Are you familiar with search engine optimisation and what it means for your business?
In short, SEO is optimising the content on your website or webpage using specific keywords so that your business shows up in organic search results within search engines. The better your SEO, the higher your business will rank in search results and the more likely it is that a user will click on your webpage and user your product or service.
The best way to optimise your SEO is to include specific keywords in your web content including the code of your website and any media you use, as well as text on any web pages. However, it’s likely that your competitors will be doing the same thing and you’ll need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. That’s where blogging comes in.
Already Blogging? Great!
Blogging is often the first thing new businesses try to increase their SEO opportunities. But if more business is your goal, just having a blog and writing about whatever you fancy often isn’t enough to win people over. Blogging should definitely include an element of the personality behind the brand but in SEO terms, a blog article should be carefully planned and executed to ensure higher search engine rankings and more traffic to your site. The good news is, if you’re already blogging about your business you’ll have built up at least a few articles which you can effectively go back to and edit for SEO, and if you’re new to blogging now is the best time to start using the tips below.
How do I Start a Blog?
If you have a website it’s likely you already have the tools required to start a business blog. Instead of adding new pages to your website you can simply add new “posts”, which can include written text and multimedia including photos, images and videos. When blogging first took off back in the early 1990’s most bloggers had a separate blog site from their business website (or only had a blog with just a feed of posts along with other minimal information such as a name, avatar or and email address). But now having your blog on the same website as your other business info is extremely beneficial, meaning any content you add to your blog will count towards your business ranking score on search engines. Not only that but blog platforms (and blog integrations on websites) are typically free. You just need some time and creativity to get going.
What does SEO “Ranking” Mean? And Why Do I Need to Understand it?
It’s important to understand SEO ranking so that you can optimise your web content to ensure more customers see your business. If, for example, you run a hairdressing salon and someone in your area searches for “Hairdresser near me” then your name should pop up in the local results, as will other hairdressers near the user. Getting found in local search results is a specific type of SEO which we’ve provided some extra tips on to get you started. Search engines use bots which ‘crawl’ the internet for the websites and index them which is essentially like putting websites into categories.
Search engines also use algorithms to rank your page dependent on how relevant and popular your page is which is, in part, decided by the number of relevant and good quality links to your site. Organic results are where you are shown on a search results page dependent on both these factors. Ranking is important as a search engine uses this information to determine which page and position to feature you on, or whether to feature your business at all. To get your business seen by potential customers you’ll need to apply search engine optimisation tactics to your website and blog to increase your SEO chances.
How Can I Make My Blog Successful?
Blogging is an opportunity to not only show off the benefits of your business but also to create a bond between your brand and your readers. Some good topics for blog content are FAQs, storytelling about the how your business came to be, showcasing industry statistics and of course featuring products and services that you offer.
Your content will need to include your key words, which are the words and phrases your potential customers will be using in a search engine. For example if you’re a florist your keywords might be “Wedding Bouquets” or “Valentine’s Day Flowers”. By looking at your competitors’ keywords, how they rank in search results and by using tools such as Google’s keyword planner you can create a list of keywords to include on your website. You can tweak this list to more niche ideas and then set about writing blogposts that specifically include them in the header of the blogpost, the body and the alt text of any images.
How Else Can Blogging Improve my Website’s SEO?
Other tips to improve your SEO through blogging include:
- Include relevant, interesting and engaging content that also includes a call to action.
- Use internal linking where you link back to other existing content on your site.
- Remember to focus on your keywords and locations in your blogpost which is especially important if you offer local products and services.
- Update your blog regularly to keep the content fresh but remember that quality and consistency are key. There’s no need to be churning out content if it’s irrelevant or sloppy.
- Promote your blog through other channels such as social media to drive more traffic to your site.
- Make the most of the tag and category options when creating a blogpost. They offer an easy opportunity for you to include your keywords and relevant information.
If you’re serious about improving your website’s SEO, promoting your business online, and driving more traffic and sales then blogging is an easy way to improve your chances in this. Not only can you increase views to your website by blogging about your brand, you can invite people to guest post on your blog or write for other businesses and link back to your own website.
Try blogging today – it’s a cost-effective marketing tool for all small businesses!
