Here’s a list of blog post / content page best practices inspired by Ross Hudgens. This list of best practices covers the design of the main blog page/blog homepage as well as the blog post page itself along with several design and content considerations.

1/ Content Marketing Best Practices, Visualized

I've been posting several content/SEO best practice visuals over the past 12+ months.

These visuals come from over 11 years of experience helping clients succeed in search.

You can find them all below. Enjoy and please share!

— Ross Hudgens (@RossHudgens) June 28, 2023

• Blog post itself has a clean + professional design. Plenty of whitespace, quick answer/facts at the top of the post, 18px font size, 100~ or less line length, and small hero photo, last updated date, author is clear and has EEAT elements (why is this person knowledgeable about this blog post topic?),
• Blog post navigation is the same/similar structure to main site. The top nav is narrow and has a CTA to take next step (book now/search properties), blog headings are clear and flow properly between h1 (title) h2 (subheading one), h3-h4 (sub-subheadings), h5, ect. Long-form content has a table of contents to quickly find subheadings, HTML styles are in place (ordered lists, unordered lists, tables, blockquotes).
• Links to related posts at the bottom of the post, with small thumbnail/relevant photo.
• Has a super-clickable title. Ideas for making a blog post <title> more clickable: BRAVE. B – Brand. R – Recentness. A – Amount. V – Velocity. E – Economy. Other ideas to make titles more clickable: use of [Brackets], odd numbers (13 Best Restaurants In North Myrtle Beach), use just the BRAND name in the title tag at the end (13 Best Restaurants In North Myrtle Beach – Grand Strand Resorts) — and NOT (13 Best Restaurants In North Myrtle Beach – Grand Strand Resorts Blog).
• Limited stock photography.
• Blog homepage has a recent posts section/area on the main blog page.
• Blog homepage also has manually selected section/area on the main blog page.
• Blog homepage could also have a featured/specific blog post on the main blog page.
• Each blog category has 10~ posts inside of category page (or goal to get there soon).
• Blog has a search function that searches posts/content.
• Post has in-content CTAa (search properties / book now / signup for newsletter) to drive into booking funnel
• Posts have 3-10 relevant internal links to other blog content. Old blog posts are updated frequently to add internal links to new content.