No matter what kind of business you're running, having a blog on your website is a great way to help get more traffic on your page. Although having a blog may not seem like it makes sense based on the kind of business you're running, blogs can help optimize your website to rank higher on search engine results. Here's why a blog can help your blog as well as a few tips on how to use the blog on your business' site to get more traffic.
How Does It Help?
SEO is the act of optimizing your website for certain keywords and phrases related to your business that people searching for your business may use. For example, if you're a small bookstore, you would want to rank on Google for keywords like "local bookstore" and "small bookstore" as well as for any genre of books you sell, such as "poetry bookstore" or "fiction bookstore." That way, when someone searches for one of those phrases, your website is one of the first to pop up. The closer to the top of the search results that your site is, the more likely it is that someone will click on your page and purchase your goods or services.
When you include blog posts on your site, you can include the keyword in the blog posts so that they appear more on your site. You can also optimize the different pages on your site to include the keywords you're targeting, but that's a different realm of SEO from blog posts.
Consider Why You're Using a Blog
The goal that you have for your blog will determine what kind of blog and posts you'll create. Is your main goal to provide information? Is it to expand on your brand? Is it to increase traffic to your site? If you're, for example, a car dealership, your goal could be to increase traffic to your site since almost 60% of the car buying process happens online. It's mainly in the form of research, so you can also create blog posts with information about the car models that you sell to help direct buyers to your site.
Think of Your Target Audience
The audience that you want to attract to your business will determine all of the content that you create for your site. Before you start making any posts for your blog, ask yourself these questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- Why does my target audience need my services or goods?
- Why should possible customers choose my business over another?
If you can answer those questions, you'll be able to determine the kind of content that you want to make to appeal to your audience.
For example, if you're running a flower shop, then your prospective audience could be people of any age or gender, so you wouldn't want to try too hard to appeal to any specific group. You would also know that 37% of flowers are bought to be used as gifts during holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day. That means that when it's starting to approach those holidays, you'll want to create content about the best flowers for those holidays so that people looking for what flowers to buy stumble on your site. If you have better resources than another business, that could be a reason to choose you over another business that doesn't have helpful tips on their website.
Brainstorm Topics and Keywords
Once you know the kind of content you want to make, you can determine what keywords you'll be targeting. Keywords don't have to be a single word -- it could be a phrase, like "valentine's day flowers" or "used Ford Fusion." Think of what someone would search for if they were to be looking to purchase your goods or services, and make a plan on how to include those keywords in your blog posts.
Contract It Out If Necesary
When it comes time to actually write your posts, you don't necessarily have to do them in-house. If no one in your business has a specialty in writing, you can hire a contract writer to do your blog posts for you. If you use a marketing firm, they may also have options that you can choose from for your posts.
Include Internal Links
When you're going to post your completed blogs, you should include a link in the blog to another page on your site. This way, if someone gets onto your blog from a search of one of your targeted keywords, they will be directed to a page on your website where they can learn about the goods and services you offer and even possibly purchase something from you. Nevertheless, when adding links, either internal or generating backlinks, you need to practice due diligence. Some suspicious or spammy websites may offer toxic backlinks that could harm your website. By learning about these, you can protect your website and enhance its search ranking.
Be Consistent
You should make sure that you're being consistent when it comes to your blog. You should make a posting schedule for your blog, such as posting once a week or twice a month. If you want to make sure you're being particularly consistent, you can write posts in advance and schedule them so that they go up at the same time every week or month. However, that level of consistency isn't really necessary to have a good quality blog. Consider what your company or contractors are capable of and go from there.
Optimize For Mobile
Make sure that your website doesn't just look good on a desktop or laptop computer -- it should also look good on a tablet or cell phone. Almost 61% of mobile web users won't return to a site if they have issues with its speed or navigation, which could mean a lost sale or customer.
A blog is a great marketing tool for your business, and you should definitely consider creating one for your company's website if you don't already have one. Not only can it attract potential customers through the content you post -- it can also help you rank higher on Google and get more traffic on your site.
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