How blogging can improve your businesses SEO

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SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of which using different techniques, a business attempts to rank its search listings higher in search results. The aim of which is to create increased web traffic, creating more leads and ultimately increasing revenue.

According to Zhang & Cabbage (2016), SEO has three main strategies: Content, Link building & Social Sharing.

Blogs are an option which helps with every section of SEO, on top of its benefits for content marketing and brand building. Blogs can be adapted to budget and also provide ways to build new networks online and in your industry, creating two-way communications and deeper personal relationships with your target market.


Heres how blogs can help with your content, link building and social SEO Strategies:

Content:

Search Engine algorithms preferentially rank sites which are providing fresh content. A website publishing consistent new content will rank higher than an equal website that isn’t providing new content. By having a blog, you have the ability to consistently add new content to the website.

Googles algorithm prioritises content which can help solve peoples everyday problems. Remember, Search engines aim to provide the most useful and relevant search results. Furthermore, if you’re helping people solve problems, you’re content is more likely to be shared across social media and lead to higher SERPS (Search Engine Ranking positions).

You should aim to create content that can be seen as different or unique in the field you are in. incorporating various content types can help, such as: Photography, Videos, Podcasting or Tools & plugins.


Read more about content here: What kind of content will crush it for your business?

Link building:

For those new to SEO, “link building” or “Backlinking” may be new concepts, but are vital to good SEO. Blogs provide a great opportunity to create natural backlinks to your own content. Guest posting on blogs helps also create good backlinks, as well as creating a natural opportunity to network and share your expertise. You have to be vigilant with guest posting though: Quality content is king. Many guest posts out there could just be used as a way to build a high quantity of links, with little quality. Therefore, when using guest blogs, rather than see it as a link building exercise, see it as a chance to share high quality content then link build. Writing for blogs with higher domain authority could land you a higher SERPS, then with good quality anchor links lead to increased traffic to your site.

Further tips:

Don’t buy backlinks: Google and other Search engines are cracking down on blackhat SEO such as this and will remove you from search results if caught.

Domain authority matters: The quality of the backlink matters, a longstanding high authority link as well as .edu or .gov links will have a massive effect on your SEO.

Read more:

Beginners guide to to Backlinking

How to build high quality backlinks

Using Guestographics for SEO

Blackhat SEO: Techniques to avoid

 

Social Sharing:

Combining your blog with Social Media will help to extend your reach and attract new visits. High quality content will also mean your blogs share ability will be much higher. This means that your ranking will increase as search engines perceive highly shared content as relevant and trustworthy. Furthermore, this creates further links to your site and helps your SERPS.

Different platforms have different best practices, so reading further into that may help. However, in the same way that quality content is king for SEO, it also rules on social media; increasing engagement and therefore how much it is shared. Ensure you’re putting out the best content you can, then matched by a solid social media strategy can provide good results for SEO. Even better, if you have a decent budget for your blog, you could utilise paid social ads on Facebook for example, to ensure the content is seen by those most likely to enjoy it.

There has been discussion on to what extent sharing affects rankings, and whilst its been shown that it has a positive effect, engines are still using links as the long standing method of establishing authority.

Further tips:

Ensure you provide a call to action to share the blog, as this means people will be more likely to do so.

Keep share ability in mind when creating your content

 

Read more:

5 Ways to improve your blogs social sharing

8 plugins to help social sharing for wordpress

 

Other key points:

Each blog posts provides an opportunity to rank for a key word –

Take advantage of useful plugins and tools that can help with your SEO – Here are some suggestions:

  • Market Samurai: See where you and your competitors are getting backlinks from
  • Google Search Console: See how Google views your blog – How it appears in search, what position, how many people clicked the link etc
  • Google Sitemaps plugin: Generates a sitemap you can then submit to Google to help your rankings
  • All-in-one SEO Pack: Multiple little devices to help SEO.
  • There are many other tools & plugins designed to help for SEO. Check out this article to see various types and how they can help.

 

There are also plenty of other useful insights into SEO from other companies and bloggers which can help get stuck into the details of different topics, with blogs such as Moz or the plentiful results of a search (should be the case from SEO specialists!)

Overall, its best to keep in mind Google and other search engines aim to provide relevant and useful content to its users, therefore its algorithms will be setup to find those. Ensure the content you provide is top quality first in order to drive results, keeping in mind how you can solve peoples problems in your industry.


References:

 

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