Why your business should write blog posts
When I say blogs, bloggers and blogging, what do you think? Do you think of young, trendy influencers showcasing their polished lives to countless loyal followers?
The blog: your secret weapon for business success and search engine optimization
In that case, it's time to think a little more nuanced about the blog format. Because a blog can be much more than a showcase for aspiring celebrities.
You can also blog on behalf of your business - whether you're a mover, physiotherapist, carpenter or dentist.
A blog can be a valuable asset for your website in the fight for good search engine rankings. In other words, it can be a vital part of your SEO strategy. And if you play your cards right, your loyal followers can become your loyal customers.
I go into that in depth in this blog post about... well, blog posts.
1. You create value for your customers - and for Google!
In marketing, you sometimes come across the term "content marketing". We've touched on it before in our guide to writing a great landing page.
Content marketing can be anything from newsletters and guides to podcasts, webinars and videos - and of course blog posts.
Like all marketing, content marketing aims to attract and retain customers. But content marketing also aims to deliver content that benefits the recipient.
In other words, content marketing should create value for your customers - not just for you and your business. It's audience-centric marketing.
Content marketing also has a positive side effect: Google rewards you with better rankings in search engine results. Google judges a website's content based on how relevant it is to the user. And if there's one thing Google finds relevant, it's well-written, user-oriented, quality content.
Good content marketing doesn't just create value for your customers. Google will also find it valuable - and that can drive more traffic to your website.
So how can you use content marketing on your blog?
Your experience and expertise determines the content of your content marketing. You know what creates value for your customers.
- Do you have a dental clinic? Write a blog post about how to avoid tooth decay and gingivitis.
- Are you a bike mechanic? Create a guide on how to tighten the front brake on your bike.
- Do you own a cleaning company? Explain to your readers how they can easily manage their daily cleaning.
You might think it's commercial suicide to give away your trade secrets to your customers.
As a bike mechanic, you repair your customers' bikes for a living. If you run a cleaning company, your customers' dirt is your livelihood. And if you're a dentist, your patients' poor oral hygiene pays your rent and salary.
So why on earth would you miss a chance to monetize knowledge that your customers don't have - but you do?
Don't worry. You might lose customers for the service you're blogging about. But your customers will come back - or maybe they'll be convinced that they'd rather leave the job to you after reading your advice and getting an insight into your level of professionalism.
Let me try to illustrate this with an example:
Let's pretend you're an avid recreational runner. You've come across an article in a running magazine about how foot position and weight determine the choice of running shoes. The article makes you wonder if your current and relatively new running shoes are even suitable for you.
So you visit a few sports shops for advice and guidance.
Sports Store 1 is a local store where the employees are experienced shop assistants with customer care as their top priority.
Sportsbutik 2 is part of a large chain and the employees are commissioned salespeople with sales as their first priority.
In the first sports store, you learn that recent research actually shows that it's not running style and weight that determines the choice of running shoes - but the personal experience of comfort, quality, cushioning and support. You'll agree with yourself that your current running shoes are actually quite comfortable.
You leave the store without buying anything. But you no longer doubt your running shoes. The visit to the store gave you value in the form of knowledge and certainty.
However, in the second sports store you are told that because of the position and weight of your feet, you should buy the most cushioning, supportive and expensive running shoes in the store. You wonder if the clerk in the first store was right.
So you leave the store with a new pair of shoes - and a few thousand dollars less in your bank account. But after a few runs in the new shoes, you realize that your old running shoes were just as good.
The visit to the store didn't give you any value - quite the opposite. On the contrary, you've become DKK 2,000 poorer.
Which store will you return to the next time you need to buy sports equipment? Of course, where you got advice that was of value to you.
Similarly, your readers will return to your business if you are generous with the advice on your blog.
2. A blog builds bridges
In short, link building is the process of building bridges between pages - both internally between the subpages of a website and externally between different websites.
Internal link building is the work of building links between the different subpages on your own website, where external link building is the work of obtaining (quality) links from other sites - the so-called backlinks.
Internal link building helps to create coherence between the subpages of your website and enhance the user experience. A website with good internal consistency will also increase the likelihood that Google will understand what it's about.
External link building is also highly effective in driving traffic to your website because it tells Google that your website is relevant and of high quality. However, external link building is a more difficult discipline, as you can't control whether others will link to your site. But it's not impossible.
Let me give you a few examples of how you can use your blog for both internal and external link building.
