Today I am going to stick to a simple SEO tip and look at 6 reasons that you should start a blog. If you have a blog already, maybe you can think of these as 6 reasons to put some effort into it.
1. Content Generation
A blog gives you the technical platform and the venue to add a volume of content to your site. Relevant content is what the search engines eat. Adding to the content of your site on a regular basis will help with your SEO and also help flesh out what your company is about for your potential customers.
2. Long Tail Searches
As you blog, you will cover specific topics relevant to your niche. You won’t necessarily be seeking specific traffic from specific posts. As you add content, though, you will find search results and traffic coming in through long-tailed queries that you never thought of. There is a lot of traffic in the long-tail and often there is less competition for rankings.
3. Generating Traffic to a New Site
Search Engine rankings can be a challenge in the early stages of a website’s life. Google in particular puts a lot of store in trust metrics and the results at Google will tend to favour older, more established sites. Blog search is time sensitive in nature and it makes sense for Google to treat them slightly differently to static content. Often a newer site can gain traction in the search results with its blog while the main site is still struggling to achieve decent rankings.
4. A Hub for your Social Media
Your blog can form the hub of your social media efforts. Blogs are naturally part of the social media conversation. They include tools for syndication and can be linked to social media outposts such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Your blog, if you can write good content, will allow you to take part in the conversation of your industry. If you can write something that people are inspired to share then your blog will generate links, social mentions and visits.
5. Demonstrate Credibility
If you are a service business, then your blog can play a vital role in demonstrating credibility. It may take several points of contact for a prospect to become a customer and I’m not one of those people who believes that your blog will sell for you (on its own). It can certainly help show the in-depth knowledge that your prospects need to see, in order to feel comfortable buying. The SEO benefit here is secondary but real. Strong links from high quality resources don’t grow on trees. If someone cares about the standard of their website then they need to believe you are credible before they will link to you.
6. Link-Worthy Content
To generate links, you need to have content that is worth linking to. It seems obvious but there it is. If you run an online shop, how many links are you going to get to your product pages? Real, natural links from actual people I mean. At what point will you run out of directories and other standard sources of links to your homepage? If you want to achieve natural inbound links then you must have something worth linking to. A blog can help.
Take this site as an example. As proud as I am of our search engine optimisation services, it’s not a page that I expect other site owners to spontaneously link to. I don’t really expect even my real friends to be inspired to “like” that page and share it on Facebook and Twitter. We have to describe our company and our services. It’s useful information for anyone considering purchasing the services we provide. The blog though gives us a chance to say something that’s useful to a wider audience. To engage in a conversation that can lead to links (as well as customers).
So there it is. 6 SEO reasons to start a blog. They aren’t the only reasons to start a blog and I probably didn’t even get all the SEO benefits in. I hope it’s enough to make the point though. Blogging isn’t the only thing you should be doing to promote your website and your business but it is almost certainly one of the things you should be doing.
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6 SEO Reasons to Start a Blog…
A blog could be just the thing to kick-start your SEO. This post looks at 6 SEO benefits to blogging and why you should start a blog and post to it regularly….
Alastair,
Six GREAT reasons. I’m still a novice when it comes to SEO. i think that practically, the #1 reason as you pointed out is the issue of credibility. by offering tips, advice, acumen and wisdom you can establish yourself as the go-to person in a given field. Then when a reader needs a service that is payed, it is hopefully to you that they will come calling.
Great informative article!
Yoni
Thanks Yoni
I think you are probably right. There are many non SEO reasons to start a blog and certainly for small service based businesses credibility is a big one.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Yoni , Yoni and SiteStream SEO. SiteStream SEO said: Here are 6 reasons why I like our SEO clients to have a blog and work it – http://bit.ly/hkeWDD [...]
Good points Alastair. I find that Google is pretty quick to pick up new posts and this helps results especially if you think about what you want you want to appear.
One question for you is why do you think people don’t treat it as the social hub? Instead they will post on Facebook for example or article directories.
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6 SEO Reasons to Start a Blog…
Hi Susan
That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer but it’s really important because people who don’t treat their blog as a social hub are (in most cases) making a massive mistake.
