Blogging Helps SEO Efforts – Big Surprise!
Over the past year or so, I have started to see more businesses and marketers and search engine optimization professionals suggest that blogging is the best kept SEO secret online. I’d have to agree. But I’ve been saying that for several years now. Why is blogging such a great SEO tool?
For starters, every time you update your blog with excellent user focused content you invite the search engines back to crawl it. The major search engines really do love fresh content and every blog post is great search bot food. But, and this is even more important, each blog post is a separate web page, which means every time you publish a new blog post you are giving yourself one more opportunity to be found in the search engines.
But like all aspects of your internet marketing starting and running a blog is NOT the end all make or break, but should be another excellent outlet to attract targeted visitors for your company.
Here are several frequently questions related to blogging that I am frequently asked:
1. Should I launch a stand alone blog or should I incorporate as part of my website?
My Short Answer: If you want to only have 1 website for your visitors, then having a blog incorporated in your site is a good bet. If you decide to launch a separate site as your blog, be advised, that like any type of website you need to market it to build it.
2. Should I use a free blogging software platform (such as Blogger) or use a hosted solution (such as WordPress)?
My Short Answer: If you are launching a blog as a hobby or to earn passive income, then a free blogging service is fine. If you are launching a blog for your business, then I ALWAYS recommend a hosted solution.
3. I have no idea what to write about, what do I do?
My Short Answer: Yes, you do! Use your knowledge about your business and write about your customers, industry trends, etc. I always recommend start by reading other blogs in your industry as a starting point or set up Google alerts that about industry topics and take it from there.
To make the most of blogging as SEO, here are a few best practices to make sure you put to work:
- Write unique, user focused blog posts.
- Write blog posts as much as you can.
- Naturally optimize the title of your blog.
- Naturally optimize every single blog post title.
- Make sure you custom design or use a search friendly template for your blog.
- Give your blog time to develop – Rome was not built in a day!
We can talk about the future of the Web all day, but today is today. The search engines still feed on good quality content. Use your blog to create an effective SEO campaign and take it one post at a time!
8 Responses to “Blogging Helps SEO Efforts – Big Surprise!”
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Exactly how do the google alerts work? How do they direct you as to what is being looked at or written about? Mine seem to come as one big line of stuff and don’t seem to take me anywhere. Have I put them in wrong? I am certainly missing something. Thanks.
Hi Linda,
Thanks for reading and the comment. I would try deleting the Google alerts that you currently have and re-entering them. I normally set them up very broad to pull everything in and then narrow down based on the content that I receive. Feel free to sign up again at the following link:
http://www.google.com/alerts
Two comments on this posting -
WordPress.com also offers a free Web blogging platform as does Blogger. It is an excellent way to “practice” before going to a self hosted solution. You can even set up as a private blog so no one else can access or see it. I coach people that way by having them alert me when they do a draft. Then I go in and make comments directly to them before publishing, or rewrite depending on our relationship. Some of WordPress’ optional features and plugins are especially helpful in keeping away the spammers.
Did you know you can use Boolean searches on Google alerts? One example is for an exact match bracket your “words in parenthesis”. Be alert that this does not always work…since Google rules the waves, they can pretty much do as they please.
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for sharing the additional blogging tips with all of our readers!
Happy new year!
Nick
Hi Nick,
This is very clear and concise – and will be a great help to beginners and help to envision them how blogging can boost their SE rankings.
Thanks again.
Somesh.
Hi Somesh,
Thanks for reading and your kind words
If the intention of blogging is to add new content so search engine bots will return and index. Since each new blog as you say results to another webpage on the site. Why not just create more subpages and link to them. Do search engine bots discriminate how new contents are added to a site?
Hi PS,
The intention of blogging should be much more than just SEO benefits. By providing excellent content for your website visitors (either blog or articles) this will naturally help drive visitors to your website from the search engines. Also, when you have excellent content that is user focused, it will make other relevant websites over time want to and actually will link to your website.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Nick