Choosing a topic should not be based on your personal opinion or feeling. It should be based on detailed research.

Here’s what questions you need to answer:

• What does my target audience want to know?
• What is currently trending in my industry?
• What are the burning questions I could answer?

Doing proper topic research will give you the answers. You’ll do it by reading the news, following influencers and experts from your industry, learning about events, and staying active on social media.

2. Use Keyword Research Tools

The next step in your process of creating a brilliant and optimized blog post is selecting the right keywords. Once again, you’ll need help.

Here’s what you have to use:

• keywords research tools
• data

Analyze the wide spectrum of potentially good keywords. Choose a keyword that makes a genuine connection between your content and your target audience.

So, if you’re covering a topic titled “How to Teach Your Kids to Play Chess” the best keyword to rank for isn’t “chess“. It’s too general and impossible to rank high for.

A better choice would be “teaching chess to kids” or “kids playing chess“.

Don’t be afraid to use long-tail keywords. They can be much more specific and accurate.

3. Write Killer Headlines

You want your optimized blog post to be clickable. That means you want people to take one look at your headline and think “Yes!”.

To make your headiness more attractive and engaging, follow these simple rules:

• be specific about the content
• make a promise
• include words such as tips/tricks/secrets/ways
• use numbers
• address the target audience

Let’s compare some of the best with some of the worst headlines:

• 11 Ultimate Tips For Maintaining Your Lawn How to Maintain Your Lawn
• 7 Brilliant Exercises For Losing Belly Fat For Fitness Beginners Lose Belly Fat

A headline needs to promise, inspire, invite, and motivate the readers before they even open the blog post.

4. Address Specific Problems

The next point on our checklist concerns directly your target audience.

It’s your job to learn everything about them – from simple facts such as their age, sex, or location, to more complex ones such as their pain points or aspirations.

Once you get your facts together, you’ll be able to address and elaborate on the specific problems they’re experiencing.

So, if you’re a business selling camping equipment, you should cover topics such as:

• How to Choose the Best Backpack: Sizing & Quality
• Camping Beginners: Choosing Camping & Hiking Gear
• 8 Preparation Tips For Camping With Your Kids

You need to know what dilemmas, issues, or potential problems are your target readers facing. Then, you need to cover them in your blog post and provide valuable information they can immediately apply.

5. Organize Blog Structure

Writing a blog post is nothing like writing an essay or a scientific article. Blog posts differ from these formats in their structure and information organization.

This is because people online don’t want to read every single word of your content writing product. They only want the specific information they’re interested in.

That means that you have to make your blog post-scan-friendly. Here’s how to do it:

• divide your content using subheadings
• organize information in short paragraphs
• write short sentences
• use bullet points
• create lists
• use bold and italics for important information

This way, a potential reader will take one look at your blog post and locate the specific section they want to read.

This will improve your blog’s readability and make it optimized for your target audience.

6. Simplify Your Language

An optimized blog post is a blog post that people of different ages, backgrounds, or education levels can read.

Yes, it’s supposed to be written for a specific target audience. But, it should be made easy to read by a high school kid to ensure nothing but positive responses.

That means that you need to:

• use simple, everyday language
• write in a friendly tone
• use a conversational style
• avoid technical terminology that not many people understand

This is an important step in growing your blog and making it more readable, friendly, and optimized.

7. Add Valuable Links

Links are a great way to further boost the quality of your blog post and make it an informative piece of content.

You should consider adding links to:

• credible magazines, articles, or publications
• case studies
• statistics
• reliable sources of information

This will give your blogs additional credibility and give your readers a chance for some further reading. Also, they’ll be able to see you’re doing serious research when writing your blog.

Finally, links will signalize Google that your blog post is relevant for a specific search and improve your ranking which is the key to a successful digital marketing strategy.

8. Present Like a Pro

Finally, your blog needs to be accurately written and polished to perfection. That means you have to take the proofreading and editing stage seriously.

You can’t allow yourself to have any mistakes or weak spots in your blog posts. That means you have to:

• edit through several drafts
• proofread
• read out loud before publishing

Also, you need to add visual elements to make your presentation complete. That includes:

• images
• videos
• memes
• GIFs

Final Thoughts: 8-Point Checklist for Writing a Fully Optimized Blog Post

Writing a fully optimized blog post means thinking about all the segments that make it brilliant. From keywords and readability to structure and the visual aspect, you need to make your blog posts stand out from the rest.

Use the tips we’ve shared above to optimize your blog posts and give your readers a reason to come back for more.

Take a look at the articles 15 Tips to Create a Successful Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide, Boost Your Business Growth With These 5 Free Marketing Resources, and Sick of Guest Posting? Here Are 3 Ways To Build Backlinks Without Writing Content for more digital marketing tips.