How to Make a Good Blog Even Better in 2023

If you want to start a blog you need to focus on excellent content creation and SEO equally.

I say SEO is necessary because no matter how epic your content is if it is not legible by search engines it will not be able to reach a wider audience.

If you’ve read our ultimate blogging guide for beginners, you would know why blogging isn’t dead and that creating quality content exudes 3 things:

• quality,
• brevity, and
• actionable takeaways

In fact, Panda algorithm update, one of Google’s methods of tracking websites, may detect poor content and punish them by lowering organic traffic.

Also, creating a blog that works is so much more than strategically placing a plethora of keywords in order to increase website traffic.

After Penguin, every smart webmaster needs to abandon bad SEO habits, like too aggressive positioning techniques.

Basically, Google’s goal is to improve user experience, rewarding original and quality content.

So, you need to find a way to write blog posts specially built for the readers and for the search engines.

Free Download: I have already written a 4000+ word easy-to-follow guide on the topic on page SEO techniques that will help you get higher rankings instantly.

Feel free to download the 23 point SEO checklist using the link below!

This article will help you find out how to create a better blog to please both users and search engines.

9 Tips to make a good blog even better

1) Focus on excellent content creation

Content creation must come first, in order for your website to establish authority.

Misinformation, plagiarism, poor grammar, comma splice mistakes, and shoddy paragraphs will significantly reduce one’s credibility and ethos. You need to write excellent content to let readers find your website, stay on the page and then return later to read more great information.

Here is a list of some essential content creation tools, a handy printable grammar cheat sheet PDF (for that quick vocabulary/grammar confusion clearance we all face), and the best plagiarism checker tools for you to use.

So what kind of content will attract readers, and turn visitors into customers?

Answer: Informative content.

A blog should have a takeaway aspect for readers. Provide information that will enlighten, inform, or inspire.

If your website is writing-related, provide some tips to create a better blog, for example. Blogging Books, movie, music, writing tools, or web reviews are effective ways to inform your readers.

Are you an avid reader, film reviewer, or music buff?  You can write reviews on your website. You can include an inspirational movie quote or feature a new word of the day. 

Share a recipe that worked well, or amuse your readers with a recipe that didn’t go well. Have lists for readers.

Are you a trivia person? Share an interesting fact.  If you are not feeling creative, you can overcome writer’s block by inviting an expert to be a guest blogger on your website. Adding graphics and photographs will enhance your content.

There are people who can write a lot in less time and in the middle of confusion and people who need a calm place, without distractions and a few hours to create a good article.

Whatever is the level of your ability, consider that your writing skill will improve with time!

Find your compromise : check in which condition you are more productive. This is the most important thing, your productivity!

A little advice?

Get a PC without an internet connection where you can write and create new content (or switch off momentarily the internet connection of your main PC).

Another tip would be to use our Grammarly student discount to purchase a writing assistant that will take care of all your grammatical errors and act as your proofreading software so you can focus on creating content.

More Resources To Write Better

1. How to stay motivated to write.
2. 15+ essential content creation tools you need to use right now.
3. Grammarly Review: Best Grammar checker tool, ever!
4. Best books on blogging for money for bloggers

2) Create a Better Keywords Strategy

You have the option between targeting high-traffic keywords with the huge competition or else looking for long-tail keywords with very low competition.

Whatever you choose, Google Keyword Tool is an excellent method of finding out keyword statistics. Here is how you can use it Google Keyword Planner for SEO.

While long-tail keywords may not get you as much traffic as popular ones, you’re likely to have a far better return on investment.

To get the most out of competitive keywords, you’ll need to spend a small fortune in order to be seen ahead of other companies.

With long-tail keywords, expect your conversion rate to be higher and your expenditure to be lower. Some of the world’s most lucrative websites only get moderate traffic but have an exceptional conversion rate.

Do you know that LSI keywords can help your content rank faster?

It is also worth noting that research shows four-word queries lead to the highest conversion rates (for example, “create a better blog“).

Your blog should be well-indexed to the point where you can utilize any number of four-word keywords that are relevant to your industry.

Here is a video tutorial about how SEMrush eases your task of keyword hunting and gives you access to millions of untouched, easy-to-rank keywords.

Did you know?

That you can use SEMrush to:

1. Spy your competitor’s keywords and see their top ranking keywords and use them in your own content strategy,
2. Analyse their top most trafficked pages so that you can focus on outranking them,
3. Check their backlink data and outreach people linking to them to link to your post instead of theirs,
4. Do your own site audit and see where you’ve broken links, broken images, missing meta tags and low-quality content,
5. Get personalized SEO and content ideas when you link your analytics and search console to it.

And the best part?

You don’t have to shell a penny for this! Use this SEMrush free trial coupon to get the best of SEMrush while it’s all free.

More Resources To Find Better Keywords:

1. KWFinder Review – To find long tail keywords that have low competition.
2. SEMrush – To find what keywords your competitors are ranking for and then targeting those keywords.

3) Blog Post Optimization

The headline is the most important part of your article, because it is the first thing the users see before deciding whether to read your content or discard it.

