Part 2 – Headings, Sub-headings & Keywords

This is part 2 of our guide to writing great Blog posts for salon websites to improve the SEO and boost their search engine rank.

Part 1 is here - The basics of writing blog posts for your salon website
Part 3 follows – Adding Images to your Post >>

Salon WordPress H1 Titles

H1 Heading

Your post should always have a short main heading (H1) incorporating the most important keyword(s) as the Title e.g. Spring Hairstyle ideas or Hair Color. The Title is the ONLY H1 you should have on the page.

H2-headingsH2 Sub-headings

Have multiple variations of H2s feature throughout your post as the subheadings. After the H1 Title, these are the next most important "clues" for Google to explain what this page is all about - so lots of keyword variations.

The first H2 should include a variation of the keyword(s) plus the salon name and salon location. e.g. Hairstyles for Spring by Westrow Salons Leeds.

NOTE : Location may be -
two or more salon places (Glasgow & Aberdeen)
or a town and county/city (Oxted, Surrey – Langley Park, Durham – Tampa, Florida)
or suburb and city (Salford, Manchester – Convent Garden, London)

To change text into a H2 select the text and then use the drop down menu to choose ‘Heading 2’

Other variations should be used throughout the post to add as many keywords as possble E.g. Spring Hair Colors, Hair Styles for Spring (space between Hair and Styles) Trends for hair this Spring, Gallery of Spring hair cuts & colors

Tips for Writing a good Post or Page

When writing your blog post bear a few things in mind;

Always plan your keywords first. What will a client type into Google if they want this information? What variations of words and phrases will they use?

Those "keywords" become the H1 Title and multiple H2 sub-headings and are also used for images names, alt tags and are repeated through the article.

Are you effectively selling your services within the post? Could you link to other products and services that you offer within the content?

Is your spelling and grammar correct? (For those worried about this a quick spell check in Word should help)

Are you adding keyword(s) variations into the body of the text effectively?

What is your brand voice? If you are a fun, local, salon does your voice reflect this? If you see your salon as upmarket, fashionable and a trend setter are you conveying this online with your expert voice?

Is your post long enough? (A minimum of 350 words is the norm)

Are you letting your readers know how to book an appointment and get in touch?

Is your post engaging? Would it interest your average customer?

 

Making Keywords Stand Out

In order for your blog post to get better SEO ranking, adding keywords to the H1, H2 headings and throughout the body of the text is important.

Keywords should be sparingly highlighted by either making some of them italic or bold.

An example of using every opportunity to add keywords would be (keywords are shown in bold) :

Original sentence New sentence with more keyword variations
If blonde is your thing If blonde hair colour is your chosen hair colour
There are lots of ways to achieve blonde hair The best way to dye hair blonde depends on your hair colour at present. At , ,  highlights and bleaching hair are two popular methods of dyeing hair blonde.

Using the All in One SEO plugin

At the bottom of the page/post are the settings for All in One SEO.
Rather than add the location to the Title (H1) you can use the Title in plugin to do that. So your on-page Title can be Hair Colour (for simplicity) but the Title used for SEO can be changed using the plugin to Hair Colour at Glo Salon Denver.
If you do not set a description Google will scrape the page and guess the description to show on search results. So use the plugin description box to add the perfect short description of the page including the keywords and location(s).

SEO Checklist

Only ONE H1 – the Title
H2s – use mixed keywords and location(s)
Use various keywords in text and with some bold and italics
Name image files with keywords. Then copy to Title and Alt
Do the same for images in galleries
Uplink to the major related page using keywords.
E.g. Pastel Colour post to Hair Colour page and Home.
Use All in One SEO to add more words to the H1 title
E.g. Page H1 can be “Hair Colour” but reset using All in One to “Hair Colour Salon Denver”
Use All in One for the perfect Description. Include keywords AND location(s).

Other notes
The salon name is never an SEO phrase unless you have space to fill in the title, description.
Tags and Keywords are NOT needed and should not be used.
The page or post URL also needs keywords. It is taken from the H1 but you can edit.
The category for posts is also part of the URL so use wisely.


 

Continue to the next section - Adding Images to your Post >>