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How Blogging Helps Your Search Engine Marketing

Now that there are sites like Tumblr and WordPress, it is much easier to create and maintain a blog no matter what level of proficiency you are in terms of technology or code. Besides having a space to share your information, blogging can actually do wonders for your website’s search engine marketing efforts and get you ranking for the key phrases you need.

Blogging is more than just writing something clever or attention-grabbing, it has to have a strategy, just like every other marketing technique. Some might thinkblogging that blogging only as a way for businesses and people to write whatever they feel. In fact, there should be much more work that goes into it. Here’s our best tips for using your blog effectively.

You Have to Know What to Write

Writers have a saying that “you should write what you know.” While that might work if you are planning on penning a novel, blogging from a business standpoint is somewhat different. The trick is to be both informative and attention-grabbing, without being too highfalutin or sensational. Think about what would grab your customer’s attention. Think about something that confuses them, find the answer and then write it in an easier way. Think about something that hasn’t been said about the subject. Take the idea and look at it from multiple angles. One easy trick, type your subject into Google News and see what the most recent developments are and go from there.

Know What You’re Going To Say

Our teachers have been saying “make a brainstorm, an outline, and then a rough draft” since the beginning of time and you know what? They knew what they were saying. If you are writing a particularly long blog post, having a rough outline at the very least will keep you on track and will help your readers quickly find the information they were searching for in your article. In our society of 24/7 content and instant gratification, you have to accept that people may not be reading the entire post, but if you have a clear outline of your points, your searcher should be able to find what they are looking for quickly instead of immediately bouncing.

Google Wants the Good Stuff

Ah, the Almighty Google. How often we meet here at Online Optimism.

Google’s search engine algorithm is designed to gather and glean the most valuable sources in a millisecond every time someone has a search query. In order to even be considered as a search result, Google has to determine that your content is relevant and informative enough for the user. They do this through many factors including: keywords, meta-descriptions, URLs, heading counts, word count, backlinks, image descriptions, and a host of other variables. You can use whatever keyword research you prefer like Google Keyword Planner, Wordstream, SEMrush, what have you but know this: because of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm, long-tailed keywords are being targeted more than in previous updates. This is both good and bad for bloggers. On one hand, it is harder to get quantifiable estimates for long-tailed keywords and on the other hand, more focus on long-tailed keywords makes it easier to rank and has higher probability of becoming a conversion. It does require a certain finesse that can be learned.

Blogging Helps Businesses Be Found

So instead of putting every keyword that you want to rank for on your homepage, blogging can help you to streamline that desire. If you have different facets of your business you can use blogging to advertise and rank for them. Let’s pretend you are a furniture store. You have a wide range of products: couches, chairs, office furniture, bedroom furniture, etc. While you [should] have the tags for these products on your homepage, you can blog about each facet of your collection, not only using those keywords more than once but as a branding method. Like social media profiles, your blog can serve as a unique voice for your business and be a way of expanding your search engine marketing efforts.

Do you have questions about blogging or SEO for your site or company? Do you need a WordPress website design to blog on?
Give Online Optimism a call at 504-324-0073 and we can help get your blog started and get you ranking the way you need!