Once upon a time in 1958, actor Steve McQueen found himself and friends threatened by The Blob!, a horror film creation. In 1999, then programmer Peter Merholz, who later moved on to head up design at Groupon, must’ve had a weird dream and shortened the recently created term ‘weblog’ as an homage to 1950’s horror. And so, ‘the blog’ was born. (please don’t quote me, I’ve just made that last bit up).
I’m a big fan of blogging and not just because I like to write. You probably know that if you want the right stranger to land on your website, there are several strategies you can take:
→You can build a strong outbound social media campaign that provides compelling reasons for a prospect to click on a provided link
→You can enlist strategic partners to deliver their audiences to your chosen landing page
→You can spend a bundle on well-crafted pay per click ads
→You can incorporate search engine optimization techniques that, over time, make the search engines your friends who’ll find and deliver the right searcher to you
So, here I am, using one of those SEO tools, writing a blog. This is one of my favorites because I can actually do it myself while my uber-smart and technologically sophisticated partner handles the other critical components of SEO that go way over my head.
A blog can be a powerful tool for SEO because it provides an opportunity to create fresh and relevant content, target specific and relevant keywords, create internal links, attract backlinks, generate social shares and cement your expertise. And, lucky for me, I like to write. So, here are 11 reasons why I’m such a strong fan of blogging:
1. Fresh and Relevant Content:
Search engines like Google love fresh and relevant content. By regularly publishing blog posts on your website, you provide search engines with new content to index and rank. This can help your website to appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more organic traffic.
2. Size Matters:
Search engines love comprehensive content because it conveys a level of authority that will translate to satisfaction for their user who’s looking for your kind of expertise. And conveying expertise that connects directly to your visitors’ needs is exactly what marketing was born to do.
3. Targeted Keywords:
By incorporating targeted keywords and phrases into your blog posts, you can optimize your content for specific search terms. This can help your website to rank higher for those keywords and attract more targeted traffic to your site. And that’s marketing success!
4. Internal Linking:
A blog provides an opportunity to create internal links to other pages on your website. And that’s great because internal linking helps search engines understand the structure of your website and the relationship between different pages. This can improve the overall SEO of your website. Do you love blogging yet? No? Read #5:
5. Backlinks:
By creating high-quality and informative blog content, you can attract backlinks from other websites. Backlinks are a key ranking factor for search engines, and can help your website to appear higher in SERPs. Essentially, strong backlinks are your marketing ambassadors. You’d be surprised at the simple tool we use to do this for our clients who believe in the power of blogs yet missed this one very easy, valuable marketing tweak.
6. Social Shares:
Blog content that is engaging and informative can be shared on social media, which can help to increase brand awareness, attract new visitors, and generate more backlinks to your website. This is one of the regular tasks we perform for clients who want to increase their visibility on a particular social platform and hate having to constantly come up with new and compelling content. Let your blog do it for you!
7. Establish Authority:
It isn’t just about the size of your blog. A well -crafted, thoughtful blog helps to establish yourself as an authority in your industry or niche by sharing valuable insights, expertise, and thought leadership. This can build trust with your audience and attract more organic traffic to your website.
8. User Engagement:
Blogging can also increase user engagement on your website. When visitors read your blog posts, they may leave comments or share their thoughts, which can lead to discussions and interactions. This can help to create a sense of community on your website and encourage visitors to stay longer.
9. Long-Tail Keywords:
Blogging allows you to target long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive than broad keywords. By targeting long-tail keywords, you can attract highly targeted traffic to your website and improve your chances of ranking for those keywords
10. Conversion Rate Optimization:
Once a visitor reads and is wowed by your blog post, you can incorporate calls-to-action (CTAs) into your blog thereby encouraging visitors to take a specific action, such as subscribing to your newsletter or opting in for some higher level, valuable content or report. This can help to increase your conversion rate and generate more leads for your business.
11. Provide content for leverage:
Leverage is my favorite business word (thank you to Archimedes for this one). Essentially, it means if you do it once, do it a dozen times in other ways to expand the value you get from that first effort; I already mentioned using snippets to post on social media and you’d be surprised at how many ways one bit of written content can be used to reinforce your credibility in your field.
So, have I convinced you? Blogging can be a powerful tool for SEO, user engagement, authority building, conversion rate optimization and a powerful marketing strategy. By consistently publishing high-quality and relevant content, you can improve your website’s SEO, attract more organic traffic, and build a loyal following of engaged users. Want to apply these benefits to your content strategy? Give us a holler, especially if you see The Blob!
View this post on the benefits of blogging, as well as others on Andrea's website: https://marketingthatrocks.com/blog/