How to Write a Blog Post That Ranks on Google

TL;DR — keyword placement at a glance

Here is the thing that changed everything for me.

I’m not being overdramatic. This one change made life-changing money.

NB it didn’t take much money to change my life – I’m talking $80k, not millions, but it’s worth taking notes (jokes, there’s a checklist you can download at the bottom).

I had been blogging, on and off, since 2012. I had written hundreds of articles across multiple niches and made barely any progress. SEVEN YEARS. SEVEN.

Sorry, I’ll stop shouting.

Anyway.

Then I found Income School on YouTube.

I want to be clear that Income School is not the only place to learn this stuff, and they have had their controversies over the years. But watching their videos was the first time it clicked for me that SEO is not some terrifying technical discipline that requires special software and a computer science degree. It is, at its core, two things: solving the search query your reader typed, and structuring your post in a way that makes it obvious to Google that you’ve done that.

If you can do it in a fun way, that’s it. That’s the whole game.

I applied that understanding from the very first post I published on Planet Houseplant in 2019. The site is still performing well in 2026 — it even recovered from the Helpful Content Update in 2023 without me changing anything about how I write. I just kept writing for people, structured for search, and it held up.

Is it showing in AI overviews? Unlikely. My houseplant approach is different to a lot of the other advice there, so I probably scare away the bots.

The niche was too broad and I should have monetised it better from the start, but the writing approach was right. This article is that approach, broken down into steps.

What “ranking on Google” actually means

Before getting into the how, it’s worth being precise about what you’re aiming for.

Ranking on Google means your post appears in the search results when someone types your target keyword. The higher you appear, the more clicks you get. Position one gets roughly 27% of clicks for a given search. Position ten gets around 2%. Below page one, traffic drops to almost nothing.

You don’t control your ranking directly. What you control is how well your post matches what Google is trying to serve to searchers — the relevance, the structure, the depth, and the signals that tell Google your content is trustworthy and useful. Do those things consistently and the rankings follow.

The mistake most beginners make is treating SEO as a separate task from writing. Something you do to a post after it’s finished — sprinkle in keywords, tweak the meta description, done. That approach produces posts that feel optimised but read mechanically, and Google is increasingly good at detecting the difference.

The approach that actually works is building the structure in from the start, then writing naturally within it.

Step 1: Start with a clear keyword and a matched structure

Before you write a word, you should know three things:

• Your primary keyword (the exact phrase you’re targeting)
• The search intent behind it (what the person searching actually wants)
• The format that matches that intent (guide, listicle, comparison, how-to — based on what’s already ranking)

If you don’t know all three, go back to the keyword research stage (Article 21) before you open a new post. Writing without this is the equivalent of setting off without knowing where you’re going.

Your structure then flows directly from the intent. If the top results for your keyword are all step-by-step guides, your post is a step-by-step guide. If they’re all listicles, yours is a listicle. You’re not copying the content — you’re matching the format that Google has already determined searchers want.

Step 2: Write the draft first — optimise second

This is the most important habit in this entire article and the one most people do the wrong way round.

Write your full first draft without looking at your keyword list. Don’t check keyword density. Don’t pause to make sure you’ve included a secondary keyword in the third paragraph. Just write — as clearly and thoroughly as you can — for the person who typed your keyword into Google.

Then read it back. Does it flow? Does it fully answer the question? Is there anything a reader would be left wondering about?

Only then open your keyword cluster and check placement. Add or adjust keywords only where they fit naturally, without forcing them. If a keyword doesn’t fit anywhere in a section, that’s usually a sign the section needs restructuring rather than a sign that you need to shoehorn the keyword in anyway.

This order matters because writing with keywords in mind produces stilted, over-optimised prose. Writing naturally and then checking produces content that reads well and ranks well. Those two things are not in conflict — they’re the same goal.

Step 3: Place keywords where Google looks first

Google doesn’t read your post the way a human does. It scans for signals in specific locations. These are the places that carry the most weight:

Title (H1)

Your primary keyword should appear in your title, as close to the front as possible. “How to Water a Pothos” ranks more easily than “The Ultimate Pothos Care Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Watering.” Keep it under 60 characters so it doesn’t get cut off in search results. [Article 28] goes into title writing in more detail — but keyword near the front, under 60 characters, is the foundation.

First 100 words

Google pays particular attention to the opening of your post. Your primary keyword should appear naturally in the first paragraph — not forced, not repeated twice, just present. If you’ve written a strong introduction that actually addresses the topic, it will almost certainly be there already.

At least one H2

Your primary keyword, or a close variation of it, should appear in at least one subheading. This tells Google that the keyword is relevant to the structure of the content, not just mentioned in passing.

URL slug

Keep it short and keyword-focused. “how-to-water-a-pothos” not “how-to-water-a-pothos-plant-properly-the-complete-beginners-guide.” Remove filler words. Hyphens between words, no underscores.

Meta description

Include your primary keyword naturally. Under 160 characters. Write it as a genuine summary of what the post delivers — not as a keyword-stuffed blurb. Google doesn’t always use your meta description, but when it does, it’s often the thing that determines whether someone clicks.

Image alt text

Describe what’s in the image. Include your keyword where it fits naturally. If the image shows a pothos in a terracotta pot, say so — don’t write “pothos care pothos watering pothos plant.”

