It may seem like just about everyone keeps a blog these days, with some posts being more routine than others. But not all blogs are created equally, and when it comes to keeping your business relevant online, your blog can be a big help. If you are looking for ways to improve your rankings in online searches, blogging can be a great way to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to achieve your goals. Additionally, blogging is a great way to continually connect with customers and be their source of good advice when they’re looking for expertise.
Here are three basic SEO benefits that you can begin incorporating immediately as part of your blogging process:
1. The more often you use a keyword, the more relevant your entire website becomes.
Example: Your website has a dedicated page for your home remodeling services, with “home remodeling” being your targeted keyword. Your page uses the keyword five times.
You then write 5 blogs about “home remodeling”, using this same keyword three more times per blog. Your website now has your targeted keyword listed over 25 times, more than doubling the potential to improve your website’s online rankings.
2. The more pages that include your keyword, the more pages you have with the ability to rank.
Example: If you only have a single page for your “home remodeling” keyword, this is the only page that will have the potential to appear in an online search. By writing 5 blogs with “home remodeling” as the targeted keyword, you now have 6 total pages that have the potential to rank.
3. Linking your blogs to your website pages adds more SEO “weight.”
Example: You write five blogs about “home remodeling” and hyperlink your targeted keyword from the blog back to your regular website page. This link between the blog and your website page strengthens your SEO, as well as the SEO “weight” on the linked website page, therefore improving your entire site’s ability to rank.
But aren’t there other benefits to blogging that aren’t just based on keyword density? Of course!
4. Shared content on social media can give you a boost.
Interesting blog articles (and even email newsletters) are ideal for sharing on social media, and you could potentially get more than just an increased viewing audience. There can also be added SEO value in the social signals (likes, shares, and comments) that point to that article as having authority. Some SEO experts believe that social responses to your blogs are an important online ranking factor.
5. A blog is arranged as a “feed,” which allows for more frequent and creative publishing.
While your standard website pages probably won’t need to be updated very often, blogging lends itself to publishing engaging information more often. For example, your business may specialize in home remodeling, but you may also have some great opinions about getting customer feedback in your line of work. An engaging blog article allows you to incorporate this information into your website without worrying that it isn’t directly linked to your core service area.
Example: You might like to publish blogs on topics like the newest employee you recently hired, a short instructional article, or even on a great client testimonial that you recently received.
So, why is more frequent publishing of blogs better? You maintain a constant stream of fresh content to your website, which in turn encourages search engines to “crawl” your page more frequently. Your site can easily see a short-term boost in rankings simply by having a recently updated page.
6. Improve your chances of getting inbound links to your site.
Let’s say that you post a really great how-to article on home remodeling, and another blogger from a different website finds your blog during their own research. As they write their content, they may link back to your blog as a reference, which in turn directs new clients to your page.
Even if your blog is written about a completely unrelated topic, the inbound link from another page will improve your SEO efforts on the keywords that are important to you. Over time, those inbound links can add up, helping you achieve your core website ranking goals.
Writing blogs can be fun, informative and a great way to connect with your customers about the things you enjoy most. Blogging is also great way to continuously refresh your SEO, use your most important keywords more often, and keep your website relevant.
Do you have any tips or tools for using targeted keywords as part of your pages or blogs? Let us know what you think!