You’ve probably heard the advice, “blogging is good for SEO.”
But why? Simply writing blogs without knowing the ‘Why’ won’t result in higher rankings or more traffic, let alone more customers. In fact, blogging without a purpose usually results in lots of wasted time & energy.
Writing blogs with a purpose, however, really IS good for SEO. With a little understanding, blogging can put you on the path to higher rankings, more visitors and yes – more customers. Before you break out your typewriter, let’s define a more useful purpose of blogging. To get more customers, you need to keep three objectives in mind.
#1: Links
Links are absolutely vital for success in search engines. The problem is that many business websites don’t have much (if any) content that is interesting enough to get links from other websites.
Think about it… why would a blog owner link to the ‘About Us’ or ‘Services’ page, or even the homepage of your business website?
If the content on your website is not interesting, the odds are – people won’t link to it. However, blog content CAN be written to be engaging and useful. Unlike other web pages, blogs are an opportunity to create non-promotional copy that is simply helpful to your visitors.
THIS is the type of content that will attract links to your website, and therefore a necessity in order for your blog to attract more customers.
#2: Social Media Sharing
When it comes Google, consider ‘Social Mentions’ to be the little brother to Links. When social media users discuss and share content from your brand, Google will take notice. Although not as influential as links, social mentions are also a factor that influences organic rankings.
The goal here is similar to attracting links. Write useful blog entries that visitors find helpful so they are encourages to share it on social media. Be sure to provide sharing buttons (like the ones shown above) so that your visitors can easily share on their favorite platform.
There’s an additional benefit here… with useful content on your blog, you’ll also have something to share on your OWN social media profiles.
#3: Long-tail keywords
Last but not least, consider “long-tail keywords.” These are the keywords that your customers use to find your product or service, but are more specific than highly generic keywords.
For example, imagine you sell widgets and your primary keywords include: widgets, red widgets, blue widgets, stainless steel widgets, etc.
Your main website pages will target these keywords, but what about customers who use terms like, “what’s the best widget to use outdoors?”
These are known as ‘long-tail’ searches and the number of people searching for terms like this can really add up. In fact, it’s common for long-tail keywords to deliver as much as 80% of the total search engine traffic. You can see from the chart above why they are called “long-tail.”
Bonus!
So you understand the purpose of blogging, but the question remains… What exactly should your blogs be about?
This is where a little creativity goes a long way. There is no list of officially “blog-worthy” topics and even if there were, they would have all been used by now. Remember that you understand your target audience better than anyone, so think of something your ideal client would appreciate. It doesn’t need to be all text either – it could be a video, an info-graphic or a podcast… the list is endless.
The rule to live by is this – Make it useful and/or entertaining. (ideally both) Don’t be afraid to give away some of your “secret sauce.” That’s exactly the type of content that gets attention and remember – a new client is worth it!
Next Steps
If you write your own blogs, a Digital Agency can help you generate ideas, as well as research Long-Tail keyword topics. If you already work with a Digital Agency, just ask them for help with this.
If your Agency creates blog content for you, ask to see their content calendar and how the content addresses the three objectives above. They should also be able to share metrics illustrating the success of the blog in (1) attracting links, (2) social sharing and (3) long-tail keyword traffic.
If these metrics are good, you should be confident that your blog is working to bring you more customers!
Good luck!
Digital Secret Agent
