Does adding a blog to your website really help your search engine optimization? Yes, yes it sure does.
When a website has a blog, we find that its SEO ranking scores go WAY UP. And the scores improve much faster than sites without a blog, especially when blog posts are added consistently and over a period of time.
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” Basically, it means the process of improving your site utilizing specific techniques to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in search engines. The better visibility your pages have in the search results of your audience, the more likely you are to capture their attention.
Consciously working to optimize your website for search engines is extremely important. After all, you have a website to get customers, right? For your website to be effective, you need to do all you can to have it come up in searches on the internet.
A blog is essentially an informative article (most often called a “post”) on your website that answers your prospective customers’ questions and helps them learn about your products or services. Ideally, you post blogs regularly and consistently as a means of updating the information on your website. Blogs are written in an informal or conversational style.
There are many factors that impact SEO, but without a doubt, quality content is essential to getting your website showing up in searches. What is the easiest way to build quality content on a website? By adding blog posts!
Blogging is good for SEO because it helps with a number of factors that are important to a site’s ranking. When you have a blog that’s updated regularly with posts that are high-quality and on topics that your audience is interested in, it can make a huge difference to how your overall website performs in the search engines.
We all use search engines to answer our questions. Just Google It! Right? So your audience is searching for answers to their questions as well. Blogging helps boost SEO quality by positioning your website as a relevant answer to your customers’ questions.
Once a website is compete, there usually isn’t a lot of cause to update your basic content that often. This is a problem for SEO because search engines are looking for new content to index, and site visitors want to see something new and interesting. If you site stays the same old, same old, your business looks dated and consumers trust is lost. Search engine bots will just pass right by your pages, pushing them further down in search results.
A search engine’s goal is to provide a searcher with the information they are looking for. After all, they are in competition with other search engines. When someone clicks on a search result and stays on that website for a while, that signals Google that this website was relevant and helpful. Ding! Your ranking just improved!
Every business has keywords and search terms that pertain to their products or services. General keywords such as “heating systems” or “camping gear” are such broad terms that there will be many thousands of other sites using them, and your chances of coming up in a search is much lower. You need to be able to add more specific keywords and longtail search terms. That’s pretty tough to do on product and service pages without making them read very weird, and that’s a turnoff to visitors.
Blogs allow you to get specific. Now you can add very targeted keywords on a particular topic within your industry. Using “heating systems” can become such “does a heat pump make sense in Maine”, and “camping gear” can expand to “what is the most comfortable camp chair”. Because blogs are on a specific topic, very targeted keywords and search terms can be easily worked into the copy.
A lot of SEO is about links. Internal links are the easiest because you can create them yourself. Blogs provide a perfect opportunity to link internally to other pages of your website. You can link to product and service pages and to other blog posts.
Backlinks, or inbound links from other websites to pages on your website, tell Google that your site has authority and trust in the marketplace. When you offer blogs that are filled with valuable information, other websites may decide to point their readers to your post.
Ultimately, the success of your website depends on people in your target audience, and your customers, interacting with it. You want more people visiting it, remaining on the site, and becoming regular visitors. People who find your content to be a resource will return, and probably sign up for your mailing list and follow other promotions. When you audience finds a blog post that is very helpful, they have a reason to see you as a resource and come back. When they love a blog post, they are also likely to share it which drives more traffic to your website.
Repeat website visitors shows Google that people like your website and this will raise your authority level in their algorithm.
A blog is a great way to make more connections with customers, and start a continued relationship with the people you want to reach.
As we’ve pointed out, it’s imperative that blog posts be high-quality content. It’s also very important that blog posts include a variety of on-page SEO tactics to optimize the content. A fully optimized blog can give you more opportunities to rank in search engines, and make your site more appealing to visitors. Even if you like to write, most business owners don’t know what these optimizing tactics are so posts go unnoticed.
It’s also important to SEO success that content is added consistently and over time to catch the attention of the search engines so they index your site pages. With the best of intentions, writing blog posts always falls to the bottom of a busy business owner’s pile. Do you really have time to write blogs? Is it the best use of your time?
Hiring a content writer who knows what they are doing when they write blog articles and optimizes them for SEO is SO WORTH IT! Website visitors have an enormous impact on sales, and we’ve made the case pretty well that blogs drive website traffic. Investing in a pro to write your blogs will get them done consistently, and provide a direct ROI.
Blogs can bring your marketing full circle – it builds quality content on your website which keeps visitors there longer. Further, blog content can be used for multiple marketing purposes – emails, sales letters, newsletters, social media posts. You pay for the blog post, but you can use that content in multiple ways to benefit your marketing and add value for your customers.
At Zebralove Web Solutions, we know our SEO services benefit tremendously from having quality, fresh content to work with. We have a content writer pro on our team who works with clients to develop new content for their digital marketing, website content, and blogs. Noelle Castle is a professional content developer and copywriter who has been a professional writer and marketer for 20 years.. Contact us to learn how Noelle and blogging can help your business.
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