My Complete SEO Guide for Bloggers (be SEO ready)
Good news, SEO doesn’t need to be complex or difficult.
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I’ve been using a minimalist approach for years — and it works. Like the Pareto Principle says, 80% of results come from just 20% of actions. Still, with major shifts in the industry, there are some new strategies worth using.
This is my complete SEO guide for personal bloggers. These are the things that I focus on and actually move the needle. It’s how you optimize your personal website for sustainable organic traffic.
So, are you ready to make sure your blog is totally SEO ready for 2025 and beyond?
Epic. Let’s do this!
What is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimization) is how you optimize a website, blog post, web page or peace of content for search engines and online discovery.
SEO is the language that search engines like Google, YouTube and Pinterest speak. So to rank in these places (i.e., to get traffic), we need to speak their language too.
This is what being SEO ready means. And luckily, it’s pretty simple.
The SEO Triangle Framework
3 Cornerstones for Good SEO
The reader. This is going from “how can I get traffic and make money?” to “how can I actually help my reader?” Optimize for the reader’s search intent, pain points and values to create a positive experience.
The content. This is the quality of your writing, your content strategy, authenticity and branding intention.
The technicals. This is how you optimize your content for ranking — for example, using your target keywords in the right places.
The steps below will ensure you cover all three cornerstones of the SEO triangle.
The Importance of SEO for Blogging Success
Even if you’re a new blog, starting off on the right foot (with good SEO) is important. Here’s why:
Rank quicker
Get more traffic
Be more competitive
Build good SEO habits
Look more professional
Establish niche authority
Have better topic organization
Make your content more intentional
Start gathering and tracking key data
Build lasting SEO authority in your niche
Optimized content just looks and reads better
Avoid wasting time with having to fix mistakes later
Improve the performance, reach and impact of your content
Explore more:
➤ How Long Does it Take to Grow a Blog?
SEO for Blogging (6 steps)
1. Crawlability + Indexability
Crawlability is a search engine’s ability to access your site. Indexability is a search engine’s ability to analyze a page and index it.
Personally, I’ve never run into any issues with crawlability or indexability. Most modern site builders and CMS platforms ensure you’re SEO ready.
You would likely have to take some deliberate action to make a site non-crawlable or non-indexable. For example, disallowing crawlability in a robot.txt file, having a “rel=nofollow” tag or adding a “noindex” tag.
Still, there are ways to spot issues.
One of the first things I always do with a new website is connect it to Google Search Console and Google Analytics (GA4).
This lets you monitor performance, discover any issues and request new content for indexing.
I also use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free), which monitors my pages and site performance and sends me periodic reports to review.
So when you have a new blog, just make sure it’s discoverable and indexable.
2. Basic Keyword Use
Keywords are how you rank for your target topics. This means finding the right keywords and using them in the right places. It’s one of the most fundamental parts of SEO.
Here’s the basic formula on where to use your keywords for SEO:
Titles. Your H1 and meta titles should always include your target keyword. Try to keep it towards the front too.
URL slug. Your URL slug should contain your target keyword (and nothing more). Delete extra words to make it look cleaner.
Introduction. Try to use your target keyword early in your blog post — within the first paragraph or ~100 words.
In the body text. You’ll naturally use your keyword while writing (in headers or within text). Just don’t overdo it — prioritize natural writing over SEO.
Meta description. Your meta description is what shows under your title in the results. It’s good to include your keyword here.
Explore more:
➤ Keyword Research 101 (how I do things)
3. Advanced Keyword Use
The basic formula above should get you some decent traffic (especially for low-competition keywords). But if you’re serious about your blogging SEO, you’ll need to learn more advanced strategies.
Here are some things to think about:
Don’t ignore ultra competitive keywords. Even if you never rank for a keyword, writing on it is important to position yourself as an expert in your niche (both for Google and your readers). For example, my content strategy blog isn’t likely to rank, but I link to it from other posts, which give it traffic and me authority.
Include related keywords too. Your target keyword is important, but so is using synonyms and related phrases. Always expand on your main topics by including secondary phrases to create well-rounded posts and pages.
Target the whole funnel. You should target keywords for every stage of the buyer’s journey, including top-of-the-funnel (TOFU), middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) and bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) topics.
Build topic clusters. Topic clusters are groups of related keywords that, together, establish niche and SEO authority.
4. Create Topic Clusters
The topics you write about should all support each other. This is the foundation of a solid content strategy. And topic clusters sit in the center of this framework.
Topic clusters are groups of related articles that interlink between and support each other. Together, they create strong topical authority in your niche, which improves SEO trust, credibility and ranking.
For example, here’s a small topic cluster based around a core pillar post:
The Complete SEO Guide for Bloggers (pillar post)
Why SEO Matters in Blogging
The Role of UX in SEO
10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
8 SEO Trends to Watch for
How to do Keyword Research
6 SEO Metrics Bloggers Should Know
One perfectly optimized article by itself is weak for SEO. But 10+ that are all interlinked and supporting each other? Well, that’s some powerful stuff.
So be sure to choose articles that make sense and actually go well together. I talk about this topic more in my post on how many blogs you should launch a website with.
Explore more:
➤ How to Grow a Multi-Niche Blog
5. UX
“You could have the perfect keyword and the perfect content, but if your UX sucks, then people will leave and you’ll struggle to rank or grow real authority.”
UX, user experience, in blogging is how a reader interacts with and experiences an article. And it’s super important for SEO.
A few signals that your UX (and content) are good are a low bounce rate (people stay a while), high views per visit (readers click through to other articles) and longer session times.
Luckily, most modern website builders make it pretty easy to optimize for UX. But it’s still important to keep a few things in mind:
Speed. If your website and blog is slow, this will ruin your UX and SEO. So be sure to optimize for page speed. A couple ways to do this is to compress your images (I go for <500KB) and consider using a CDN.
Mobile-first. Most people are reading your blog from their phones. So always check your posts and pages look great on mobile.
Accessibility. Website accessibility ensures anyone with a disability can enjoy your content. For example, including alt text in your images.
Good formatting. The average person spends 52 seconds reading a blog. It’s an on-demand, short-form world, and good formatting suits the modern reader. So use blank spaces, clear headers, bullet lists and bold text. Avoid long-running paragraphs and make things scannable.
Engaging elements. Provide a more engaging experience with video, quizzes, surveys, CTAs, interactive widgets or social share buttons.
Images and infographics. If you can, go for custom images — even simple phone photos or Canva edits are more authentic. Custom infographics are also great for summarizing large blocks of text.
6. Modern SEO Writing
“Good writing is good SEO. That means writing authentic, helpful content that sounds like a real live human.”
Good writing is the foundation of your blog. While this is a skill that takes practice and time, there are a few things worth paying attention to sooner rather than later.
This is what good SEO writing entails:
Easy to read — again, have good UX
Content that is actually helpful and unique
Writing actively and without fluff — less is more
Using firsthand experience and unique insights
Matching the search intent of your keyword and the user
Covering topics in full — include secondary and related keywords
If you just get these things right, you’ll be most of the way there.
Later ✌️
SEO doesn’t need to be hard. Pulling a few key levers should be plenty to get you sustainable organic traffic.
You can always optimize things further as you grow and develop a more complex content strategy and site architecture.
For starters, I focus on covering three key areas (my SEO triangle): the content, the reader and the technicals.
Writing genuinely helpful experience-based content, using good keywords in the right places and providing a positive experience will have the biggest impact on your SEO performance.
And as with anything, stay consistent. Build topical authority with clusters of articles and simply never quit.
SEO (and blogging) is a long game. But rest assured, it’s far from dead.
