Last Updated on September 16, 2026

Create a New Blog Post

Task instructions.

If the client provided the copy, skip straight to Build and publish below. If they didn’t, start with Get the copy ready — everything after that is the same either way.

Get the copy ready

(When content wasn’t provided)

  1. Use AI to generate a few topic ideas.
  2. Check that they actually apply to the business.
  3. Confirm the topic has a keyword that gets searched — use Ahrefs and Search Console.
  4. Check whether a blog has already been written on it recently.
  5. Have AI write the blog post.
  6. Read the whole thing.
  7. Fix areas that have incorrect info or don’t make sense.
  8. Remove extra em-dashes.

Build and publish

  1. Log into the backend of the site.
  2. Navigate to where the blogs live.
  3. Duplicate a previous blog post.
  4. Paste in the copy.
  5. Change the title.
  6. Update the URL to be short and SEO friendly.
  7. Change the featured image — use Adobe Stock unless otherwise told.
  8. Set up internal links.
  9. Change the author to someone from the company’s team.
  10. Change the meta description.
  11. Preview the post to make sure it all looks good. Fix anything that looks off.

How to Create a Search Engine Optimized Blog

Best practices — the nine decisions that make the post work.

1. Target Keyword

  • Use the keyword specified by the MC. If none is given, ask the MC. If they want you to figure it out, it’s time to do some research.
  • Think about what will actually help the company. Will adding your favorite recipe help sell your hand-crafted jewelry?
  • Check Search Console for keywords ranking 5–20. This can give you good ideas.
  • Some keywords are harder to rank for than others. Use Ahrefs to check keyword difficulty.
  • Look at what blogs have been written recently. Make sure your pick is a bit different.

2. Title (for CTR)

  • Include your main target keyword or keyword phrase in the title.
  • Dress it up with attractive adjectives and adverbs to instill a sense of curiosity.
  • Remember that readers like “how-tos,” lists, and easily scannable benefit statements.
  • Keep it under 55 characters — or have a more succinct SEO title on hand if you use a WordPress plugin like Yoast, which lets you specify an SEO title separate from your main page title.

3. SEO-Friendly URL

  • Keep it short.
  • Get rid of stop words (the, a, an, is, in, etc).

Examples:

  • /how-often-should-i-get-my-carpets-cleaned
  • /best-carpet-cleaners-utah
  • /how-to-prevent-bed-bugs-arizona

4. Body Copy

  • Search-engine friendly. Naturally written — you don’t need to keyword stuff, it should come out naturally.
  • No fluff. No one wants to read it.
  • High-quality and well-researched. Include statistics and facts.
  • Shorter paragraphs. People lose interest in long blocks of text.
  • Use bullets, numbered lists, block quotes, italics and bold fonts to break up chunky text or emphasize important points.
  • Use H2 and H3 headers. They’re great for a table of contents.
  • Use answer-questions-style language. Consider a cost section, a “what is it” section, or a reviews section.
  • Include internal (and external, if applicable) links with good anchor text.
    • Be sure your external links open in a new window.
  • Include a call-to-action in the closing. It doesn’t have to be the same thing every time.
    • If you’re getting a ton of traffic, it doesn’t matter as much if people aren’t converting.
  • Include a disclaimer that the post may not reflect the views of the whole company.
    • This is especially important for health and fitness companies.

Length. Minimum 300 words. Preferably 2,000–6,000 — although this can be debated, and there are pros to shorter and longer content. Just be smart about it.

Signal words. Signal words help people scan your text and grasp the main ideas. If there are three reasons for people to buy your product, use words like “first of all,” “secondly,” and “finally.” Words like “nevertheless,” “surely,” and “indeed” give readers a clear signal. Readers instantly understand that a conclusion follows words like “consequently,” “so,” or “for this reason.” Signal words add structure to your text.

5. Meta Description

  • Give people an accurate view of what the article is about, and make them interested in reading more.

6. Image

  • Resize your media to fit the width of your post space.
  • Make graphics cool and interesting.
  • Rename the filename, and set the title, ALT text and caption to include your main keyword phrase so search engines instantly recognize the value.
  • Add a description of the image in the description field to optimize it for visually impaired visitors.

7. Categories and Tags

  • These help with organization if there’s a subfolder like /blog, which helps with Google Analytics and reporting.
  • Go into permalinks and append /blog/. Complications can arise if you use your blog for things other than blog posts.
  • Or set blog as the main category, then change permalinks so they are /category/. You can enable subcategories as well.

8. Add Authorship

  • Make sure to set the author as someone from the company the blog is for.
  • Posts → Quick Edit → change the author.

9. Preview Post

  • Preview the post before publishing to check formatting, links, and images.