Did you know that around 53 percent of marketers say that blogging is the top content marketing priority?
Just think what that means for a second.
Over half of the experts in content marketing believe blogging is the most important aspect of what they do.
But, it’s not just expert marketers who value blogging.
Occasionally, it can seem as though everyone from your Grandma to your postman has their own blog. But, have you ever stopped to wonder why blogging is important for SEO?
Let’s find out the answers together. Read below!
Blogging and SEO
Everyone knows what blogging is. But, what about SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s all about how you get ranked on search engine results pages. That’s not just Google, but any web page with a search tool
Blogging can make a difference in how high you rank. That’s why so many websites do it.
Not sure your ranking on search engine actually matters? You’d be wrong about that too!
Research shows that more than 90 percent of web traffic is from the first page on Google alone. Therefore, if you’re not visible on the first page of the biggest search engine, you essentially don’t exist in the eyes of online users.
And seriously, who doesn’t use Google on a daily basis?
Not convinced? Check out the reasons why blogging is so important for your SEO ranking below.
1. Produce Fresh Content
Are you overflowing with creative and innovative ideas? Do you have a fresh perspective which you’re eager to share with your audience?
Search engines eat up content.
Just make sure you’ve got plenty of fresh and engaging content on your website if you’re going to charm search engines.
There’s only so much content you can put on your “about us” page. And, you definitely can’t feature pages and pages of writing on your online store web page.
That’s why a website blog allows you to find somewhere for your fresh and unique content to be enjoyed by your audience.
But, don’t bother churning out meaningless drivel. Quality matters in this game.
Always make sure you include interesting content which your target audience actually wants to read. If you don’t know what this looks like, ask them!
Other things to know is that you’ve got to be consistent with your blog posts. That includes the time you post content.
No surprises, please!
So regular and consistent blogging is the key. The more frequent the better. Blogs which post every day get up to 5 times more web traffic.
But, don’t expect your web pages to skyrocket once you’re first blog post goes live. That’s not how to works. Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.
Show patience. Once you’ve published between 21 to 54 posts, your web traffic can be expected to grow by roughly 30 percent.
2. Establish Yourself as an Influencer
When you produce content on your blog, you can establish yourself as an “influencer” in your niche. This is a blogger who can influence the buying decisions of your audience.
This kind of trust derives from delivering on your promises to produce regular quality content which is relevant to your audience.
If you’re a small business struggling to compete with huge multinationals across the internet, this is your chance.
Blogging offers you a way to stand out from the crowd. Only just over one-third of Fortune 500 companies have a blog.
Therefore, you have the opportunity to build up your profile as an authority in your field. This could allow you to rank higher than much bigger companies on search engines.
3. Link-Building
One of the most important factors which determine your ranking on search engines is your links.
You want other websites to link to your web pages. This works as a stamp of approval for the credibility of your website.
However, link-building is not about getting as many links to your web pages as possible. Quality matters more than the number of links.
Work to convince other websites to link to your web pages.
But, They’ve got to be relevant to your niche somehow. If random web pages are linking to you, this could raise eyebrows at Google that you’re playing the system.
How can you convince other websites to link back to your web pages?
Simply give them a reason.
Provide content on your blog which people want to reference and recommend to their audience. Websites with blogs receive up to 97 percent more links compared with those without.
Of course, you also need to give them a push once in a while as well. Ask relevant websites to link to the recent post you published.
Moreover, end your blog posts with a CTA (call to action). This way, you can encourage others to backlink to you when you link to them. Everyone benefits then!
But, you’ve also often got to make the first move. For example, when you’re writing about a business topic, link to a relevant Forbes Magazine article.
4. Guest Blogging
Some people say that guest blogging is dead. There’s also plenty of reason to believe that it’s alive and kicking.
Guest blogging is when you invite another blogger to provide content for your blog. At the same time, you can do the same for their blog.
This kind of exchange benefits both sides.
You receive content for your blog from another writer. They get to reach out to your audience with their content.
Of course, you want to make sure you’re only receiving content from experts and quality writers in your niche. It’s your reputation at stake.
Do your homework on bloggers before you give the go-ahead. You don’t want to find yourself promoting the work of a charlatan.
You can benefit a lot from developing relationships with other companies and bloggers working in the same niche as you.
