The blog: your secret weapon for business success and search engine optimisation
If so, it's time to take a more nuanced view of the blog format. Because a blog can be much more than a showcase for aspiring celebrities.
There's also good reason to blog on behalf of your business, whether you're a removal man, physiotherapist, carpenter or dentist.
A blog can be a valuable asset for your website in the battle 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 this 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 touched on it previously in our guide to writing a good 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 recipient-focused marketing.
Content marketing also has a positive side effect: Google rewards you with better rankings in its search results. Among other things, Google assesses 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-focused quality content.
So good content marketing doesn't just create value for your customers. Google will also find it valuable, and that can bring more traffic to your website.
So how can you use content marketing on your blog?
Your experience and expertise determine what goes into your content marketing. You know what creates value for your customers.
- Do you run a dental clinic? Write a blog post about how to avoid cavities and gum disease.
- Are you a bike mechanic? Make a guide to tightening the front brake on a bike.
- Do you own a cleaning company? Explain to your readers the easiest way to handle the daily cleaning.
Perhaps you're thinking it's commercial suicide to hand your trade secrets over to your customers.
As a bike mechanic, you make your living repairing your customers' bikes. 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 wages.
So why on earth would you pass up a chance to make money from knowledge that you have and your customers don't?
Don't worry. You may well lose some customers for the service you blog about. But your customers will come back, or perhaps be convinced that they'd actually rather leave the job to you after reading your good advice and getting an insight into the depth of your expertise.
Let me try to illustrate this with an example:
Let's pretend you're a keen amateur runner. In a running magazine, you've come across an article saying that foot position and weight determine the choice of running shoes. The article makes you wonder whether your current, fairly new running shoes are even right for you.
So you visit a couple of sports shops for advice and guidance.
Sports shop 1 is a local shop where the staff are experienced shop assistants with customer care as their top priority.
Sports shop 2 is part of a large chain, and the staff are commission-based salespeople with sales as their top priority.
In the first sports shop, you're told that recent research actually shows it isn't running style and weight that determine the choice of running shoes, but rather your personal experience of comfort, quality, cushioning and support. You conclude that your current running shoes are actually pretty comfortable.
You leave the shop without buying anything. But you no longer doubt your running shoes. The visit to the shop gave you value in the form of knowledge and certainty.
In the second sports shop, however, you're told that because of the position of your feet and your weight, you should buy the shop's most shock-absorbing, supportive and expensive running shoes. You start to wonder whether the assistant in the first shop was right after all.
So you leave the shop with a new pair of shoes, and a couple of thousand kroner less in your bank account. But after a few runs in the new shoes, you find that your old running shoes were actually just as good.
So the visit to the shop gave you no value, quite the opposite. Instead, you're DKK 2,000 poorer.
Which shop will you go back to next time you need sports gear? The one where you got advice that gave you value, of course.
In the same way, your readers will come back to your business if you're generous with good advice on your blog.
2. A blog builds bridges
Blogging is an excellent opportunity for link building, which is probably one of the most important SEO activities.
If you're unsure what exactly link building is, I'd highly recommend reading Webamp's post “What do ancient Rome and link building have in common?”.
In short, link building is the work of building bridges between pages, both internally between the subpages of a website and externally between different websites.
So internal link building is the work of building links between the different subpages of your own website, whereas external link building is the work of getting (quality) links from other sites, known as backlinks.
Internal link building helps create coherence between the subpages of your website and improves the user experience. A website with good internal coherence also makes it more likely that Google understands what it's about.
External link building is also highly effective at bringing more traffic to your website, because it tells Google that your website is relevant and of high quality. However, external link building is a somewhat harder discipline, as you have no control over whether others will link to your site. But it's not impossible.
Let me give you a couple of examples of how you can use your blog for both internal and external link building.
How to use your blog for internal link building
A dental clinic has a website. On the website, there's a menu called “treatments” with a number of menu items, each with its own subpage. For example, there's a page about dental check-ups, one about treating tooth decay, etc.
