When I was preparing to launch my computer repair business at the end of 2015, I was told that having a blog on my business website would be good for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). At the time all things SEO was new to me and I didn’t understand why or how having a blog would be good for my SEO. After writing a couple of short posts, and having very little inspiration, I ran out of ideas and stopped blogging.
It was almost four years later, after relocating my business, before I wrote my next blog post. By this stage, I had a much clearer understanding of exactly how a blog could benefit my SEO and facilitate the growth of my business.
The purpose of this article is to look at how maintaining a blog on your business website can benefit your SEO. In other words, how can your business blog contribute to higher rankings in an internet search for your business site? As such, your business blog isn’t an end in itself, but a means to an end in facilitating the success of your business.
So let’s look at three ways in which a business blog can help with your SEO.
Quality Content
A blog on your business website allows you to explore topics in much more depth than you would elsewhere on your site. You can use the blog to educate your audience, elaborate on your products and services, and provide solutions for your customers. The posts don’t necessarily have to be promotional in nature. In fact, it’s better than the blog posts are more informational than promotional.
An SEO Sydney expert says as you write content for your blog, remember to keep your customers in mind, and liberally incorporate keywords and search terms that they might use when searching for content. Think about the intent of the search queries and questions your customers might have and endeavor to provide answers. A blog post gives you the opportunity to provide much more detail than you might have done on a product or service page. As a result, Google and other search engines may well rank your blog posts more highly than your product and service pages. You can then direct the reader to wherever else on your website you’d like them to go, through links included in the content.
In general, Google ranks longer content more highly in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). However, it’s not just a case of writing more for the sake of it. The content needs to be in-depth, comprehensive and focused on the topic you want to rank for. Neil Patel has written a great piece on this entitled, ‘Is Longer Really Better? How Focused and Comprehensive Content Ranks Better’.
Not only does Google respond favorably to quality, longer form, content, but also to fresh content. Writing blog posts is probably the easiest way to keep providing fresh content on your site. It’s also possible to keep your content fresh by going back and updating previous posts. You can read lots more about how to make the most of fresh content by reading this excellent post at Moz written by Cyrus Shepard.
Establishing Expertise
Much has been written in recent years about E-A-T. The letters stand for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, and the term comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. As far as Google is concerned, the level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness embodied in a webpage is very important. For this reason, you should make every effort to develop and demonstrate these qualities in your writing.
As you write your blog posts, your expertise in your field should come across clearly. As a genuine expert, you should be able to write from first-hand experience, with in-depth knowledge of your topic. Your authority is enhanced if your business and your website have a good reputation across the internet. This is of course facilitated by reviews and other positive comments written about you. Trust is about the legitimacy, transparency, and accuracy of your website. This involves things such as providing full contact details, your business terms and conditions, your privacy policy, and so on.
As a business owner, in all likelihood, you are an expert in your field. If you’ve started your own business and built it successfully then it’s safe to say that you have quite some expertise. Make the most of this in your writing by demonstrating and articulating what you know. Such content will outshine that written on similar topics by content writers who don’t know the subject material inside out as you do.
If you want to learn more about E-A-T, Joshua Hardwick at Ahrefs has written a great post entitled ‘What is E‑A-T? Why It’s Important for SEO’.
Link-Building
Backlinks from other websites, particularly authoritative sites, are crucial for successful SEO. Having a solid backlink profile will result in your site ranking well in Google as it provides your site with a stronger reputation. This links back to what I’ve just been saying about establishing expertise. A strong backlink profile provides your site with a greater sense of authoritativeness.
Blogging is one of the most natural ways in which to create links back to your site. Google has this to say about link-building.
“The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”
As you write quality content on your blog, which is of genuine use to your readers, they may well choose to link to your content in future posts of their own. There is no better, or more natural, way to grow your backlinks.
You may have noticed the three blog posts I’ve referenced earlier in this piece, from Neil Patel, Moz, and Ahrefs. Whilst researching this article, the posts written by these authors proved to be a valuable resource for me. Of course, these are three of the world’s foremost authorities on these topics. My point is that their previously written expert posts proved useful in enhancing this article, and my links back to their posts were entirely natural.
Very few of us will ever attain the standing and reputation of Neil Patel, Moz, or Ahrefs, but the goal is to provide such quality of writing that your posts become a resource worth linking back to.
Conclusion
So there you have three ways in which blogging for your business can help with your SEO. Writing quality content and posting regularly gives Google something to discover and index. Demonstrating your expertise shows Google that your content should be ranked more highly than that of your competitors. And writing content that is good enough to generate natural backlinks is a win-win in every way possible.
The three goals of quality content, establishing expertise, and building links, are intimately interwoven. As you begin to hit the mark, your rankings will rise, resulting in even greater visibility for your writing. This means more eyeballs on your content and more natural links back to your posts. And so the cycle continues.
