This is a guide on how to write a good blog post for SEO for a roofing service business. Is there a way to write a perfect blog? What is a perfect blog? Is it worth pursuing such a high ideal? A perfect blog simply does what you want it to do. If you want it to bring visitors to your website, it should. Visitors are not the only goals you can have when it comes to blogs. In a nutshell, a blog that attracts traffic leads to conversions, maximizes your return on investment, and builds your brand’s image is near perfect. Here is how to write a good blog post for SEO. At Roofing Contents, we have a done-for-you option. Leave the experts to do the work.
Follow these simple steps for a DIY option.
Step 1: The planning
Before starting any roofing project, you begin by creating a detailed plan as a guide for your work. Writing a perfect blog also requires thorough planning that ultimately saves your time. You will undertake the following in your planning:
Choose your topic
Coming up with the perfect topic for your blog is challenging, and you cannot be sure if your target audience will completely love it. However, your blog needs to have a relevant topic if you want your website to get unending traffic. At this point, we advise you to spend more time researching and come up with a topic that will help most homeowners solve their roofing issues.
Know your audience
Before you select a topic, ask yourself the following questions:
- How relevant is the topic to your target audience?
- What do your target audience want to know?
- How well do you understand the topic?
If you have the answers to the above questions, there is no doubt that you know your audience and selecting a perfect topic is more effortless.
Using information about your target audience’s interests can also help you select an appropriate topic. If your roofing business is established, you can use online surveys or phone conversations to determine your audience’s interests. However, If you just started your roofing company, you can decide who you want your blog’s message to reach.
Having your target audience in mind while selecting your topic allows you to pick a topic that makes them feel like your company understands their pain points. For example, you can address the common causes of leaking roofs, which is a problem that most homeowners experience.
While selecting a topic, ensure that it answers homeowners’ questions. For instance, addressing issues like how to protect your roof from ageing can help homeowners to adopt roof cleaning routines to increase their roofs’ service life.
It is also essential to select a topic that provides information on a current trend within the roofing industry. For instance, your topic can be about the environmentally friendly roofing materials available in the market today.
Follow popular roofing blogs to stay informed about the industry, products, customers, and trends.
Where to get your topic
Before learning how to write a good blog post for SEO, know where to get the topic. Various sources can help you to get your blog topic. However, we recommend selecting a topic from either of the following to get the perfect blog topic.
If there is a trending issue about roofing, it can make an interesting topic. For instance, if some roofing materials double as solar panels, write about them. Most homeowners are eager to read about the new trends, and your blog will attract new traffic to your website.
You can also get your topic from your competitors’ websites. We have seen this work when you want to know how to write a good blog post for SEO, but you have to put your spin on the topic to make it more exciting and unique.
Online discussion forums discussing roofing issues can also give you an outstanding idea for a topic. We have seen bloggers pick a problem from these discussion forums that is not discussed in depth. After researching, they get an exciting and unique blog topic that increases their website’s traffic.
Comments on your existing blog post are excellent sources of a perfect topic. Most readers leave comments on issues they haven’t understood. You can pick a problem, make it your topic and create a great blog addressing it. This helps your website to attract more traffic and get a higher return on investment.
Selecting an interesting and relevant topic
Picking an interesting blog topic allows you to write about something you are interested in. It also shows your enthusiasm throughout your writing. Your target audience can also know if you are passionate or not about your topic through your writing style.
Selecting a relevant topic means that the topic addresses your target audience’s pain points. For instance, your topic can be leaking roofs, a common problem among most homeowners. A relevant topic also allows you to remain focused throughout your writing process because you are eager to address your target audience’s pain points.
Additionally, having a relevant topic helps your blog to achieve its goals. For instance, the goal of your blog might be to create a conversation between your brand and homeowners. If you remain relevant, you can communicate so that the homeowners get value from your blog and that is how to write a good blog post for SEO for your roofing blog.
Pro tips
- Don’t choose a topic just because other roofing companies are writing about it and getting more return on investment.
- Don’t choose a controversial topic. You are likely to attract the wrong kind of traffic to your website, and it might create a bad image for your roofing company.
Conduct research
Undertaking extensive research takes a lot of time, and you need to prepare well. In-depth research is crucial because it helps you to find existing information about your topic and identify gaps. With the gathered data, you can provide your insights on the matter.
To write a perfect blog, you need to conduct general research for the facts you will use and keywords research to boost your SEO strategies.
General research
How to write a good blog post for SEO, is not just thinking about algorithms. A perfect blog is authoritative, and you can only achieve authority in your blog if you conduct proper research. To get quality content for your blog, you need to rely on several authoritative sources.