The clinic also has a blog on the website. Here, the staff give good advice to their patients and others interested in dental care. The blog should of course 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 on brushing your teeth. Here, it would make sense for the post to link to the subpages about tooth decay and dental check-ups, and vice versa.
Of course, it's not only dentists who can use their blog for internal link building. Whatever industry you're in, there will be plenty of opportunity to create coherence between the pages on your website with a blog.
- Are you a removal man? Add links to the subpages about moving boxes and packing in a blog post with tips for moving house.
- Do you have a webshop selling wine? Add links to your best Italian wines in a blog post with recommendations for Italian wine.
- Do you work at a web agency? Add links to the subpages about websites and SEO in a blog post about why businesses should write blog posts.
External link building is harder, but not impossible
As mentioned, external link building is considerably more difficult, because your blog has to be of high quality if other sites are going to link to it. But it pays off if you succeed. Google rewards so-called quality links with better rankings, and penalises “bad” links with the opposite.
An example of a quality link is a link to a restaurant's website in the online version of Politiken's iByen section. Here, there's 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). In short, PBNs are fake blogs that web agencies use solely to link to their clients' websites.
In other words, PBNs are used purely to disguise links as informative blog posts. These pseudo blog posts are also known as “link building articles”. Google isn't so keen on those.
I've written countless link building articles for just as many PBNs myself, back when I worked for another web agency. And I'd almost dare promise that not a single one of them has ever been read.
So PBNs are a no-go. But then how do you get links to your blog and your website?
You need to produce quality content that credible sources consider relevant to your target audience, of course. And above all, that takes your own expert knowledge and familiarity with your industry.
3. You get found on specific searches
Well-chosen keywords are an important part of your SEO strategy. If you have a cleaning company in Copenhagen, for example, an obvious keyword would be “cleaning Copenhagen”.
The problem is that there are lots of cleaning companies in Copenhagen. And they're all trying to reach first place for the keyword “cleaning Copenhagen”. So it takes a serious round of SEO to fight your way up to first place on a generic keyword with lots of monthly searches.
Because the greater the competition, the more you have to do to achieve a good position in the search engines, and to keep it. 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 help your website fight its way up the search results?
Sometimes it pays to be modest. Of course, you can go after lots of visitors with a generic keyword with thousands of monthly searches.
But the fierce competition can actually make it more attractive to go after a smaller audience, and in return increase your chances of being found.
It's a bit like trying to win the jackpot in Lotto. Here, your chance of winning the top prize is 1/10,000,000. If you go for a more modest prize instead, your chance of winning will be almost infinitely greater.
In the same way, it pays not to be too greedy in the battle for first place on Google. There may well be 10,000 potential customers on a keyword like “cleaning Copenhagen”.
But if you don't reach a single one of them, it's clearly more favourable to go after a smaller but more achievable audience with a more specific, longer keyword. For example: “How do I remove limescale from the grout in my bathroom?”.
These longer, specific keywords are called “long tail keywords”. And it's a good idea to use them in your copy if you want potential customers to visit your website.
The readers you reach with long tail keywords will also typically be at a different stage of the customer journey. Often they haven't decided to buy a product or service at all yet, but may simply want a need met.
By targeting keywords people google early in the customer journey, you can potentially nurture your readers towards the final stage of the buying process, where they actually decide to buy.
You can read more about choosing keywords based on the customer journey in Webamp's post on keyword research.
So how do you get long tail keywords onto your website?
For a page to be found on a keyword, the keyword needs to appear on the page a certain number of times. But fitting a long tail keyword into the copy on a landing page or product page can be a rather clumsy and forced affair.
For example, the keyword “how do I remove limescale from the grout in my bathroom?” would be hard to make appear x number of times in the copy on a subpage about domestic cleaning.
Using the keyword in a blog post, on the other hand, will come across as organic. And at the same time, you create value for the Google users searching for that specific phrase.
Taking a bricklaying firm, a bike mechanic, a dentist and a webshop selling writing supplies as examples, long tail keywords could be:
- How do you insulate a cavity wall?
- How do you tighten a bike chain?
- How do I get over my fear of the dentist?
