A blog is a great way to keep your site fresh for search engines. New content means your site is active and relevant.As you add to your blog, here is a checklist of items to follow to make sure you get maximum SEO benefit from every new post.

Step 1. Pick and use a keyword. 

Every blog post should focus on a keyword that is important to your brand and to your audience.  Before you start to write, know the keyword you want to focus on as well as related keywords that make sense to include.

Step 2. Have a goal for the post.

What do you want the reader to takeaway from the post? What action do you want them to take? Your post should be meaningful and interesting to your target audience.

Step 3. Write something interesting!

Make sure your post speaks to your audience and tells them something they want to know. If you have related content or there is great supporting content at other sites, link them. The goal is to develop content that adds to what is already out there.

Step 4. Add structure.

Make sure your post starts with an H1 heading, and that it includes subheads that use H2 and lower. Subheads that are at the same level should use the same tag.Text that can be presented as bullets should be formatted that way to aid comprehension and scannability.Break up any long paragraphs into shorter chunks. Keep sentences short.

Step 5. Add SEO elements.

• Include alt text for all images

• Optimize the meta title with your keyword

• Write a meta description that uses your keyword and appeals to the reader

Step 6. Publish and share.Publish your post and then share it everywhere you connect with your audience online. Use social media and consider an email blast. Use all the ways you have to reach your target audience to let them know about the great content you just created.

The blog post checklist in short

In this article, I’ve talked you through the blog post checklist to optimize your post for the search engines. First of all, every blog post should start by executing keyword research. Secondly, make sure you take the time to prepare your blog post carefully. And after you have written the post, use Yoast SEO to check the readability and SEO of your content.This brings you to the last step in this checklist: publishing your awesome blog post and sharing it with your audience right away. Which brings me to my final step in this article: wishing you lots of luck with your writing!