You have a topic, maybe even a good one: a question customers ask every week. Now you need to turn it into a page that answers the question well and that Google can understand well enough to show to the people asking it. The writing itself is not the hard part. Knowing what goes where is.
This guide covers how to write a blog post for SEO from the first line to the last setting before you press publish. It assumes your blog already exists. If it does not, start with setting up a blog on WordPress and come back.
What “writing for SEO” really means
SEO blog writing is mostly ordinary good writing with a few extra habits. Search engines try to show the page that best answers what someone typed. So the job is to work out what the searcher wants, give it to them clearly, and make the page easy for both a person and a program to understand.
It does not mean repeating a phrase many times, hitting a word count or hiding extra keywords at the bottom. Those tricks make a page worse to read, and search engines have long since learned to spot them.
Before you write: three quick decisions
- The exact question. Write it in the customer’s words at the top of your draft. “How long does a car battery last in hot weather?” is a question. “Car batteries” is a subject.
- What the person searching is hoping to get. Is it a fast answer, numbered steps, a side-by-side comparison or help making a choice? Search the question yourself and look at what kind of pages appear. If the top results are all step-by-step guides, a personal story will not match what people expect.
- Where the reader should go next. Pick the one service page, product or contact option the post will point to. Knowing this in advance stops the ending from becoming a vague sales paragraph.
How to write a blog post for SEO, section by section
The title
The post title, which WordPress usually shows as the main heading, should say plainly what the page answers. Include the main phrase people search, written the way they would say it. Keep it honest: if the title promises “every cause”, the post must cover every cause.
The opening
Start with the reader’s situation in a sentence or two, then answer the question, or at least the headline version of the answer, within the first few paragraphs. Many readers decide in seconds whether a page is going to help. If they have to scroll past a history of your company to find the answer, they leave.
A useful pattern: situation, short answer, then “here is the detail”. For example, a post on battery life might open with a car that would not start on a summer morning, give the general answer, then explain what affects it and how to check yours.
The body
Break the detail into sections that follow the order a reader’s questions come in. What is it? Why does it happen? How do I check? What do I do? When should I get help? Each section gets a heading that says what it covers, so a skimming reader can jump to the part they need. The post on structuring a page with clear headings goes deeper on how to nest them.
Keep paragraphs short. Use a numbered list for steps that must happen in order and bullets for things that do not. Use a table only when the reader really is comparing options across the same few points.
Examples and specifics
This is where a small business can beat a big website. Add the things you know from doing the work: the mistake customers usually make, the part that fails first, the question nobody thinks to ask until it is too late. Specific detail is what makes a reader trust a page, and it is the part a competitor cannot easily copy.
Be careful with numbers. Only state a figure if you are sure of it and it will stay true. “It depends on X and Y, and here is how to tell” is often more honest than a number.
The ending
Finish with the next step, in a normal sentence. If the reader has followed your steps and the problem persists, what should they do? That is the natural place to mention your service.
Using keywords without forcing them
Use the main phrase in the title, early in the opening, in one heading where it reads naturally, and a few more times through the post where it fits. Use related wording too, the way any person explaining the topic would. If you read a sentence aloud and it sounds like it was written for a machine, rewrite it.
If you are worried you have overdone it, paste the text into our keyword density checker. You are not aiming for a target figure. You are looking for a phrase that stands out as repeated more often than a person would naturally say it.
Internal links: the step most posts skip
Links between your own pages help readers find related answers and help search engines understand how your site fits together. When you write a post:
- Link from the new post to the service page it supports, with words that describe that page.
- Link to one or two related posts where a reader would genuinely want more detail.
- Then go back to one or two older posts on related topics and add a link to the new one. This last step is the one people forget, and it is how a new post gets found quickly.
Avoid “click here” as link text. “Our guide to replacing a car battery” tells the reader and Google what is behind the link. There is more on this in internal linking for WordPress sites.
The settings before you publish
A post can be well written and still let itself down in the editor. Check these each time:
| Setting | What to do |
|---|---|
| Page address (slug) | Short and readable, usually the main phrase without filler words. Set it before publishing, because changing it later needs a redirect. |
| SEO title | Can differ slightly from the post title. Make it clear what the page answers, so the search result is worth clicking. |
| Meta description | One or two sentences summarising what the reader will get. Google may rewrite it, but a good one often gets used. |
| Images | Compressed, sensibly named, with alt text describing what is shown. |
| Category | One relevant category. Add tags only if you use them consistently. |
| Author and date | Shown on the post, so readers know who wrote it and how current it is. |
For help with the title and description fields in your SEO plugin, see editing the SEO title and meta description.
A final check, read as a stranger
Leave the draft for a few hours, then read it on your phone as if you had searched the question yourself.
- Did you get the answer without scrolling far?
- Could you skim the headings and know what each section covers?
- Is there anything you would only understand if you work in the trade? Explain it or cut it.
- Are there sentences that say nothing? Delete them.
- Is every fact, price and timing correct today?
- Does the ending tell you what to do next?
This guide is one part of a wider series. The content marketing guide for small businesses covers choosing topics, publishing and measuring, and our digital marketing hub explains where blogging sits next to ads, email and search work.
Frequently asked questions
Should the blog post title and the SEO title be exactly the same?
They can be, and often that is simplest. Sometimes the SEO title is a little shorter or more direct so it fits in the search result, while the on-page title can be friendlier. Both should describe the same thing, so nobody clicking feels misled.
Is it worth adding a table of contents to a blog post?
For a long post with many sections, a short table of contents near the top helps readers jump to the part they need. For a short post it adds clutter. If your headings are clear, a table of contents built from them is easy to add with a block or plugin.
Can I publish a post first and improve its SEO later?
You can, but fix the page address before publishing, because changing it later means setting up a redirect. Titles, descriptions, headings and content can all be improved afterwards. Many good posts get their best version after you see which searches they appear for.
Do I need to mention my business name inside the post?
Not repeatedly. Your name appears in the site header, the author line and the closing link. Inside the body, focus on answering the question. A natural mention where you describe what you do is fine, but repeating the name adds nothing for the reader.
If you would like each post planned around a real search, written with your input and published with all of the settings above done properly, our blog and article writing service covers that, with your approval on every draft.
Next in this series: SEO Content Brief: What to Include, With a Template
