Did you know 91% of webpages are never seen by consumers on Google?

Online Business Success Needs Work:
A study of a billion websites by Ahrefs “the SEO company” showed that only 9.36% of sites rank on Google. Why?

They don’t understand SEO and the power of blogging for their business!

So you’ve done a quick Google search on “SEO” or “How to make my website visible on Google” and you’re flooded with words like “keywords” and “backlinks.”

But what do these mean?

Well essentially: If you are a small business you’re going to need to spend a lot of time or money on blog posts

According to Google the average blog post of 500-800 words (like this one you’re reading right now) takes 1-2 hours to write, but a professional at SEO took a deep dive in those stats and found that this was way off!

It isn’t uncommon for quality blog posts that actually attract traffic to take more than a day to write. Some people even claim that  it takes them up to three days to properly research, interview, write, and edit etc.
And that doesn’t even consider the time it takes to distribute/share these posts on social media.

More social media platforms are being designed to filter out free content to better promote their paywalls and ads. So chances are you’re going to need an all new separate training for each platform.

There are a ton of SEO sites and tools out there usually charging a monthly subscription fee. I’ve seen anything from $29-$99 monthly charges. That can really add up, especially when it takes a few posts to really get a feel for your writing style and the SEO results don’t seem to have taken effect.
Mastering these tools themselves can take a long time and with so many videos begging for your attention, you can easily get lost in learning to make the most out of SEO.

The sheer amount of time it takes to write thoughtful and engaging blog posts makes most businesses ask “why bother” if they aren’t going to rank in the first or second spot.
Plus all those Google suggested results in the top spots are all designed to favor the more established businesses with enough money to afford all those ongoing ads.

It can seem helpless to learn it yourself but by concentrating on just a few key tips you can get started:

1. Think of the 5 Ws and How

(Who, What, When Where, and Why) Answering these questions can get you automatically thinking about content depth which is one thing Google looks for when ranking your site. Depth is how well your post covers the overall topic focus. Answering related questions can naturally lead to related keyword coverage and requires no expensive SEO tools.

2. Quality over quantity

One of the biggest mistakes made by new businesses is that they think they have to be posting everyday or they will lose momentum, they often end up sending things their customers don’t care about or lower quality posts that give a bad first impression.

3. Mention the main keyword in your H1 tag

This is a basic fix that can boost your SERP (Search engine results page) ranking.

4. Use Subheadings

Related to the previous tips answering the 5WH questions in subheadings can help Google find your page and also just makes organizational sense for both you and your reader (a page/blog post should only have 1 H1 and no more than 2-3 H2 headings, you can use more H3 and H4)

5. Ask yourself if what you are writing is relevant

Sometimes you can get stuck on a tangent and after writing for hours you realize you talked about completely off-topic information but you don’t want to have wasted all that time so you just publish it. Who cares right? Google will probably appreciate the extra information and I’ll have more keywords.

No. Just don’t do it. Take the time to rewrite your post maybe save what you write for another post that you can even link to where you started writing in case someone else had the same question or insight. But it is important to stay on topic to keep readers interested and answer the question they set out to find. If you have a few unique or interesting facts to share that don’t strictly answer related questions about the main keyword you are targeting you can add them, but do so sparingly and maybe use this as an opportunity to create those internal links as I mentioned before.

6. Plan longer posts out linearly

There should be flow in the post. Read what you have written out loud and try to brainstorm questions your reader may have throughout the post and answer these questions either in text (if it is strongly related and relatively short) or as a link to another post. Planning this way can help you visualize where you can add effective CTA, images or other attention grabbers, or links to other posts. You can color code these elements easily. Taking five minutes to effectively plan your post out before you start writing will help you stay on track and provide value to your readers.

7. The Final tip: Promote

Ultimately, editing and revising until your SEO tool finally claims your post is 100% perfect isn’t going to help you drive traffic to your site and help convert leads into customers. Only by putting your content out there, promoting it on social media or as paid advertising, will create the awareness you need. And you have to know that it will take time. If you have followed the guidelines here and put effort into your post it will pay off but you can’t expect instant results. But you can absolutely speed the process up by having your posts everywhere. Cross-promote to your newsletter subscribers, ask your Facebook network to share it, send it to clients you know who find value in it.

Anybody can write a hugely successful blog post even if they have no formal training. By using these tips and ensuring everything you do is aimed at adding value for your customer you will be rewarded with more engagement, and if your product value is communicated well better sales.