Writing a decent SEO optimized blog post takes time. Lots to think about. From the topic to the length, you want people to notice your work, appreciate it and liked reading it.
If one thing that doing SEO in Hong Kong has taught me is that when writing and posting a blog post you’ve got to think about what benefits you, your business, and your readers; and in an international city like Hong Kong you’ve got to consider the languages that the audience speak.
In this resource, I’ll try and help out as much as I can with regards to being able to write an SEO-Optimized blog post for the Hong Kong market.
When people arrive on your blog, your text and style should be carefully selected to interest readers and keep them on your website.
Follow our simple steps to create an SEO-friendly blog.
Incidentally, we’ve published a similar resource on ways to rank your local website here in Hong Kong, this post is more about the actual structure of the content that you need to create for SEO.
Carry Out Keyword Research
Contents
Keyword research is the study of what people put into search engines like Google to locate your products or services. Incorporating your selected keywords within your blog tells Google exactly what the page is about, increasing your chances of being ranked for that term.
Any SEO approach starts with keyword research. It sets the angle of your blog and is the initial step in SEO.
Paid SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush help you find keywords that your company can rank for based on search volume, competition, and trends.
Doing keyword research is vital; really can’t emphasize this enough!
Engage Your (International) Readers
Once you have decided on using specific keywords, start using them in your blog post.
In Hong Kong, when it comes to writing SEO Content, you’ve got to think of the languages that most people speak. In Hong Kong, the most popular languages are:
- Cantonese 98% spoken
- English 48% spoken
So, it’s, therefore, a great idea to have bilingual content.
The days of ‘stuffing’ keywords into your website are well and truly gone. Your keywords should be used naturally throughout the blog article to avoid losing readers.
Writing successfully involves using clear, succinct language that effectively delivers your essential points. Here are our top writing tips:
Get To The Point…
Craft your material such that each sentence benefits your reader. Waffle cut. Longer blogs of 600 words or more are OK as long as your major ideas are split up into little parts. Later on that.
Vary Sentence Length
This keeps the reader interested and provides flow to your work. It’s also a wonderful method to emphasize a point.
Proofread
Proofreading is a basic yet important process. Before posting, read your material aloud or have a friend or colleague do so. Typos are easy to overlook but easy to repair – don’t jeopardize your piece’s credibility for a quick review!
Plan & Structure Your Content
Your layout’s structure also affects your reader’s engagement. More than half of your website visitors will depart within 2 minutes if there is no clear value proposition or if there is too much material to go through.
Organize your blog into key headers and subheadings to make it easier to skim. Here come the HTML header tags come into play.
Heading Tags
Header Tags help you organize your work. This not only creates skimmable points but also shows Google that your page is high quality and easily accessible. Your webpage will let you tag each of your headers.
Here’s a quick rundown of the basics:
- H1 – Page title
- H2 – Heading
- H3 – Subheading
- H4, H5, H6 – lower-level subheadings
Add Meta Descriptions & Data
Meta data is made up of two key parts: a meta title and a meta description.
Meta Title
An SEO headline is the page title that appears first in Google search results. Give each page a unique SEO title that contains your keyword to attract visitors. Remember to consider the length of your SEO title. You get 50-60 characters in your title.
Meta Description
A meta description is the text that appears underneath a results page.
Google will either use your meta description or a relevant text snippet from your page in search results.
Your summary should:
- Summarize your page content
- Include your keywords
- Add a CTA or similar
Optimize Your Images
Include an Alt tag for any pictures in your blog. This is a fantastic place to put your keyword so Google understands what your image is about. It also makes your site more user-friendly.
Better still, use WEBP which is all the rage these days because of faster-loading times.
Don’t forget to consider image size. Large pictures impede website load times and drive people away.