Step 4: Weave in secondary keywords and LSI terms

Your primary keyword is what you’re targeting. Your secondary keywords and LSI (latent semantic indexing) terms are what tell Google your post is genuinely thorough on the topic.

LSI keywords are the words and phrases Google expects to see on a page about your subject. If you’re writing about pothos care, Google expects to see terms like indirect light, well-draining soil, root rot, propagation, and trailing vine. Missing them doesn’t mean you get penalised — but including them signals that your content is comprehensive rather than surface-level.

The fastest way to find them: open the top three ranking posts for your keyword and scan the subheadings and bolded text. Note the terms that appear across all three. Those are your LSI keywords. Work them into your post wherever they fit naturally.

Secondary keywords are related search phrases you can address within the same post. If your primary keyword is “how to water a pothos,” your secondary keywords might include “how often to water pothos,” “signs of overwatered pothos,” and “pothos watering in winter.” Each of those can become a section or a subheading — and each one gives your post an additional chance to appear in search results.

Step 5: Structure your post for both humans and search engines

A post that ranks is a post that answers the question completely, in an order that makes sense, with signposts that help both readers and Google navigate it.

The introduction

Hook first, context second, keyword third. Open with something that tells the reader they’re in the right place — a specific situation they’ll recognise, a question they arrived with, a counterintuitive statement. Then give them enough context to understand what the post covers. Your primary keyword should be in there, but it follows from the opening — it doesn’t lead it.

The subheadings (H2s and H3s)

Your H2s should map directly to the People Also Ask questions you collected during keyword research. These are the questions Google has already identified as related to your topic — using them as subheadings tells Google your post addresses the full picture, not just the headline question.

Phrase subheadings as questions or clear statements where possible. “How often should I water my pothos?” is more useful to a reader — and more likely to appear as a featured snippet — than “Watering Frequency.”

The body copy

Short paragraphs. One idea per paragraph. Every section should open with the answer to the question posed by its subheading, then add the detail. This is the AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) principle — lead with the answer in the first 40 to 60 words of each section, because that’s what AI tools and featured snippets pull.

The conclusion

Don’t summarise. Point forward. What should the reader do next? Where should they go? A post that ends with “I hope this helped!” is a missed opportunity. A post that ends with a clear next step keeps the reader on your site and signals to Google that your content is part of a coherent resource, not a standalone page.

Step 6: Keyword stuffing — and why it backfires

Keyword stuffing is what happens when someone treats keyword placement as a numbers game rather than a communication tool. It looks like this:

“Pothos care is important for pothos plant owners. If you want to know how to care for a pothos, this pothos care guide will teach you everything about pothos care.”

It reads badly. It signals to Google that the page is trying to manipulate rankings rather than serve a reader. And Google is extremely good at detecting it — the algorithm has been trained on billions of pages and it knows what natural language looks like versus what a keyword-stuffed page looks like.

The practical test: read your post out loud. If a phrase sounds repetitive or unnatural when you say it, it will read that way too. Fix the writing, not the keyword count.

There is no magic keyword density to aim for. The guidance you’ll sometimes see — “use your keyword once every 100-150 words” — is not an official Google recommendation and it’s not how natural language works. Write well. Check that your keyword appears in the right places. Stop there.

What Google actually rewards is topical depth — a post that covers the subject thoroughly, uses the natural vocabulary of the topic, and addresses the questions a real reader would have. That’s it.

Step 7: The pre-publish optimisation check

Before you hit publish, run through this quickly:

• Primary keyword in the title, near the front, under 60 characters
• Primary keyword in the first 100 words
• Primary keyword in at least one H2
• Secondary keywords and LSI terms present naturally throughout
• All images have descriptive alt text
• Meta description written, under 160 characters, keyword included
• URL slug is short, keyword-focused, no filler words
• Each section opens with a direct answer before adding detail
• Conclusion points clearly to a next step

If you’re using RankMath, run your post through the panel — but treat the score as a prompt for gaps, not a target to hit. A score of 75 with natural writing will outperform a score of 95 achieved through forced keyword repetition.

Writing for people, structuring for search — and why the distinction matters

There is a version of SEO advice that makes writing feel like filling in a form. Keyword here, subheading here, word count here. Follow the template and rank.

That version produces content that technically ticks the boxes and doesn’t stand out from anything else on page one.

The approach that actually builds a site is different. It’s writing with enough personality, specificity, and genuine usefulness that a reader either bookmarks the post or hands over their email address. The funny aside. The crap photo that nevertheless illustrates the point perfectly. The honest admission that you got this wrong for three years before you figured it out.

None of that conflicts with SEO. A well-structured post with your keyword in the right places and a genuine human voice is not a compromise — it’s the standard Google is increasingly trying to reward. The Helpful Content Update in 2023 was specifically aimed at filtering out content that served search engines rather than people. Sites that had been writing for people all along largely held their rankings. Sites that had been optimising for bots took the hit.

Write the post you would want to find when you typed that keyword. Structure it so Google can tell what it’s about. That’s the whole thing.

Frequently asked questions

What to read next

If you haven’t done the keyword research yet for the post you’re about to write, Article 21: How to Do Basic Keyword Research for Free is the step before this one.

For the full picture on how word count affects rankings and when longer genuinely beats shorter, Article 28: How Long Should a Blog Post Be? covers the detail.