For example, if you write about environmentally friendly roofing materials but have limited facts, you can approach leading industry experts and interview them. They have the information you need and can clarify issues and, at the same time, add value to your knowledge base. When you write your blog and reference the experts, your credibility and traffic increase, and you get a higher return on investment.
You can also get data and statistics from reputable online sources. Including data and statistics in your blog helps your target audience make decisions quickly. For instance, you might be writing about how cleaning roof shingles increase a roof’s service life. If you include the number of years, it can prompt more homeowners to have their roofs cleaned. Data also makes your blog unique, which helps your website content to rank high on the result page.
Quality research also includes analyzing your competitors’ blogs. Reading other roofing blogs related to your topic allows you to get more ideas. You can google your topic and review the top three articles on the result page. Identify the main ideas in each article and combine them to create a unique blog.
You can also use books for research. They have rich information and can provide you with in-depth insight. For example, the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA)manual has a lot of roofing information. Books also provide you with unique information that your competitors lack.
Google news can also provide unique information, including survey reveals on relevant roofing topics. You can also get information from Twitter. For instance, you can follow a roofing expert and utilize their post data.
Pro tip
Don’t include everything you find doing your research on your blog. Learn how to filter out what you don’t need and how to write a good blog post for SEO without boring the reader with unnecessary information.
Keyword research
Proper keyword research is the foundation of your content and SEO strategies’ success. Performing keywords research for your blogs is significant because of the following reason:
- it improves your SEO
- it enhances the quality of your blog content
You can perform your keyword research using paid tools or Google, and using Google won’t cost you anything. We recommend starting your keyword research through this method because it gives you general ideas of what your target audience is searching for.
All you need to do is type a word relating to your topic on google. For instance, you can type the phrase roof shingles. After typing, Google shows you the top searched question relating to roof shingles, and you can either select a single word or phrase to use as your keyword.
We also recommend using the paid keywords research tools to give you more insight into your target keywords. For instance, you can use the MarketMuse tool to help you select keywords that can rank high on the result page.
Keywords research tools can also help you identify keywords that your competitors aren’t using but have the potential to rank higher on the result page. You can also know the number of times your target keywords have been used to search for services within a month
The tools also help you to understand your target keyword difficulty. Choosing keywords with less difficulty makes it easier for your content to rank high on the result page
There are several types of keywords that you can use in your roofing blog; they include:
Geo-targeted keyword
They are keywords that identify a location. For example, if your roofing company is based in California, Oakland, you can use shingle roof repair in Oakland as your keyword. Including geo-targeted keywords in your blog helps searchers in your location looking for roofing services to easily find your website.
Primary keywords
Primary keywords are the phrases you want your blog to rank for. Selecting a primary keyword for your blog is essential because they have a high search volume and can increase traffic to your website. For instance, the phrase roofing can be an excellent primary keyword for your blog.
Long-tailed keywords
The long-tailed keywords are very long, and you can use them to target a specific topic or audience. For example, if you are targeting homeowners with lichen problems on their wood shingle roofs, you can use the best cleaning technique for removing lichens on your wood shingles as the keyword.
Using the long-tailed keywords is advantageous because they have less competition and are easier to rank. Because they are precise, using them will increase your conversion rates.
Pro tip
Your keywords are more successful when included on your URLs, meta descriptions, and page titles
Create an outline
You have already decided on your topic and done your research. Another essential planning step to undertake is creating an outline.
Why you need an outline
Generally, an outline gives your blog a direction by helping you understand how to organize your ideas before writing.
Creating an outline helps you to save time. While writing without an outline, you might get distracted and stop blogging, and getting back to writing becomes challenging. However, it is easier to continue writing after a distraction with an outline since you already have a guideline to follow.
An outline can also help you outsource a writer. Dealing with clients in need of your roofing services is what you do best. Writing your blog and serving your clients at once might be overwhelming. Therefore, we recommend hiring an article writer. If you have an outline, a writer can easily use it to create a perfect blog.
Your web pages can rank higher on the result pages and increase conversion rates if you create your blog following an outline. Your outline helps you to develop logical content using a conversational tone that makes your target audience feel like your brand understands their pain points
How to create your outline
Start your blog outline by writing down all the points you have gathered from your research that you want your readers to get from your blog. Don’t organize them. At this point, we want your ideas to flow naturally. Writing these ideas guarantees that they don’t mess up your outline writing process. One challenge for people learning how to write a good blog post for SEO is to get ahead of themselves.
After writing the points, sort them, identify a few main themes you want your blogs to address, and use them as your subheadings. We recommend having 3 to 4 subheadings, but the numbers also depend on the type and length of your blog. Don’t forget to include your introduction as a subheading.
