Hey there! Today, I’m excited to share some insights from Trinity Owen on how to optimize your blog posts for SEO. Many readers often ask about SEO, so this couldn’t be more timely! Trinity has been delving into work-from-home opportunities for over a decade and loves sharing her findings with fellow introverts. She also works as a freelance SEO auditor, consultant, and writer, and offers a free 6-Day SEO Boot Camp you can join.
They say SEO takes time, but does it really need to take six months to a year for a blog post to rank on Google? Not necessarily. While new posts might need some time to build authority, it shouldn’t take a full year. In my experience as a freelance SEO, older posts only climb the ranks when someone revisits and optimizes them.
Today, I want to debunk the myth that SEO success takes years and show you how to optimize your existing blog posts for quicker results. You won’t go from zero to 1,000 organic pageviews overnight, but you can start seeing an upward trend right away. Here are some steps to optimize a blog post in under an hour.
But first, a bit about me. I’m Trinity Owen, a freelance SEO and the owner of The Pay at Home Parent. I’m a stay-at-home mom of two. In 2014, an unexpected pregnancy made me rethink my career. I worked in a debt collections agency’s business office, a job I enjoyed. However, having a child so soon felt overwhelming, especially since we live in a two-income society. I spent my free time at work reconstructing our budget to see if I could stay home with my baby.
Eventually, I compiled a list of my computer skills, from data entry to freelance writing, and posted it on Craigslist. Soon, a local business owner contacted me for some website work, kicking off a two-and-a-half-year business relationship that helped me build a home business earning over $60,000 annually.
Over the past five years, I’ve researched, studied, and implemented white hat SEO techniques. I’ve helped new and intermediate bloggers learn SEO, often hearing questions like “How do I optimize a blog post for SEO?” and “Where do I find the right keywords?” So, I wrote an eBook on keyword research called “Get Your Keywords Together.”
Now, let’s dive into how to optimize a blog post for SEO.
### 6 Easy Steps to Optimize a Blog Post
Using strategies from my eBook, “Get Your Keywords Together,” I’ll show you how to make changes to a blog post and see quick results on Google.
#### Example 1: Updating a Post with New Keywords
1. **Choose an Existing Post with No Traffic**: Use Google Search Console to find a post that doesn’t get traffic.
2. **Choose the Main Keyword**: If the post lacks a successful keyword, pick a new one. For example, change “need money now” to “how to make $3,000 fast.”
3. **Optimize the Post**: Replace old keywords with new ones and adjust the content to fit the new keywords naturally.
4. **Submit the URL to Google**: Let Google know about the updated post through Google Search Console.
5. **Run an SEO Audit**: Use Chrome’s Developer tools to generate an SEO report.
6. **Test the Ranking**: Check the post’s position on Google using tools like Fat Rank.
#### Example 2: Updating a Post with Existing Keywords
1. **Choose an Existing Post with Some Traffic**: Optimize a post that gets decent traffic to rank for more keywords.
2. **Choose the Main Keyword**: Use Google Search Console to find the most popular search queries for the post.
3. **Optimize the Post**: Add long-tail keywords without removing existing ones.
4. **Submit the URL to Google**: Follow the same steps as in the first example.
5. **Run an SEO Audit**: Again, use Chrome’s Developer tools.
6. **Test the Ranking**: Monitor the post’s position and watch for an increase in impressions and clicks over time.
### It’s Not a Waste of Time to Optimize Existing Blog Posts
Optimizing your blog posts for SEO is worth the effort. After you optimize a few posts, it becomes easier. If you need more help, join my free six-day SEO Boot Camp. I’ll teach you the skills needed to rank your articles on Google’s first page.
I’ve been using these strategies for over five years, and they work. How much SEO traffic do you get? Try these tips and see for yourself!