Social is a big buzz thing at the moment and you can see prospects glaze over at mention of SEO and other traffic generation and light up at mention of Social Media. They are familiar with Twitter and Facebook etc. and have heard they need to do “Social Media” but they don’t understand SEO or the value of their website (they don’t understand Social Media for the most part either but that’s another story).
I think perhaps blogging suffers because of that social buzz. Also because it is easier to post quick stuff on Facebook and Twitter and perhaps less work and familiarity with the systems means there is less of a barrier to entry.
Some people see blogs as part of Social Media and I suppose others don’t. My advice is that your blog links your site to your Social outposts. It allows you to create real noteworthy content. To say something of significance. For most businesses it should be a hub for social media activity.
Building Facebook and Twitter presences is great. I wouldn’t knock it but If I can say something of significance, I want it to build equity (link equity, brand equity, credibility, whatever way you look at it) in my site. I’m not in business to create content for Facebook.
For most businesses, search will return great bang for your buck in the long term (when done right). Because you reach buyers when they are looking to buy or provide them with answers that meet their specific, current need.
They work really well together though and regardless of the split in your activities between Social and search it makes sense to work social media in ways that benefit your search and build equity in your site.
I think most people haven’t been doing this for very long and it is hard for them to grasp that Facebook is the largest site on the planet right now but it might not exist in 3 years. It probably will but it has happened before. The investment you make in content for your own properties is at least made in something you control.
Sorry about the rant. I know you know all this already but it’s really a great question and addresses many issues I think people missunderstand.
Thanks for commenting.
The rant was good Alastair and you brought up really important points that many people especially in small business have not considered especially has it can impact the success of their business.
i find personaly there is a lot more seo you can do with blogs rather than websites plus website especialy in my case where i want to write about anything sometimes i go off subject etc blog are i think a lot more forgiving than websites and blogs arnt that hard to manage mind another thing with a blog is all the tecnology is there you want you alexa rank theres a widget you want your stuff auto spell checked there a spell checker widget
Hi Kevin
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. You make a good point.
Blog platforms like WordPress and others do tend to make it easier to add content, syndicate it and integrate other widgets. Making it easier for “normal” people to do these things is definitely one of the strengths of blogs.
[...] Blogging: Still the best search marketing strategy. Creating a blog has long been considered one of the simplest and best ways to engage in simple search marketing for your online business. Creating a blog for your brand or adding a blog to your Website will improve your Search Engine Optimization. Alastair Kay explains six reasons why. SiteStream [...]
Great post! I really like the fact that every one of your “reasons” can be blog posts in themselves. When looked at in-depth each of your points are easy to do but in need of some real time, effort and planning on the owner’s part to make a blog (especially a new one) successful.
Thanks for the comment Annemarie. I liked the fact that each of the reasons could be posts in themselves as well. It means I have plenty of ideas in the bag for my next few posts.
All excellent reasons! And when you get right down to it, everyone may have a blog, but we all have something different to say. Even if there are dozens of blogs on your subject, start a blog anyway and make it your own take, something original. Blogs, especially WordPress, have a lot more options, such as free plugins which can be very effective for helping with SEO.
Really fantastic blog!
[...] 6 SEO Reasons to Start a Blog [...]
Hi Morgan.
WordPress is definitely a great tool with plugins for just about everything. It sort of puts control of the website back in the hands of non-techies.
It’s easy to think “I won’t start a blog because I’ll be talking about all the same stuff as everyone else (all my competitors).”. I think your point is pretty important though. We all have something different to say, or at least our own way of saying it.
I pretty much believe that every small service business should have a blog. When you think about it, if you didn’t have something different to say, that wouldn’t be a great sign for the value of your service.
[...] we looked at SEO reasons to blog, I mentioned that your blog can and should function as the Hub of your social media efforts. That [...]
I agree with the author. Blogging is one strategy for SEO marketing. It’s like selling your site, frequently updating your site because of blogs. Blogs also increase the traffic of once site because people visit the site to read, comment and send links to related topics.
Good job for this!
Blogging can help in increasing traffic and also one can increase business revenue. Wonderful blog post.