Recently, I saw in a FB group a person asking for help on how to rank a blog post on Google. As seasoned Pros frequent this group, it was disheartening to see the replies and the level of ignorance being offered in the guise of advice. Talking about SEO plugins rather than how to implement keywords etc is just poor.
If you’re the type of person who thinks adding a plugin like Yoast, RankMath or any other SEO company will solve this issue for noobs, then you are part of the problem – not the solution, maybe just stick to social media for SEO strategy.
How to rank a blog post on Google – The basics
This part is crucial to letting Google know you exist. Set up an account for Google Search Console (GSC).
There are lots of posts out there telling you how to do this, so I won’t get bogged down in the nitty gritty of it, but take a look at this from one of the few SEO people I respect: Nikki Pilkington, she goes into greater detail about the why & how of GSC than I have time for here – it’s important, so read up on it.
Next, go to your Wordpress site and install your favoured SEO plugin; Yoast, AIOSEO, RankMath etc. Configure it, this should take about 5mins, then check to see if it has created your sitemap.
You can find this at:
https://your_domain.com/sitemap_index.xml
Now, if your sitemap is there copy that URL into GSC at the tab on the left marked <Sitemaps>.
Google now knows you exist, and what’s more, when you publish fresh content, it will know that too, and will crawl and index your site accordingly.
Writing content for a successful post.
So, you need to decide what you are going to write about.
You might have a blog where you write about a particular game Call of Duty, GTA etc, in which case your objective will be to break news first, be unique in your content etc, or provide hints & tips for other users – creating content of value.
And it’s those last four words is what Google likes your blog posts to demonstrate. It’s called the E-E-A-T guidelines: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google first introduced EAT in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines in 2014 and added the extra ‘E’ for experience in 2022.
Remember this mantra: Write for your users, not for bots & crawlers
Headings: The structure your post needs.
If you think that the Headings tags are just for styling your content, then this is going to be an eye opener, & we’ll also show you how to use some HTML to style your text.
A blog post should have one Heading 1 (<h1>) at the start, to tell Google what your post is. Include your keyword in this, or make the whole thing your keyword.
Next is Heading 2 (<h2>), and to a certain extent Heading 3 (<h3>). These headings to break your text up into sub-sections. You can use these headings multiple times in a post, but include your keyword in at least one to aid your ranking credentials.
However, use Headings wisely and in a sequential way. For example:
<h1>Main title </h1>
<h2>Sub-title</h2>
<h3>2nd sub-title</h3>
<h2>Sub-title</h2>
This would be an acceptable structure, but if the <h3> heading was replaced with a <h4> then Google gets upset. But maybe you want the styling that your theme <h4> heading has. No problem, use this HTML (modify as required):
<h3 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-size: 1.6em; font-family: 'Poppins', Arial, sans-serif;"> Your text here </span> </h3>
Of course, if you want to really push the boat out and include a FAQ section on your post, we’ve covered how to do it so search engines will like it: FAQ with Yoast & Elementor – Clue: it’s a quick and easy way to share a lot of information in an interesting way
Keywords: What are they?
A misnomer is what they are. You will see SEO gurus talk about keyword this and keyword that, but never properly explain it.
So, first up a keyword is a phrase rather than one word which then has two sub-categories:
- Short keyword
- Long keyword
Short keywords are a phrase of 2-4 words which you want to be found for. Long keywords are 5words plus. There are pros & cons to both, but invariably the longer keyword the more you are narrowing down the search result (there will be exceptions to this before you @ me).
Next, you’ll want to find what your users are potentially searching for, which is called keyword research. Again, this requires quite a lot time to fully explain, so I’d recommend finding a decent source like Nikki Pilkington or Matt from HeyTony.Agency and invest time in it.
There are lots of free tools available and I want to give you an insight into how to use data that you probably don’t really pay attention to. This is a screengrab from my desktop, searching for <keyword meaning>
The first thing you may notice is the column on the righthand-side. This is from a browser extension called Keyword Surfer, it’s free (available in Chrome & Edge stores) and highly recommended.
