Creating content for your website, as everyone in the SEO industry knows, involves more than just writing compelling web copy. Even if you leverage newsletters and algorithm-readable contact details, schema markups, and PPC marketing campaigns, there’s still a missing piece to the puzzle.
If you haven’t been paying any attention to the blog section on your website, you’re missing out on an SEO goldmine.
Why are Blogs so Important?
If you’re running a plumbing service in Atlanta or a luggage storage service in Austin, you might wonder why any prospective customer would waste time reading a blog on your webpage when they’re looking for a plumber or a luggage storage facility.
Well, according to TechJury, if you add a blog to a website, your traffic can increase by 434%—and that’s a whopping statistic on its own. Over 5,000,000 blogs have been written—and these are only on WordPress!
Why do you think businesses are spending resources on hiring professional website optimization services and content creators to blog for them so aggressively? It’s because people definitely read blogs and because blogs go a long way in helping traffic grow and in helping push a website’s ranking higher on SERPs.
TechJury contends that 77% of all users on the internet read blogs, and we’re compelled to agree. Not only do blogs help with SERP rankings, but they also increase both traffic and revenue. This is because people read blogs:
- To see if you’re an industry leader
- To see if you’re running a legitimate business: usually, spam websites and fraudulent service providers will either have no blogs or badly written word vomit on their website, which is a major giveaway
- To find out more about your product and service
- To see how personable your brand appears—blogs written in friendly tones invite messages and queries
We think that’s enough said about the why of blogging on your website—because something else that’s equally important is the how. How do you do blogging in a manner that can:
- Increase engagement with your readers?
- Go from visitors to conversions to customers?
- Boost traffic and tap into new target markets?
Here’s how:
1. Creating Viral Content
No matter how consistently good the content you create is, it’s all about the viral posts that can propel you to the zenith of fame.
Think back to the most memorable posts you’ve seen on social media: these were not the posts you remember for their authenticity or information. The ones you remember are the ones that had infectious content.
So how exactly do you create viral content? It’s actually a pretty easy formula if you’re active on social media websites, especially Facebook and Twitter. All you need to do is know what’s trending, what biggest “memes” are making the rounds, what person is being celebrated or admonished, etc., and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what people are generally concerned about. You can then create blogs and orient your content around this awareness.
2. Evergreen Content
This is in some ways the antithesis of viral content, since it’s supposed to be free from the constraints of a particular time or place.
With evergreen posts, you’re aiming for something that people will be sure to come back to. It could be funnily written content or something that gives people a tidbit of information that they never had.
What you’re aiming for here isn’t a regurgitation of old content or clichéd balderdash. You’re looking for originality, creativity, innovation, and interaction all in one.
3. Long Tail Keywords are Long-Lasting
There’s a reason why SEO specialists pay so much attention to long tail keywords. It’s because they have remarkable long-term efficacy with regard to rankings.
When you begin, make a spreadsheet. Use one of the many keyword tools available to carry out your initial keyword research. Soon enough, you’ll have a list of keywords that are high ranking or some that have been trending lately. These definitely go into your arsenal.
Not only should you be optimizing your content for long tail keywords, but you should also be optimizing everything else in your blog post: this includes the media (images and videos), the URL, the meta tags et al. If you want your blog post to show up on the prized top positions on SERPs, make sure you’re making a hard effort to get there.
4. Males Still Matter
We meant mails, of course, the homophone was just to get your attention. And now that we have your attention, here’s an interesting bit of information: 293.6 million emails were sent out last year. And if you think email marketing is dead, then here’s another interesting bit of information: if you’re spending a dollar on email marketing, you can expect to make $42 back on average.
So when you’re focusing on making your blog interactive, make readers subscribe, and once they do, don’t lose touch with them. Send them personalized emails or respond to their queries. This is especially important if you’re a small business just starting out. For example, sending out emails about a new blog that’s up will definitely boost traffic.
5. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a pretty great technique for people who want to get their websites to rank higher but haven’t a clue about how to get backlinks from authoritative resources.
Guest blogging involves writing an informative, authoritative piece for a blogging website that’s already established, one that’s already being crawled and indexed by Google and other search engines.
While professional link building services are definitely the better option, guest blogging works too. If you have a blog that you’d really like to increase traffic on, hyperlink to it in the Call to Action for your guest blogging posts.
6. Invigilate and Make Changes
Never ignore your blogs once you have published them. Always keep a close eye on the number of visitors you’re getting and whether you’re getting engagement or not.
While performing an SEO audit is definitely one way of doing this, there’s another way: checking the comments. This is done even more easily if you’re posting on a social media platform such as Facebook.
Reading the comments of your readers gives you pretty great insight into how your blog is doing, without even performing an SEO audit. In the worst-case scenario, you might not have many readers at all—but at least that tells you something.
Observe consumer behavior and expectations in this manner and then re-structure and re-shape your content. Start over.
7. And Finally, Interact
Communication is the key to success. Make sure you’re maximizing your use of comments and emails and queries.
One great way of keeping your viewers coming back is to turn their questions into posts. If you feel like one of them has asked a question that others might have and that might make for a good blog post, go write about it.
The viewers will feel connected, you’ll get a lot of good rep and shares, and it will definitely lead to more conversions and traffic on your site!