- Best ballpoint pen for left-handers
Of course, there will be more searches for the generic keyword “ballpoint pen” than for the more specific “best ballpoint pen for left-handers”. So the long, specific keyword won't attract as much traffic as the short one either.
On the other hand, the traffic it does attract will be highly relevant.
4. A blog keeps your website alive
You may know the feeling of landing on a website that makes you think of a ghost town in a western. You can almost see the tumbleweed blowing across the screen and hear the wind howling eerily in the deserted corners.
At any rate, it seems as if the website hasn't been updated for months, maybe years. And you start to doubt whether the company behind it even exists any more.
Do you feel like staying on the website? Didn't think so.
Why waste your time on a neglected website? If the business behind it doesn't even have the energy to look after its website, it probably doesn't have the energy to look after its customers either.
Your potential customers won't want to stick around on your website either if it radiates loneliness and a lack of care from you and the rest of your business.
So how do you keep your website's pulse up?
It can seem a bit forced to keep updating your website with new subpages if you already have subpages for all your services.
Let's say, for example, that you run a law firm specialising in family and inheritance law. It would make sense for you to have a subpage about prenuptial agreements, one about wills, one about estate administration and one about custody, if those are the four areas you work in.
So how can you keep your website alive if it's already up to date with all your services?
The answer, of course, is blog posts.
Give your website a much-needed blood transfusion and a fresh spark of life with a couple of blog posts a month. You know your industry inside out, and you're sure to have plenty to say. After all, you already use your knowledge of your field in your work every single day.
So transfer the knowledge from your everyday work to your website by writing good, relevant blog posts. That will make sure your website always looks updated and current. And that makes it more attractive.
Would you rather shop in a shopping centre full of shops, or on a deserted pedestrian street?
You can compare it to choosing where to buy your Christmas presents. On the one hand, you could shop at Magasin on the first Saturday after payday. On the other, you have a deserted pedestrian street in a provincial town where half the shops closed their doors long ago.
You don't need a master's degree in marketing to work out that the first scenario has the best chance of meeting your shopping needs. In the same way, your visitors will have more confidence that your business can meet their needs if your website is always updated with new and varied content.
And there's an extra bonus to updating your website regularly: your website will rank better in the search engines.
Because Google's algorithms reward fresh content and information. A frequently updated website signals activity and interaction.
5. Your visitors stay longer
Of course you want to lure visitors to your website. But if they click away as quickly as they clicked in, their visit isn't worth much.
You can compare it to a visit to a clothes shop. You go into the shop to buy a new pair of gloves. But you discover that the shop has sold out of gloves. So you leave the shop again. Why on earth would you stay when the shop doesn't have what you need?
If the shop had had a large selection of gloves, you would have stayed longer and perhaps tried on several different pairs. You might even have bought other products, because during your visit you discovered that the shop actually had more to offer than just gloves.
The same goes for visitors to your website. They won't stick around for long if your website doesn't have content that's 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 lure visitors to your website. But if they click away as quickly as they clicked in, their visit isn't worth much.
You can compare it to a visit to a clothes shop. You go into the shop to buy a new pair of gloves. But you discover that the shop has sold out of gloves. So you leave the shop again. Why on earth would you stay when the shop doesn't have what you need?
If the shop had had a large selection of gloves, you would have stayed longer and perhaps tried on several different pairs. You might even have bought other products, because during your visit you discovered that the shop actually had more to offer than just gloves.
The same goes for visitors to your website. They won't stick around for long if your website doesn't have content that's 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 get your visitors to stay a little longer?
You need to write engaging blog posts that are relevant to the user, of course: blog posts that make the user want to stay on your site.
Quality content that's relevant to visitors is one of the best tools for getting them to stay on the page. So a good blog can help boost dwell time on your website.
Get help with your blog posts
If you're looking for inspiration to write your first blog post, it's worth reading my guide for the aspiring copywriter.
Do you struggle to find time to blog in a busy everyday life? Or do you just not quite know 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 you write engaging, search-engine-friendly blog posts for your business.