How you can use your blog for internal link building
A dental clinic has a website. On the homepage, there is a menu titled "treatments", which has a number of menu items, each with its own subpage. For example, there is a page about dental check-ups, one about caries treatment, etc.
The clinic also has a blog on the website. Here the staff give advice to their patients and others with an interest in dentistry. Of course, the blog should create value for readers. But it can also be used for internal link building.
Let's say the clinic writes a blog post with tips for brushing your teeth. It would make sense for the post to link to the subpages on caries and dental check-ups - and vice versa.
Of course, it's not only dentists who can use their blog for internal link building. No matter what industry you're in, there are plenty of opportunities to connect the pages on your website with a blog.
- Are you a mover? Link to the moving boxes and packing subpages in a moving tips blog post.
- Do you have a webshop where you sell wine? Create links to your best Italian wines in a blog post with Italian wine recommendations.
- Do you work at a web agency? Link to the website and SEO subpages in a blog post about why companies should write blog posts.
External link building is harder - but not impossible
As mentioned, external link building is significantly more difficult because it places high demands on the quality of your blog if other sites have to link to it. But it pays off if you succeed. Google rewards so-called quality links with better rankings - and penalizes "bad" links with the opposite.
An example of a quality link is a link to a restaurant's website in the online version of the Politiken iByen section. Here, there is a credible source behind the link to the website. Google likes that.
An example of a bad link is a link on a so-called private blogging network (PBN). PBNs are essentially fake blogs that web agencies use solely to link to their clients' websites.
In other words, PBNs are used exclusively to disguise links as informative blog posts. These kinds of pseudo-blog posts are also known as "link building articles". Google doesn't like them very much.
I've written countless link building articles for just as many PBNs when I worked for another web agency. And I can almost guarantee that not a single one of them has ever been read.
PBNs are a no go. But how do you get links to your blog and website?
Of course, you need to produce quality content that credible sources deem relevant to your target audience. And that requires, above all, your own expertise and knowledge of your industry.
3. You get found on specific searches
Well-chosen keywords are an important part of your SEO strategy. For example, if you have a cleaning company in Copenhagen, an obvious keyword would be "cleaning Copenhagen".
The problem is that there are many cleaning companies in Copenhagen. And they're all trying to rank for the keyword "cleaning Copenhagen". That's why it takes a serious amount of SEO to get a first place ranking for a generic keyword with many monthly searches.
Because the greater the competition, the more you have to do to achieve - and maintain - a good position in the search engines. And the more common your service is in your local area, the harder it will be to get to the front of the queue on Google - or Bing and Yahoo for that matter.
So what can you do to make your website stand out in search results?
Sometimes it pays to be humble. Sure, you can target a lot of visitors with a generic keyword with thousands of monthly searches.
But the high competition can actually make it more attractive to target a smaller audience - and in turn increase the chance of being found.
It's a bit like trying to win the first prize in the lottery. Here, the chance of winning the big prize is 1/10,000,000,000. If you go for a more modest prize, the chances of winning are almost infinitely greater.
Similarly, it pays not to be too greedy in the fight for a top spot on Google. After all, there may be 10,000 potential customers for a keyword like "cleaning Copenhagen".
But if you don't reach any of them, it's clearly more favorable to target a smaller but more reachable audience with a more specific and longer keyword. For example, it could be: "How do I remove limescale from the grout in my bathroom?".
These longer, specific keywords are called "long tail keywords". And you can use them in your texts if you want to attract potential customers to your website.
The readers you reach with long tail keywords will also typically be somewhere else in the customer journey. Often they haven't decided to buy a product or service yet - they may just need to fulfill a need.
By targeting keywords people Google in the early part of the customer journey, you potentially mature your readers for the final stage of the buying process - where they actually decide to buy.
You can read more about keyword selection in relation to the customer journey in Webamp's post on keyword analysis.
So how do you get long tail keywords into your website?
For a page to be found for a keyword, the keyword must appear on the page a certain number of times. However, getting a long tail keyword to fit into the text on a landing page or product page can be a bit clumsy and forced.
For example, the keyword "how do I remove limescale from the grout in my bathroom?" would be difficult to get to appear x number of times in the text on a subpage about private cleaning.
Using the keyword in a blog post, on the other hand, will seem organic. At the same time, you create value for the Google users who search for that specific phrase.To take a masonry company, a bicycle mechanic, a dentist and a webshop selling stationery as examples of long tail keywords:
- How do you insulate cavity walls?
