30 Blog Tips For My 30th Birthday

I’m entering a new decade, and I’m feeling generous. Maybe that’s just because I’ve gotten a crap-ton of birthday freebies from all my favorite brands… but you’re gonna benefit from it.

I’m basically giving you the secret sauce for everything you need to know about blog writing. These are all the blog tips I use for every blog I write for myself and my clients.

So no more excuses to skip blogging! Either do it yourself or hire your favorite blog writer 👀

1. Choose one keyword to target in each blog.

Focus your blog on just one keyword. You’ll naturally use other keywords in your blog, but only one should be used in all the important places.

2. Keep search intent, volume, and competition in mind when picking a keyword.

All three of these matter when picking a keyword.

• Search intent: What people expect to get out of their search / why they’re searching for this in the first place.
• Volume: Number of monthly searches for that term. The higher the better, but don’t discount the potential impact of low-volume but super-specific keywords.
• Competition: How difficult is it to rank for this keyword based on other companies targeting it? Ideally, as low as possible!

Here’s how to choose the best one for your blog.

3. Write a unique SEO title and meta description for every blog and include the keyword if you can.

Most websites automatically use your blog title as the SEO title, but it should be rewritten. Sometimes it’s longer than the 60-character limit or just doesn’t intrigue people to click.

And usually, the first few lines of your blog serve as the meta description, but again, it’s too long and doesn’t accurately describe the topic.

Here’s more on how to write SEO metadata that helps you rank in search results.

4. Keep a backlog of topic ideas to pull from.

I keep a running list of topic ideas in Airtable. When I write my weekly blog, it helps SO much to have some ideas I’ve already thought about rather than starting from scratch every time.

Here are 16 places to find topic ideas + what to do when you’re tapped out.

5. Choose a blog schedule you can commit to.

I don’t care if you choose one blog a month or one blog a week—just make it consistent. Consistency and quality are what matter most to search engines.

Not sure how often it should be based on your goals? Take this quiz to find out.

Then use this content calendar template to organize your blog posts and stay accountable!

6. Write a mix of evergreen and trendy topics.

Evergreen topics stay relevant over time, while trendy topics capture a lot of volume in a short amount of time, but may become irrelevant in the future.

I recommend a mix of both, but leaning more towards evergreen topics. Blogs are meant to be a long-term strategy and compound traffic over time.

You might not ever see results from a trendy topic. If it takes 3 months for your blog to get indexed and start seeing some traffic, that trend might be over by then!

7. Add personality to every blog.

No one wants to read a stuffy blog. Add some storytelling, personality, and humor in your writing. That’s what engages readers and makes them want to read the whole thing and KEEP reading other blogs or content you have.

8. Add lots of internal links.

I could talk about this topic forever. Linking to your other resources is an underrated and underutilized strategy to help search engines AND readers discover more of your content.

If someone has never seen your website before but landed on a blog post, what else can you offer them? Maybe a link to more blogs on related topics, or a freebie, or your services? If they know nothing about you, internal links are how they learn more.

Plus, they prevent orphaned pages, which could negatively impact your SEO!

9. Add relevant external links.

If there are any relevant external links you can provide, add ‘em! That could be:

• Your social media profiles
• Affiliate links
• Data / studies
• Examples
• Tools / resources

10. Include relevant CTAs throughout the blog and at the end.

You definitely need some sort of call to action at the end, but if it makes sense, feel free to add them throughout the blog, too. It can be as simple as “read this other blog to learn more about this topic” or as direct as “see what’s included in my packages.”

Give the reader SOME kind of next step after they’re done reading that blog. Keep them engaged with you for as long as you can.

11. Update the URL before you publish to make it more concise.

Whatever website builder you use (WordPress, Squarespace, etc.), it will usually use your blog title as the URL. And that is way too long a URL.

Search engines prefer short, concise URLs. So before you hit ‘publish’, edit the URL to make it shorter and, if you can, add the keyword in there.

12. Add some FAQs.

FAQs are the perfect addition to help you get featured in AI answers.

When people search in AI, they’re usually typing full sentences or longer queries. A question with a direct answer is what AI is looking for to give as an answer to that query.

If you have that in your blog, you could be featured and get more eyeballs on your content!

Find some relevant FAQs in your preferred SEO tool or use the People Also Ask section in Google search results.

13. Write at least 300 words per blog.

Word count doesn’t really matter for rankings, but search engines need at least 300 words to understand the point of your blog post.

Ideally, you’ll be writing much more than that, but don’t get hung up on writing a certain number of words.

Just make sure the content is valuable and gives the reader everything they need to know about the topic (or link to other resources that help you explain!)

14. Include a compelling headline to make people actually want to read the post.

A headline is the first thing people will read. It’s also probably the thing that makes them click on the blog in the first place. So it better make them want to click!

Here’s how to write a really good headline.

15. Break up text with headers.

You should have lots of headers in your blog post, for a few reasons:

• It helps skimmers get the gist of your blog.
• It helps search engines understand the main topics.
• It breaks up the text so it’s not just a bunch of paragraphs that no one will actually read.

And don’t just make the text big or a different color. It actually needs to be tagged as an H2, H3, or H4 on the backend of your website when you set up the blog. That is how search engines “read” your content.

16. And even more with 1-2 sentence paragraphs.

To break up the text even more, make your paragraphs 1-2 sentences max.

I know that goes against everything you were taught in school, but trust me on this one—short paragraphs keep readers engaged longer and help them understand your content quickly.

That’s the kind of experience you want to give people. I don’t know about you, but if I see a blog post with 4 giant paragraphs, I’m not reading it.

