The written word still holds a lot of power, even in our modern times. In this case, we’re talking about the importance of having a blog. Regularly writing blogs is a great strategy to drive quality traffic to your website. Furthermore, when done right, a blog can create recurring visitors who then become customers and brand advocates.
Increase Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Adding new and relevant content through a blog post with quality keywords will allow you to appear higher in search results. To optimize your blog posts, you must first understand how search engines like Google rank your page.
Google will first “crawl” your site looking for new and updated pages, known as “URL discovery.” When Google discovers your new blog post, it will begin to examine the page to understand both the content and context by analyzing the text, images, videos, key content tags, attributes, and more. Google’s algorithm considers 200 different factors when ranking a site on a search engine results page (SERP). Then, your page will be “indexed,” which means Google will use the information gathered to store the URL in its database.
Finally, Google will begin serving search results. This means your post could appear in one of the top search results when someone searches for something related to your blog topic. Search results are determined by the quality and relevance of the query.
Link Building
Inbound links, which are when another website links to a specific page on your website, are considered the highest factor when Google ranks a site; followed closely by outbound. The reason inbound links are so heavily weighted is because Google sees that you are, or are becoming, an authority on a particular topic. And Google also likes for you to share some of the love with other sites as well.
Linking to other websites in the same genre that are well-known or have a high authority will help tremendously. This is because Google values quality over quantity. However, if you have a quality blog that another credible site links to, this will increase your ranking tremendously. There is a reason it’s called the internet!
Drive Website Traffic
A blog keeps your website fresh with new and relevant content. A study conducted by HubSpot marketing found that websites with a blog produce 55% more traffic than websites without one. That’s a big difference.
Every time you write and publish a new blog, you’re giving your website the opportunity to rank for one or more keywords around the topic of the article. Take this very blog that you’re reading, for example. Say you Google “the importance of having a blog” and a URL shows up near the top of the SERP. You click it. Now you’re here.
To make that happen, Google crawled this page and determined it provides the proper content and context to best explain why it’s important to have a blog. Google prides itself on creating value at lightning speed for its users. And while a blog may take a bit longer to read than the blink of an eye, the writer should always keep that focus word – value – front of mind.
The more you write and publish, the more opportunities there are to rank high on the SERP for select keywords around your industry and therefore drive more organic traffic to your site.
Build Trust With Your Audience
Sharing your experience and expertise via your blog is a great way to build audience trust. If you can help someone overcome a problem, then they’re going to rely on you the next time they need an answer to a query regarding your specific industry. These folks will also talk about you with their peers, thus utilizing the best kind of marketing — word of mouth. Creating that trust by becoming a thought leader and a resource within your industry can help grow your website’s organic growth year over year.
Generate New Leads
Along with growing organic traffic and building trust with your audience, a blog is also a great place to capture leads, i.e. email addresses. In today’s time, one email address is worth a lot. When someone signs up for email, they want to hear what you have to say. They want you to contact them.
Building an email list can be extremely difficult (trust us, we’re working hard on it everyday), but having a blog with relevant content that people trust will quickly advance the relationships of the consumer and your brand.
Social Media Content
Social media platforms are a fun and easy way to share content around your business. Once your blog is published on your site, you can share a link to your social media channels, encouraging your followers to check it out. In fact, blogs can produce a ton of helpful information of which you can share tidbits via social media. Needless to say, one blog can provide at least a week’s worth of social posts.
Maintaining your blog is very important. Don’t just post and forget about it. Think of it like a plant that needs nurturing. Update those blogs that are doing really well every year or so to ensure they’re relevant to the times. Remember, the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.
