Why you NEED a blog on your website

Over the past month or so, we have had several clients come to us seeking advice about "How can I get found on the search engines?"  Our answer has consistently been - "Start a blog".

Why is a blog so important? There are several reasons why blogs are great, but really we want to focus on the most important one, which answers the question of how to get found by Google:

Blogs are the most cost effective way to improve the search engine rankings of your website.

First of all, let's clear up what we mean by a "blog". Basically a blog is just an informational website or part of a website consisting of different posts, or articles.

Usually a blog allows for users to leave comments, and that's a great feature but for our purposes not completely necessary (although, again - a very nice feature).

Content is King

Secondly, let me explain what the number one ingredient is to making your website appear on the first page of Google: content. The text, verbiage, wording, words, etc. on your page is what Google craves. If the words on your webpage are crumbs, Google is like a hungry puppy dog searching the floor for every dropped morsel it can find. If your website doesn't have very many crumbs...Google will quickly move on to the NEXT website.

The reason we recommend blogs so often is that they provide that content for search engines like Google. Particularly if you are a small business or non-profit, you probably need more content for your website. Many of our clients have 5 - 10 page websites, yet their competition on the internet has websites with 30 - 50 pages. Not exactly an even playing field when it comes to who is going to appear higher up on Google.

So what do you put on your blog? The simple answer is anything remotely related to your industry.

Let's think about what the goal is first and then work backwards. We want to feed Google words. More precisely, we want to feed Google keywords that relate to our business.  If you do web design, lawn care, or hair cuts you want to feed Google the keywords "web design", "lawn care", and "hair cuts", respectively.

Any topic you can think of that will naturally include those keywords is what you're looking for.

It will take time. Even if you only write once every other month, you're still adding valuable content to your website. But for many small businesses it's the best and most cost effective way to improve your search engine rankings.

The Importance of Article Writing

A very helpful tip for improving your online presence that we are highlighting this week is article writing. Article writing can be a chore and it's difficult to make the time for it, but it's extremely helpful and we strongly recommend everyone use it as part of their online strategy.

Help Before You Sell

The first reason we recommend that you engage in article writing (some people prefer the term "blogging") is that it gives you credibility. With article writing, you can achieve "expert status" in the eyes of your potential consumers. That may be enough to distinguish you from the competition. Help your potential customers first, and they will be more willing to trust you with their hard earned cash.

Content is King

The second reason articles are so helpful is that search engines LOVE good content, which they will find in your articles. There isn't a better way to help your website rise in the search engine rankings than supplying great content to your website. In many markets, it's very possible to be ranked #1 in Google simply from having a Search Engine friendly website and a steady supply of unique articles.

Goals in Article Writing

As we alluded to in our web content writing guide, there are different goals in writing web content for your website. Primarily your goals in article writing are educational. Like we mentioned, you also want to write for search engines, but it's very likely that your articles will just naturally have good keywords in them without you having to intentionally put them in.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you want to keep promotional writing to a minimum. In other words, don't just talk about how great your business is and why your readers should hire you. That's not the purpose of the article. It's recommended that no more than once per article you inform your users of your services. The way you do it is also important...we suggest saying something like "oh by the way, if you want help in this area we can help you, so click here". Don't make your services the focus - keep the focus on helping your readers by educating them. Your readers are looking for helpful information, not a sales pitch.

What to Write About

Here are some ideas on topics for your articles:

• Do-it-yourself tips
  
• Product reviews
• Industry news
• Helpful tips and ideas for your customers
• Client of the Month feature
• Interview style article of industry expert
• How-to training article
  

How Often to Post

We recommend that at a minimum you're posting new, helpful information at least once every 2 months. Ideally it will be much more often than that, but this is a good starting point for most people. We post two articles every month. Figure out what your goal is, what works for you, and stick to it.

Once you publish your article on your website, it's a good idea to announce it to the world. We recommend at a minimum that you post a link to your new articles on Facebook, Twitter, etc. We also suggest that you post them on article directories such as ezinearticles.com. This will help give you more exposure as well as bring incoming links to your website (good for SEO). It is a little time consuming to ensure that your articles get posted correctly in online directories but it's not difficult if you can put forth the extra effort.

The last thing to remember is have fun with it! No one is critiquing your grammar on the internet and as long as you're providing helpful information without ramming your own services in their face you should be successful. We plan on writing an article in the near future about the dynamics of a good article and what it takes to make each article successful. Stay tuned and happy writing!