- How do you tighten a bike chain?
- How do I get rid of my dental fear?
- Best ballpoint pen for left-handers
Of course, there will be more searches for the generic keyword "ballpoint pen" than the more specific "best ballpoint pen for left-handers". Therefore, the long and specific keyword won't attract as much traffic as the short one.
In turn, the traffic it attracts will be highly relevant.
4. A blog keeps your website alive
You might know the feeling of landing on a website that reminds you of a ghost town from a western. You can almost see the wind witches blowing across the screen and hear the wind howling hauntingly in the abandoned corners.
It certainly seems like the website hasn't been updated in months - maybe years. And you start to wonder if the company behind it even exists anymore.
Does it make you want to stay on the website? No, do you?
Why waste your time on a neglected website? If the company behind it doesn't even have the energy to care for their website, they probably don't have the energy to care for their customers either.
Your potential customers won't want to linger on your website if it radiates loneliness and lack of care from you and the rest of your business.
So how do you keep the heart rate up on your website?
It may seem a bit forced to keep updating your website with new subpages if you already have subpages with all your services.
For example, let's say you have a law firm specializing in family and inheritance law. For you, it would make sense to have a subpage on prenuptial agreements, one on wills, one on estate administration and one on child custody if those are the four areas you work with.
So how can you keep your website alive if it's already updated with all your services?
The answer is of course: blog posts.
Give your website a much-needed blood transfusion and a new lease of life with a few monthly blog posts. You know your industry inside and out, and you're sure to have a lot to say. You already use your knowledge of your profession in your work every day.
Transfer your knowledge from your everyday life to your website by writing good and relevant blog posts. This will ensure that your website is always updated and up to date. And that makes it more attractive.
Would you rather shop in a mall with many stores - or in a deserted pedestrian street?
You can compare it to choosing a place to buy your Christmas presents. On the one hand, you have the opportunity to shop in Magasin on the first Saturday after payday. On the other hand, you have a deserted pedestrian street in a provincial town where half the shops have long since closed.
You don't need a master's degree in marketing economics to figure out that the first scenario has the best chance of meeting your buying needs. Similarly, if your website is always updated with new and varied content, your visitors will have more confidence that your business can meet their needs.
And there's an added bonus to updating your website regularly: your website will rank better in search engines.
Because Google's algorithms reward fresh content and information. A frequently updated website radiates activity and interaction.
5. Your visitors linger longer
Of course you want to attract visitors to your website. But if they click away just as quickly as they clicked in, their visit isn't worth much.
You can compare it to a visit to a clothing store. You enter the store to buy a new pair of gloves. But you realize that the store is out of gloves. Then you leave the store again. Why on earth would you stay when the store doesn't have what you need?
If the store had a large selection of gloves, you would have stayed longer and tried on more different gloves. You might even have bought other products because you realized during your stay that the store actually had more to offer than just gloves.
The same goes for visitors to your website. They won't stick around if your website doesn't have content that is relevant to them. Conversely, valuable and informative content will reassure them that your site is actually worth a visit and a longer stay.
Your visitors should linger and stay - not disappear
Of course you want to attract visitors to your website. But if they click away just as quickly as they clicked in, their visit isn't worth much.
You can compare it to a visit to a clothing store. You enter the store to buy a new pair of gloves. But you realize that the store is out of gloves. Then you leave the store again. Why on earth would you stay when the store doesn't have what you need?
If the store had a large selection of gloves, you would have stayed longer and tried on more different gloves. You might even have bought other products because you realized during your stay that the store actually had more to offer than just gloves.
The same goes for visitors to your website. They won't stick around if your website doesn't have content that is relevant to them. Conversely, valuable and informative content will reassure them that your site is actually worth a visit and a longer stay.
So how do you make your visitors stay a little longer?
Of course, you need to write engaging blog posts that are relevant to the user - blog posts that make the user want to stay on your site.
Quality content that is relevant to visitors is one of the best tools to get them to stay on your site. A good blog can help increase the dwell time on your website.
Get help with your blog posts
If you're looking for inspiration to write your first blog post, read my guide for the aspiring copywriter.
Do you find it hard to find time to blog in your busy schedule? Or are you just not sure where or how to start?
Contact Amplify - your SEO agency - on +45 70 60 50 28 or info@amplify.dk and let one of our copywriters help write engaging and search engine friendly blog posts for your business.
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