5. Rank for Keywords
Remember the days when you could cram keywords into every web page on your website? Then, you could simply sit back and watch your website climb up the search engine rankings are over.
Those days are over!
You’ve got to be savvy about how you integrate keywords into your blogs nowadays. And yet, keywords remain an important aspect of improving your SEO rankings.
You need to rank for specific keywords. This especially includes long-tail keywords, which are growing in importance. This is because of the rise of voice search tools, such as Siri and Alexa.
How can you expect to get the keyword phrase “how to improve SEO ranking on Google” on your website without a blog?
It’s not just about ranking for keywords which are particularly popular. You’re never going to be able to compete with the big guns on “SEO tips.”
However, you stand a chance with “SEO tips for writing engaging blogs.” When you’re in doubt – go specific!
Aren’t you sure which keywords to use for your blog posts?
There are numerous tools to discover which search terms can optimize your blogs. You can check out Google Keyword Planner here.
6. Promoting on Social Media
You may think it’s necessary to distinguish between social media and SEO. But, actually, they work together well.
Remember, social media posts also show up on Google and other search engines.
So, whenever you post your blog posts on social media networks, you’re raising your visibility on search engines as well.
So, make sure you’ve got a comprehensive social media strategy. Set up accounts for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others.
Whenever you post, make sure you include meta descriptions and titles of your blog posts. These can snippets of your blog to attract your audience to click to learn more.
Without search terms, your social media posts will get lost in the blizzard of social media activity.
Marketers also agree with the importance of promoting your blog on social media. Indeed, roughly 66 percent of them use social media themselves to promote their blog posts.
When you post your blogs on social media, you can also get your followers to do the rest of the work on your behalf. Just encourage people to share your blog with on social media to boost your audience even more.
Research shows that up to 94 percent of people share content on social media if they believe it would be helpful to their followers. So, yet another reason to produce quality content.
7. Images in Your Blog Posts
The best bloggers don’t only write blogs.
No, they also include visual assets to boost visibility on search engines. More than 70 percent of marketers always use images on blog posts.
You shouldn’t only concentrate on producing high quality written content either. You’ve got to diversify your content to appeal to your target audience.
Remember, you can also search for images on Google and other search engines. This provides you with yet another chance to rank for a search term. Make sure you include descriptions of each image with relevant search terms.
Sure, people want to read your blog. But, they also want images. In fact, blog posts which include images receive up to 94 percent more views compared with posts without.
8. Video Content Also Helps
The same goes with video content. We know, you’re a blogger, not a vlogger!
That’s right! But, remember that you can also post videos as part of your blog posts.
Just as social media posts are displayed on search engines, it’s likewise with video content.
What are the top search engines?
Google? Of course.
But, then you’d maybe say, Yahoo, Bing, Ask…
Actually, it’s easy to forget that YouTube is the second largest search engine. With around 5 billion videos watched per day, it only ranks behind Google.
Even though your blog can’t rank on YouTube – your video content can!
You should produce video content which is relevant to your blog posts. This provides yet another means for your audience to engage with your content.
You can simply reuse your blog content for a video. You don’t need to come up with a totally fresh idea for your videos.
Think of videos as another audience to reach with the same message.
However, never forget the rule of thumb with SEO. Always post your videos with the usual descriptions with optimized search terms for best results.
9. More Indexed Pages
If you’re going to climb up the search engine rankings, you’re going to need lots of web pages.
Websites which have blogs have up to 434 percent more indexed pages. That’s because Google only indexes web pages which have more than 300 words.
It’s difficult to include so many words without a blog post. But, if you’re blogging, it’s easy to maximize the number of indexed pages on your website.
10. Long-Form Content
The web pages which rank highest on Google don’t simply have blogs. There are plenty of bloggers who produce short posts approximately 300-words in length.
This is only going to get you so far. You need to produce high-quality long reads which really create a buzz around your blog.
The average word content on the top ranking content is actually more than 1,000 words.
Why Blogging is Important
People think that blogging is a waste of time.
But, they couldn’t be more wrong. There are so many reasons why blogging is important if you want to rank higher on search engines.
It can be the difference between languishing on page 4 or 5 of the search engines or rising to the top spot on the results pages.
You don’t have to build your blog from scratch on your own. We’re here to help. Get in touch with us to discover more about our blogging services.