Blogging is a really popular buzz word in the marketing world right now, and when it comes to SEO [or Search Engine Optimization], it’s super hot. Blogging is a great tool to enhance your SEO efforts which in turn strengthens your SERP [or Search Engine Results Page] position. But why is this important and how does it work?
Google is the most popular search engine out there with 2.3 million Google searches every minute in 2016. This means businesses like yours have incredible potential to reach new audiences, but it also means there’s plenty of competition to be seen. Google is fiercely dedicated to providing the best experience for its searchers, so if you want Google to serve your content, it’s crucial that you play by the rules. Let’s break it down.
Back To Basics, What is SEO?
SEO is a combination of techniques that help increase your organic search visibility. In layman’s terms, SEO is how Google knows what results to show you when you enter a search.
For example, when I search, ‘Digital Marketing Agency San Antonio’, Tribu is listed as the fourth result behind two ‘Best of’ lists and a local competitor. We have a bit of work to do, but it’s a constant process that we’re happily [and transparently] tackling.
So how does blogging help you organically outrank your competitors?
Blogs Give Users What They’re Searching For
Regular blogging is a great way to ensure your visitors have a way to answer their questions. One of my favorite things about a blog is that it allows me to position a brand or company as a thought leader in that industry. The goal is to create fresh content that answers questions before the audience even knows they have them.
Opportunities to Build Backlinks
Backlinks are created when a site links to your site, much like I did with the Google fact in my second paragraph. Backlinks are crucial for SEO. Backlinks tell Google your site is a trusted source of popular information. Great blogs are full of useful information that others want to share with their audience, and when they do they create backlinks.
Fresh Content
It’s no secret that Google enjoys a fresh batch of content. While it’s difficult to constantly change the content on your website, fresh content is the norm with a blog. Posting once a week is a great place to start. After some time letting analytics gather around the blog’s activity, you can modify your posting schedule to best match what works for your audience.
Alt Text
Keywords are another hot subject in marketing right now. They help the Google ‘crawlers’ understand what is on your page and which user searches your content relates best to. Alt text is the text assigned to images in your blog. It provides another great opportunity to use a keyword or two to help Google understand what your content is about and choose to serve it over another source.
Builds a Larger Site [But Remember, It’s About Quality]
Before I dig into this point, it is important that I share with you that like most things in life, the value is in quality over quantity. Now with that being said, Google has proven to better rank a site that has more pages than one without. This has many factors to it: the site has be built smart, users must need and enjoy the content they interact with, it must be related to your purpose, I could go on. But what’s important here is that blogging gives you the opportunity to grow the depth of your site in an organized and strategic fashion.
Key Takeaways
What truly matters in the world of SEO is having fresh content that people engage with, trust and enjoy sharing. Blogs are a wonderful way to accomplish this. At Tribu, we know the power of a progressive blog schedule and offer it to our partners as a powerful tool for increasing SEO and ultimately reaching their goals.