Something I get all my clients to do, even before I start working with them on their digital marketing strategy, is starting a blog on their website. This is not easy because most small to medium size business owners are so busy they don’t have time to write a blog post on a regular basis. If you are reading this and you are that type of business owner let me tell you some reasons why having a blog on your website is so important from a search engine optimization (SEO) standpoint. If you are still not convinced then I will have other options as well on how to start and maintain a blog.
Search engine optimization (SEO) reasons why you should have a blog:
1: A top ranking factor for Google is to see that you have new and relevant content on your website on a consistent basis such as once a month or once a quarter at the very least.
2: Google looks at something called keyword density on your website to decided what your business is about and what you offer. The more relevant keywords you use related to your products or services the higher Google will ranking for that keyword in the search engines.
3: A blog lets your customers know you are an expert in your field if they can see a lot of educational blog posts on your website.
4: You can tag or cite other people or businesses in your industry to gain interest. If someone with many followers shares your content on their network it will give you a boost in traffic and rankings on the search engines
5: You can use your blog posts on your social media networks to keep your followers interested in your company and gain new followers which also helps push traffic to your website. This lets your previous and new customers stay in the loop of your new or existing products and services. If it catches their interest enough they might message, email, or even call you.
Adding a Blog:
You can add a blog on to any website no matter if it is a Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Squarespace, Wix, and any other website creation platform. If you don’t know how to do it you can contact your website guy. If you don’t have a website guy you can just contact us, Orange SEO, and we can set one up for you. I won’t explain how to add a blog on all the website platforms so I will just do it for the most popular one that many of my customers have which isWordPress. Now, WordPress is not my favorite platform to use but most of my clients use it because it is what they have had for years. There are newer a better platform in my opinion but everyone has different preferences.
WordPress Blog Setup:
1. Go to Categories and create new one and title is as blog or something with the blog name in it
2. Go to Post
3. Add a new post
4. Give the post a title of what you are writing about
5. Write the blog content in the body or description
6. Make sure you check off blog in the categories section next to the body
7. Add photos in to your blogs using add media next to the title
8. Press the publish button when you are done
9. Go to the menu section in appearance
10. Add a new link menu titled blog
11. Add the URL for the blog category to the menu link
12. Save the changes to the menu section
13. The blog link should be live on your website
14. Test it out on the website if you are having issues.
If you don’t see the blog link or you messed up you can watch this YouTube video for visual help
Lastly, if you know you can’t keep up with a blog on a monthly or quarterly basis you can hire a content writer or you can have one of your staff write it for you. At Orange SEO we have writers that will put content on your blogs and distribute it on multiple online networks. In the long run, you are going to need a blog section if you want to rank high on the search engines. It does not have to be the best blog ever but it does have to consist of your time or your money to get it done. It will help get new customers to the website and keep them there so you don’t have customers leaving your website after a couple seconds. Most importantly Google will start to notice your website more over time and rank you higher.