How To Write A Blog Post That Ranks

A blog post ranks when it answers the exact question somebody typed into Google, clearly and completely, on a site Google already trusts. Writing well matters, but picking the right question matters more.

Get the question right and a plain, useful answer will do most of the work. Get it wrong and the best writing in the world sits on page five.

Start with the question, not the topic

"Email marketing" is a topic. "How long should a sales email be" is a question somebody actually types, and questions rank where topics drift.

Find them where buyers ask: the questions on sales calls, the emails clients send, the "People also ask" box on Google, and the autocomplete as you start typing. Each one is a post. The questions your clients ask you every week are the best source of all, per why your best content is already in your inbox.

Check what already ranks

Search the question yourself. Look at the top results and note what type of page Google is choosing for it: a guide, a list, a product page or a video.

If page one is all product pages, a blog post will struggle to break in. If it is all guides, yours needs to answer the question faster and more completely. Read the top three and write down what each one leaves out.

Answer in the first two lines

The reader came with a question, so answer it at the top in plain words and spend the rest of the post on the detail.

This helps the reader, and it helps search engines and AI tools, which pull short, direct answers to quote. The same structure is what gets a page cited in AI answers, covered in how to get cited by ChatGPT.

Structure for skimming

Headings that are the questions or plain labels, so a reader can jump to the part they need.

Short paragraphs, with one idea each.

Specific examples and numbers from your own work, because your experience is the one thing nobody else can copy.

A clear title that uses the words the buyer typed, kept to roughly 60 characters so it does not get cut off in search results.

A meta description that says what the reader gets, in one or two sentences.

Internal links

Point every new post at two to four related articles you have already published, and add a line to a few older ones that points back. Internal links tell Google how your pages relate and pass authority to the new page.

Link to your service pages where it makes sense, because the post's job is to bring a buyer one step closer to an enquiry.

Publish, wait, then improve

New posts on a young site can take months to settle in the results, and the realistic timeline is in how long SEO takes.

Check Google Search Console after six to eight weeks. If a post gets impressions but few clicks, rewrite the title. If it sits on page two, add the detail the top results cover and yours does not. Old posts that never took off can be fixed rather than abandoned, per what to do with an old blog nobody reads.

What to skip

Keyword stuffing. Write the phrase where it fits naturally and move on.

Word count targets. A post should be as long as the answer needs and no longer.

Posts nobody would search for. Company news belongs on social media, not in the blog.

What this unlocks: a library of pages that bring in buyers every week from searches you never pay for.