Blogs are an essential part of your SEO no matter what kind of website you’re running. When running a business, half the battle is helping the right people find you. There could be plenty of people looking for the exact service, product, or information you provide. But first, they need to be able to find you. And in order to do that, your site needs to show up in search engines. One of the best ways to do that is to start a blog.
Why does having a blog help SEO?
Make no mistake; it’s not just having a blog that helps your SEO. It’s what blogs can help you accomplish. You can’t just create a blog and let it sit or release a flurry of blog posts and call it done. To get the maximum benefits from your blog, you need to update it regularly. Here’s why:
Blogs keep your website fresh and current.
These days, it’s a red flag to stumble on a website that hasn’t been updated in months or years. If a potential customer sees your website hasn’t been updated in a long time, they may wonder if you’ve gone out of business or if your site is providing outdated information.
Google knows this and favors websites with fresh content. Since updating your homepage frequently isn’t always a great idea (and you may want to keep your website’s core information the same), a blog is a great way to take advantage of Google’s preferences for fresh content.
Blogs encourage users to stick around.
Among other things, Google keeps track of how long people stay on your website. If they click in, decide your website isn’t relevant, and immediately click out, Google notes that. But if someone clicks into a website and stays there for a while, that signals to Google that the content is helpful. Blogs are great for this because they’re longer-form than most other web pages, so it encourages visitors to stick around for a while.
Blogging helps you use other SEO strategies.
Blogs provide an invaluable opportunity to put other SEO strategies to good use, like:
Long-Tail Keywords
These are crucial for helping your content find the people looking for it. This is especially important for small businesses, new businesses, or niche businesses. Long-tail keywords don’t attract as much traffic as shorter, more competitive keywords do, but that’s the point. They’re relevant to the people you’re trying to reach, meaning the traffic they provide is higher-value.
Internal Linking
A lot of SEO is about links. Internal links are the easiest ones to take advantage of because you can create them for yourself. If you’re not doing this, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity – and it’s especially easy to do on blogs. Try adding pages on interrelated topics, then link to those pages or blog posts.
For help getting your blog up and running, or expert advice to make the most of your blog, contact us at Big Fish Local today.