Whenever a new client comes on board with us, we discuss the ins and outs of website design and SEO. The conversation most of them dread is the one in which they hear us mention blogging. Maintaining a blog often ends up being the last thing on their minds – after all, they have a business to run! But every small business should make the effort to have a blog on their website, because it can improve your chances at ranking high in the search results.
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Blogging increases your chances at ranking in search
A standard business website only has a handful of pages: Home, About, Services, Contact, and maybe a few others. Compared to the billions of other pages that already exist on the internet, the ten or so you have when your website is born don’t really give you high chances of breaking through the search results to make it to that first page.
Whether you sell products online or prefer customers come to you, building up a blog over time can help increase your findability in the search results, which improves your chances of claiming that top spot. The more high-quality posts you write, the more content you have out there to compete with everyone else. And the higher your chances of getting noticed by Google and by your target audience.
Read On: How To Find Ideas For Blog Posts
It’s important to remember not to set your sights too high when you first start your blog. Don’t expect to hit that top spot after only publishing for a month, or even a year. SEO, when done properly, requires patience and diligent effort. So long as you stick to your keyword research and continue to post blogs on a consistent basis, you will reap the rewards of your labors.
Blogging tells Google your site is relevant
Google has bots (sometimes called spiders) that constantly follow links all over the Web. Every so often, Google’s bot visits to your website to crawl all your links and report back to the Index, the enormous database where Google files all the information its bots collect across the Web. How often it visits depends on many factors.
Every time you publish a blog post, you create a new link the spider can crawl the next time it visits. When the spider finds a new link, this sends a signal to Google that your site is publishing new content and is active and relevant. A static site, by contrast, will eventually fall off Google’s radar. If Google’s spider never finds anything new when it stops by, eventually Google will come by less and less often. Over time, your rankings will steadily decrease and you’ll lose your rankings to your competition.
Blogging helps you help your customers
If you’ve gone through the process of keyword research, you probably already have a list of phrases and questions that your customers are using when they search for your product or service. Write blog posts that specifically address these phrases and questions in detail. Write exhaustively; show Google and your customers that you know what you’re talking about! If you optimize your blog posts well, you can get them onto the first page of the search results where users can find them more easily and benefit from them.
And even better, you’ll pull in far more valuable traffic than if you’d simply paid to get your website into the search results.
Blogging markets your brand
Whenever you answer questions or provide valuable information to potential customers with your blog posts, you also market your brand. Whenever the customer sees your website pop up in the organic search results and (hopefully) clicks through to your website to read what you’ve written, you expose them to your brand and your message. And, of course, the more blog posts you write, the more exposure you gain for your brand.
Not only that, but you can also write about your brand, your services/products, and even yourself. Your blog can (and should) be the place your customers go to get to know you, your mission and vision, and the problems that you can help them solve.
Whenever you release a new product, expand your service area, or celebrate an achievement or award, write about it. If you participate in a wider community event, write about it. If you’re hosting a giveaway or webinar, write about it. The possibilities here are absolutely endless. Help your customers get to know you and your brand. And don’t forget to share your posts on social media and promote them in your newsletters, too!
Keep Reading: How To Find Ideas For Blog Posts
Blogging can be a challenge
Publishing the actual blog post online is actually quite simple. However the actual writing process might intimidate – or downright scare off – those of us who might not be the best writers. The good news? Online writing is a skill that you can learn. However, it will take time to get the flow of the writing process and find your creative voice. It will also take some time to learn how to write for an online audience, keeping SEO in mind as you go.
Every small business should have a blog!
If your business has a website, it should also have a blog. And this doesn’t mean you have to post something new every day. Maybe you can only manage once or twice a month? That’s okay! As long as you keep at it consistently. Blogging helps increase your chances of ranking in search, tells Google your site is active, helps your customers by answering their questions, and markets your brand. Perhaps most importantly, blogging can be a lot of fun for you and your team!