But if it’s broken up, I can skim and get something out of it.

17. And even more with bullet points.

And to break up text even MORE, add some bullet points. If you list three or more things in a sentence, use bullet points instead.

Can you tell that making your content skimmable is super important for blogging?!

18. Only add images if they add value.

I’m not usually a huge proponent of adding images to blogs. I don’t like adding stock images to blogs just because.

Images break up the text and add a multimedia element that Google likes (more on that in a minute!), but as a reader, I normally find them annoying unless they add value.

Examples:

• Screenshots to show data
• A chart
• Examples of your work
• Freebie call-outs

Don’t feel like you have to add images if it doesn’t make sense.

Normally, the only images I add are featured images, which show up on the blog home page.

19. And give each of those images some alt text.

And if you do add images, make sure they all have alt text. This is how search engines and people with visual impairments understand the image.

Use a phrase to describe what’s in the image. Add a keyword if you can, but skip it if it doesn’t make sense.

20. Choose a blog category for each post.

I guess step one is to choose your content pillars / blog categories. These are the high-level buckets of topics you want to write about.

For example, mine are:

• SEO
• Blogging
• Entrepreneurship
• Community

Every blog I write falls under at least one of those. And when you click on those links, you can see the full collection of blogs under that category.

It organizes your content and helps readers narrow down topics they’re interested in.

Here’s how to choose between blog tags and blog categories.

21. Run your draft through Grammarly to catch spelling and grammar mistakes.

Even though I’m a writer and can spot someone else’s spelling mistakes from a mile away, I make a lot of mistakes of my own.

In the editing phase of my workflow, I run my draft through Grammarly to catch any spelling or grammar mistakes. Usually, I’m writing pretty fast to get all my thoughts down before I forget them 🤪, so Grammarly flags those for me to review.

It’s faster for me to use Grammarly than read through the blog with a fine-tooth comb. I used to do that, but still missed errors!

You know how it goes—you’ve read it a million times, so your brain reads it how you intended, not how it’s written!

22. Actually publish the blog!

This deserves its own point because you don’t know how many times I’ve started working with a client and they say something along the lines of, “I have a bunch of mostly finished drafts in WordPress. Can we do something with those?”

Um, yes. We can absolutely take 10 minutes to review and slightly tweak those, then put them out into the world.

Even if a blog isn’t perfect, publish it and update it later. Or hire me to update, optimize, and publish it for you!

23. Request indexing in Google Search Console after you publish or update a blog.

This 2-minute extra step will make sure Google knows about your new blog and prioritizes indexing it for search results. Basically, it starts seeing traffic faster!

Here’s how to request indexing.

24. Repurpose blog content.

Uuuuuuuuuuuse the blogs you write! Long-form content is the easiest to repurpose.

Here are some repurposing ideas:

• Emails
• Social post
• Podcasts
• YouTube videos
• Pinterest pins
• Reel
• Tiktok
• Freebie
• Workshop
• Presentation

I will forever shout from the rooftops about how blogs are the best first step in content creation.

25. Update your old blogs!

Hate to break it to ya—blogs aren’t a post and ghost strategy. Even if you have an evergreen topic, it could probably use an update after a year or two.

Between adding new internal links and updating old data you referenced, I bet there’s a lot you can update in your old blogs.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to refresh your old blogs.

But I can also do it for you!

26. Write a cornerstone blog every once in a while.

A cornerstone blog is a fat daddy blog topic that covers a lotttt of different things. It’s usually a broader topic directly related to your services.

Because it talks about so many things that you can’t possibly give adequate time explaining, you link to other blogs that go into more detail.

If you didn’t catch on, THIS is a cornerstone blog. Blog tips is a super broad topic, but almost every tip I give links to another blog that goes into much more detail.

That’s the whole point of a cornerstone blog! You don’t need a ton of them—most businesses have 3-5 cornerstone topics.

27. Don’t freak out about AI making blogging & SEO irrelevant (it’s not.)

AI is not making SEO or blogging irrelevant. It IS changing the game a bit, though.

Let me give you the gist:

• AI NEEDS us to create content to provide answers to readers.
• You have an opportunity to show up in AI Overviews at the TOP of search results, even if you aren’t ranked #1.
• People want to read unique perspectives, not just regurgitated answers.
• Question-based searches are taking priority over the perfect keyword.

Read more about why blogging isn’t dead.

28. Don’t use AI to write your blogs.

I shouldn’t even need to explain this. AI cannot perfectly copy your voice, perspective, or experience. It normally gives generic or wishy-washy opinions that NEED a human eye to edit heavily.

Do not (for the love of all that is good) copy and paste from AI. You can absolutely use it as a starting point, but it does NOTHING for your SEO or business to be a copycat.

29. Embed other relevant multimedia.

Google loooooves when multimedia is used within blogs. It’s giving readers more ways to engage with your content and keeps them on the page longer.

Here are some things you can embed:

• Reels / Instagram posts
• Podcast episodes you were on
• YouTube videos you made

30. Be patient – you’ll see results eventually!

Don’t expect blog results overnight. It can take several months to start seeing consistent traffic from a blog post. Just know that the effort you’re putting in now will pay off later.

Stick with it, and watch your traffic grow.

Follow These Blog Tips!

Whew! I’m exhausted and ready to call it a day to get more birthday freebies.

But not before I tell you that blogging is 100% worth your time and effort. You might think I’m biased because I’m a blog writer, but I’ve seen SO many examples from SO many industries where blogging has made a significant difference in their business growth.

​So if you want blogging to be your core marketing strategy, use these blog tips as a starting point, or explore my packages to see how we can work together to take your website from invisible to dominating in search results.