We know some of you write and post your own senior living blog articles. You don’t have an in-house web crew to do that for you or a budget that allows for much outside help.
While we write great copy <humble brag> and deliver it on a template with your meta description, our blog posts incorporate so much more.
That is, all of the SEO elements. From internal and external links to a strong CTA, it’s simply a matter of posting them to your platform if you are a client.
But a small home care owner we’ve created ebooks for over the years, does all of his own writing and posting. Not unlike many who follow the SCCS Blog.
His question was… “Do you have any kind of cheat sheet I can follow to can make sure I’m doing things right in Google’s eyes. It’s hard to remember all of the best practices for all of the SEO stuff.”
What a great idea for a blog post right? So here we go… a few quick tips to make SEO easier for those of you creating your own senior living blog articles.
Checklist for Google-Friendly Senior Living Blog Posts
In no particular order, here are a few tips we think will help you pump up the SEO on your senior living blog posts:
- Page title: While we are spotlighting good ideas, don’t overlook the SEO in your page title. At SCCS, we shoot for titles that are no more than 60 characters long. We also require either the primary keyword or a secondary key phrase be included in the page title. Sure titles need to be compelling, but they also need keywords. We often write our titles last to make sure we give visitors a true depiction of what’s inside the article.
- Internal links: This is another hot potato, for sure. What we’ve had great success with for clients is incorporating 2 or 3 external links and 1 or 2 internal links. The caveat is to make them natural links, and not just link-stuffing. Think about what other pages on your site or which previously written blog articles are a complement to your story. Add those.
- External links: So how should you go about linking to other sites? First, make sure they are good quality sites. Respectability matters. Use external links to back up a statement or research claim in your article. Just be cautious not to link to sites that have great content, but are actually a competitor. Some of the big referral services, for example, own lots of sites that look like research sites but aren’t. Scroll to the bottom to see if there are any disclaimers and review the CTA to make sure it’s not driving people to a referral agency’s main website.
- Meta description: Over the years, the number of characters in a meta description has gone up and down. The number that seems to stick is 160 characters, including spaces. Also make sure to lead with your primary keyword. Right up front.
- H1 tag: The H1 tag is the most important heading on your post. It’s the highest heading level tag and shows what your blog post is all about. Like your meta description, try to lead with your primary keyword. Stick with no more than 70 characters and between 10 and 13 words.
- Word length: This has always been a crazy hot topic and one we don’t wade into very often. We believe you should write until you’ve covered a topic well. That said, blog posts like we see some of the content mills churning out at 300 or 400 words aren’t likely to have much SEO value. Shoot for at least 500 words, if you can do so without fluffing things up too much.
- CTA: This stands for call-to-action and it’s another important piece of your blog. What do you want a senior or their adult child/family member to do once they reach the end of your article? Call you to schedule a tour? Read a related article on your blog? Use an online form to contact you? Send up a smoke signal so you can find them? Whatever it is, you want only one clear action here, not multiple ones. That only confuses people. So think this through carefully.
Speaking of writing until you are done, that’s a wrap for this article! Drop us a note if you have any questions or want to talk about our blog writing service. We typically have a bit of a wait list, but nothing too crazy long.