But be careful! Do not promise things that do not respect the content of your article, otherwise you will lose credibility.

And you know how important is the online reputation for bloggers and writers.

It’s important to remember that search engines read your blog’s code directly when they are indexing the site.

Most blogging platforms are built in a manner that ensures the title of your posts is the first thing seen by search engines thus making these titles the most important element of blogging.

When it comes to search engine optimization, you must have the most relevant keyword in the title.

In order to be effective, you will need to consider your target audience and what they might type into the search box in order to find out more information about your industry.

The trick is to include keywords without making the title sound odd.

It’s best to focus on one or two keywords at most in each post as this is not only great for SEO, but it also makes it easier to write coherent content.

Other than in the title, to create a better blog you should add your keywords in:

• the URL of the post;
• the content on a certain percentage;
• the sub-headings;
• the images;
• the anchor text of internal and external links.

More Resources To Optimize Your Blog Posts:

1. Actionable ON Page SEO Guide You Shouldn’t Miss!
2. Essential WordPress SEO plugins for your blog.
3. Essential things to do before publishing a blog post.
4. How to use Grammarly to optimize your blogs with proper grammar and zero duplicate content.

4) Getting Links To Your Articles

Outbound links to related pages is a relevancy signal that helps Google finds out your page’s topic. A recent SEO study found pages with outbound links outrank pages without outbound links.

Of course, blog posts that have been linked to is likely to have more authority than those without links. The most value is gained via inbound links from sites that are already deemed to be an authority in your industry. All incoming links are worth something in the eyes of search engines, but a mention from a big website may be worth thousand links from small sites.

Internal linking is important too. Be sure to link to previous posts using relevant keywords as a means of improving credibility along with search engine ranking.

However, you should only have a handful of links in any single page.

The average reader hates reading a page filled with links as there is the possibility that one of these links will accidentally be clicked on. Additionally, search engines tend to penalize websites that overindulge in links.

More Resources To Build Backlinks Organically

1. Backlinks SEO: What Are Backlinks?
2. 10 tips to build backlinks safely.
3. How to increase the Google ranking of your blog.

5) Branding and Sharing On Social Media

To create a better blog you need to work on branding too, which involves building awesome content, but also creating a catchy logo.

A logo is your visual identity and it must have certain qualities:

• original: your logo should be unique, since it is the identity of your brand, make sure to stand out from your competitors;
• visually appealing: it must be nice to see;
• stimulating: give people food for thought, the sight of your logo.

The only limit that separates you from the realization of a logo is given by your imagination. But what’s the best way to get your logo designed? Luckily, there are a plethora of options today from logo generators to freelance designers, design contests, and design agencies.

If you do not have the budget to hire someone, you can create a logo yourself using drag and drop tools like stencil.

The logo of my blog DigitalGYD is also made by the same tool. You’ll agree it is a decent work by a non-designer like me.

More Resources for better branding:

1. How to brand your blog’s Twitter handle.
2. Branding Statistics to know
3. How to boost your domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA).

To get more social shares:

1. Social Snap The most light-weight (& clean-coded) social share buttons with click-to-tweet features, you can also set custom vertical image for Pinterest shares without uploading them to your blog. Check out our detailed review of Social Snap to know more..
2. 9 easy ways to get maximum Facebook shares.
3. SocialPilot review – Schedule, monitor & track social media campaigns

Once you have created quality content, it’s time to share it!

This is another important part of having a successful website. You can have a fantastic website, but it will not be useful if people cannot find it. You can use Sendible or Hootsuite to automate social media

Remember learning to share when you were a kid? This is just the same.

I like to compare being ranked in the Search Engines as a high school popularity contest.

You need to hang out with the “cool” or “powerful” kids, look and dress nice, present yourself well, join clubs, and be “popular”, thus creating a conversation about yourself.

Doing so will help you build authority on individual pages and eventually your domain as a whole.

It’s all about content, and sharing that content throughout the web-o-sphere!

Bonus: Other ways to make your blog better:

• Email marketing has high ROI – Consider starting a newsletter around your blog. You can use tools like GetResponse or ConvertKit for this
• Podcasts have become more popular – Host a podcast or pitch to get interviewed on one to increase your audience base.
• Considering how popular Instagram is – invest in reels or Instagram marketing
• Explore these free website traffic sources to get more readers and keep an eye on the latest digital marketing statistics to leverage rising trends for content ideas and blog promotion.
• 67% B2B marketers say webinars are very effective – Consider doing some. You can also create digital products out of those recordings to add to your blog revenue.
• Finally, avoid these blogging mistakes to make your blog even better.

Conclusion

Now that you have a few ideas about how to make a good blog even more better, like excellent content creation or post optimization, you are well on your way to effective writing for SEO and users.

Yes, of course, search engines are important. But your readers are even more important!

Consider that the content will be read by real people, not just robots.

So, what’s next?

Take charge! Invest in these blogging tools for beginners and scale your blog from good to better and then best!

And don’t forget to share the post, if you liked it!