Organize your subheadings, starting with the most important ones. It allows your target audience to get value from your blog from the moment they begin reading.
At this point, under each subheading, you have very few facts. Add more points in each section that you might have missed. Revisiting articles you used for your research might help you remember some points you might have missed. If you need data to support some of your arguments, add it where applicable.
When your outline has all the relevant details, it’s time to edit. Editing improves the quality of your outline. It ensures that only the most relevant information is included in your outline. It also reorganizes your outline in a way that your ideas flow logically.
Pro tip
Including keywords in your outline help you to avoid keyword stuffing when writing your blog
Verify your facts
Before writing your blog, verify every fact you have included in your outline. Since you are a roofing expert, verification is more effortless. Verifying helps to remove errors from your outline that can reduce your credibility and authority if they appear on your blogs
Step 2: Create a perfect headline
The way you write your headline determines if your target audience clicks to read your blog or not. Therefore, go all out to create a perfect outline.
What makes a good headline?
To make the ideal headline, you can include the following
Start by writing several headlines. It allows you to pick the best headline. We do this while writing our blogs, and it helps us to have unique headlines
You can also pose a question in your headline. It is very effective, and it raises your target audience’s curiosity. The technique can only be effective if you ask a question that your audience is interested in.
A perfect headline includes a keyword phrase that perfectly describes your selected topic. The phrase provides an overview of what you have covered in your blog.
Using numbers also makes your headline unique. A headline with a number easily captures your readers’ attention.
Make your headline specific and brief. An ideal heading should have a maximum of 70 characters. If yours exceed, it will be cut short by result pages, particularly when your audience uses mobile phones to search.
Pro tip
There are no written rules that state you should begin writing your blog by creating a headline. What matters most is whether the headline is eye-catching or not.
Step 3: write your blog post
After following all the above steps, you have everything you need to start writing. You’ve chosen a topic, done research, and created a detailed outline. It’s time to begin writing the actual blog.
You can use either choose to write your entire draft once. Using this method to write helps you to remain focused. You could also decide to write your blog gradually. Here, you can select a subtopic to cover each time you are writing.
Pro tip
There is no right or wrong way to write your blog but writing the entire draft in a single sitting works better for us.
Step 4: Add value to your post
Adding value to your blog is an important step. It makes your blog more interesting to read and helps your web pages to rank higher on the result page. The best way to add value to your website is by adding images to your content.
Images break up your text and make the flow easy to follow. For instance, a funny image in your blog adds humor to your content. It can also make it easier for your audience to understand complex topics.
Charts, graphs, and info graphs also help your readers understand the points you are passing across. adding internal and external links to your existing website content and social media content adds value, too.
Step 5: Edit your blog post
Before you start editing your blog, you need to read it and visualize it as a whole. It helps you notice consistency between your paragraphs, sentences, and words. If there are words, sentences, or phrases that aren’t adding value to your blog, remove them.
Editing also involves reading your entire blog and removing repeated statements, words, or ideas. As you edit, reduce the long sentences and paragraphs because they tire your reader easily
Remove every grammatical error, and cut unnecessary text. After doing all the editing, let another person read your blog. We have seen this technique work well because another person can identify mistakes that you might have missed.
Step 6: checklist for how to write a good blog post for SEO
After editing your blog, it is essential to have a checklist that can help you to verify the following:
- Does your blog have a clear introduction?
- Have you used enough headings?
- Are the sentences and paragraphs short?
- Are there relevant images in your blogs?
- Does your blog have a conclusion?
- Does your blog have a prompting call to action?
Mistakes to avoid while writing your blog
Blogging might seem like an easy task. It is part of the roofing marketing ideas that must be implemented well. However, there are mistakes that you need to avoid to make your blogs helpful to your target audience and profitable to your roofing company. They are:
- Don’t make your blog too stiff your audience target audience might not read it
- Avoid picking a topic that don’t interest your target audience. It reduces traffic to your website.
- Don’t include many personal experiences in your blog. They might burry your key points
- Avoid writing without an outline. You might lose your focus
- Do not exclude keywords in your content. Your web pages might not be ranked on the result pages.
- Avoid broad blog title. It attracts less traffic and leads to lower conversion rates.
Creating a perfect blog for your roofing company takes time. You need planning where you pick a perfect topic, do research for the content and keywords, create your outline and verify your facts. After planning, you need to choose the perfect headline for your blog, and you are ready to write your draft, which is made easier because of the prewriting planning.
After you have written your draft, the next step is to use images to add value to your content. Then, edit your blog, and use your checklist to verify if your blog is perfect.
Are you ready to grow your traffic through roofing marketing and blog services, get quality leads and increase your return on investment? Our finest blog writers are prepared to help you. Call us today.
