Have you heard of “blogging for SEO” but are not sure if it’s for you? Are you also looking for simple ways to help get your website found on search engines, boost traffic, generate leads and raise brand awareness? Today’s quick SEO tips are about how a business blog can help you achieve these.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It’s the process of improving your website’s position in the search results when someone types certain keywords into search engines such as Google.
Good to know:
- Websites at the very top in search engine results tend to attract more visitors.
- Websites at the very top potentially receive more queries and business.
- As a site owner looking to get noticed, you would want to get to the first page and at the top.
- To get to the top – or at least on page one – you have to do a little extra work.
- In most cases, you have to do a lot of hard work if you’re one of many businesses trying to attract the same audience.
Let’s say you were the only business supplying books about the best sailing boats ever built in Australia, you’re more likely to rank well and manage to get to the first page search engines just by using the relevant and strong keywords for your products and location.
However, if you were selling all types of books, you have to compete with many other websites, including the major book suppliers every book reader knows of, plus you have to compete with every book lover and their blog.
How does blogging help with SEO?
A blog is a preferred tool for serious bloggers and businesses looking to boost exposure in search engines as well as on social media. They have already optimised their websites for search engines, but they want more.
Good to know:
- Blog posts provide additional and fresh content as often as you like and you can optimise each post just as you would a web page.
- Your blog would provide additional resources to help people find you in Google.
- Each blog post has its own link, providing you with more shareable content for ongoing automatic submission to search engines.
- When you use keywords related to your brand, it helps boost your brand presence and what you’re offering.
- You also gain the opportunity to provide blog posts that solve problems for people, including for existing customers.
Those who land on your blog due to optimised content that you wrote with relevant keywords are usually people who are discovering your website for the first time. Google would have shown them your fresh and even older links if those stories you wrote contain the same keywords they were searching for.
The more people find you, the higher Google will rate you in the search engine results pages.
What if I don’t know how to add a blog to my website?
Don’t worry, there are many experienced website developers available to assist.
Good to know:
- It shouldn’t be very expensive to add a blog to your website.
- If you have a guy or girl on your team, you can ask them to investigate how to add a blog to your site.
- If you have to hire someone, be sure to check that they know about SEO and that they can give you SEO tips when required.
- If you need help, get in touch with me and I’ll send you some names of some good people who can assist.
Allocate some time next week to investigate the tools you can use to make business blogging an SEO reality for your business.
I use WordPress.org and I recommend it for its flexibility, ease of use and supporting community.
What if I don’t know what to write about?
There are many places to get ideas from when you’re stuck on a story angle for your business.
Good to know:
- You can use Google itself and social media (Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook to name just a few) to find trending topics.
- I wrote some quick and easy tips to getting the most basic storytelling ideas.
- You can borrow some story angles or phrases from my list of 101 phrases to use in brand storytelling.
- You can also set up some keyword alerts with Google Alerts or use services like Talkwalker Alerts, Social Mention, and IFTTT (If This, Then That). They’ll filter according to what you want to receive, and keep you up to date with what’s happening out there in the wider online community.
- You can email me any time if you need more blogging for SEO tips.
The bottom line about blogging for SEO…
My recommendation is to launch a blog if you don’t have one and if you want to give yourself a boost in search engines. You can do this through publishing relevant and catchy content to help get traffic to your website. Keep the stories simple. Talk about what you do, why you do it, what you’re up to, what to expect next, how to use what you supply, and so on.
And don’t forget to make them good enough for people to want to share with their mates.
I hope these quick SEO tips can assist you when deciding whether to go with a business blog or not.
Your turn now...
Have you been thinking about blogging for business?
Or have you been blogging for business? How is it helping you?
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