What it does is take my search term, in this case (figure1) <keyword meaning> and tells me the average monthly searches in the UK (170 ) (figure2), but then goes on to suggest alternatives and their average monthly searches. This can provide you with inspiration and refine your strategy.
Then we have ‘People also asked’ (figure3). Again, this is offering up alternatives that Google knows users are using. So where as a keyword doesn’t have to be a question, ‘People also asked’ is. There are websites which again will provide you with detailed search volumes etc.
Using SEO plugins to help you rank blog posts on Google.
There are plenty of SEO plugins for Wordpress; Yoast, AIOSEO, RankMath etc. They all do a similar job, QED just happens to use Yoast, the important thing is not to get too caught up in trying to get all the indicators/smiley faces/traffic lights to be green, IT WILL BE TO THE DETRIMENT OF YOUR CONTENT, remember the mantra: write for your users, not for bots.
During the course of writing this blog post I took a screengrab of the Yoast analysis. Even though the post is far from finished it is showing an amber status.
Keyphrase synonyms: The use of related terms is also a ranking factor. Let’s say you keyword is “left-handed golf clubs”, if you write a 1500 word post only using this phrase only, it will come across as unnatural writing style and Google could view it as keyword stuffing and a post of poor quality, thus down ranking it. So synonyms in this context could be “the sticks”, “golf bats”, “set of clubs” and so on
Internal links: Link to relevant on your site that either reinforces your original blog post or expands on a particular point. The word relevant is key to that sentence, don’t internal link a post about Washing machines to one about Ballet classes unless you can demonstrate something a 5yo would understand in minutes.
Keyword/phrase density: This is important to remember, as previous outdated strategies would utilise a practise called ‘Keyword stuffing’. This again goes back to writing for humans not bots or search engines – write naturally.
Keyword/phrase distribution: obvious, doesn’t need explaining.
Keyword/phrase in meta description: This is important, this is the bait & hook to appeal to users to read your content. Top tip: get your keyword as near to the start of your meta description as possible and don’t exceed the 150 character limit.
Keyword/phrase in sub-headings: This is the structure previously discussed utilising the <h2> and <h3> tags.
Images, and how to insert them to maximum effect
The idiom of:
“A picture paints a thousand words”
Is never more true when it comes to blogging, but you have to do it in a way that search engines will like.
First, convert to WEBP format, it’s a next gen format and means your image will load quicker.
Next, when inserting an image make sure you specify height and width dimensions.
Then, make sure you give your image appropriate alt attributes and that your image title contains your keyword.
Again, this brief description isn’t exhaustive, just a brief overview of best practise.
Now to get your blog post to rank on search engines
Once you’ve finished writing and revising your blog post and you’re happy with it, hit publish & marvel at your handy work. Then return to the Google Search Console
At the top of the page you’ll see an URL inspection bar, paste in the URL of your new blog post. Google will tell you that the post isn’t indexed and ask you if you want to proceed. Your post will then be queued up for crawling by the GoogleBots.
All being well Google will index your post, but your work isn’t done. Now you need backlinks and for your social media community to share and engage with your work.
Conclusion on ranking content with search engines.
SEO has a some what deserved reputation for being some kind of Dark art. Indeed we’ve written content for clients to raise their online visibility and barely moved the needle for months, then we see a pick up in views.
The key for SEO for blogging is to remember the mantra about who you are writing for, and the basics.
It doesn’t matter who says it, no plugin on its own will get your content to rank with search engines, you need to do the hard yards and make your content accessible to bots & crawlers.
Who made this post possible.
Like many I became frustrated with my website SERP (Search Engine Result Page) performance, so I decided to do something about it. There are Gurus like Neil Patel & James Reynolds who only think in binary terms; They are right – everyone else is wrong, and can often be debunked with a simple Google search. So it’s important to find people you can relate to, but also their advice yields results.
This post complements our ‘How to build a wordpress website – complete 2025 guide‘ post
For me it’s:
- Nikki Pilkington – Non-Wanky SEO
- Matt Diamante – Hey Tony
Both have great social media presences, but for different reasons
