It’s Monday again and I thought I could outline why every website should have a blog. As always this won’t be an exhaustive list, but it is my personal take on the topic.

In last week’s article called “Why content can make or break a website” I had stated that “Blogging is hard, but the simple fact is that people search the internet for answers to their questions. In the case of a swimming expert I might Google something like “How to get rid of green swimming pool water?” Assuming you have a post on the matter and Google deems you an authority on swimming pools over time you will be my go to website on that matter. Assuming I have another question in regard to a pool issue and your site has a solution I will revisit since you presumably solved my previous issue so as a user I consider you an authority because I found value in your content.” The point of the statement was to prove that quality content brings visitors to your website. So, let me try and make a list of why I think every site should have a blog:

It brings you more search engine traffic

Addressing topics that you know your potential clients or audience is searching for will eventually lead to more people coming to your site. This of course means that the quality of your content needs to be good which basically means that it needs to provide value to your audience.

It tells people that there’s a human behind your brand or business

This is a very simple and self-explanatory point in my little list. When you blog, you write down your thoughts for people to see. Usually your writing style is your own and if people keep reading and that style remains the same they will understand that an actual person is behind the product or service you are promoting or selling. For this to work, in most cases, you need to write in a way similar to the way you talk. It should never feel like you are writing a masters or PHD thesis unless of course such vast technical or literature references add value to what you are trying to say.

Helps strengthen your social media pushes

Any content you add to your blog as we said should prove valuable to a visitor. If you are doing that already then, the title and image you use should be beneficial to your social media efforts. To be more specific catchy titles and/or images should in turn lead to more traffic and more engagement with your user-base and as such should bring you more traffic from shares and likes on social-media platforms.

Builds the perception of you as an authority in your industry

Your blog and the content you add to it should, in time, make search-engines like Google perceive you as an authority in your industry. All of this assumes that you have recurring visitor that find value in the content you publish which should obviously be relevant to the industry, services or products you promote or sell.

You get better conversion rates

Simply put conversion is trying to invoke a visitor to take a specific desired action. On a blog it might mean enticing a visitor is subscribe to a mailing list. With an online store obviously, you would most likely want a visitor to become a buying customer. For more information read my older blog post / article titled “What is conversion and why should you care”

Helps increase inbound links

As you can tell form this blog post / article, in some paragraphs, I linked to older blog posts / articles that are relevant to what I am talking about. Those blog posts / articles simply provide a more detailed explanation of a concept or term I am referencing. This is simply good SEO practice. Plain and simple it helps on-page SEO and internal linking. But, this also does the following: If someone shares this blog post / article it will give my blog post / article an inbound link from LinkedIn for example, but it will also give those referenced blog posts / articles an inbound link from LinkedIn. It’s simple but good SEO practice.

Helps you rank better for long-tail search queries

Long tail search queries in SEO is a technique of targeting highly specific niche search terms (long tail keywords) that usually consist of 3+ words and are much easier to rank for due low competition. To explain this, I am going to remind you who searches the internet, people do, as such we use long-winded keywords and phrases when searching because we aren’t robots. If I where searching for the best hosting company I would most like search using the phrase “Best hosting company for 2018” rather than “Best hosting”. Now assuming a site has a blog post titled “Best hosting company for 2018” it is likely to be a top result assuming the site is considered an authority in the field and has substantial traffic in comparison to another site that has an article or blog post titled “Why are we the best hosting company for 2018”.

Increases leads

Yet another simple reason every site should have a blog is that it increases leads. Research shows that the more pages a site has, the more leads it gets. According to Hubspot, businesses with 401-1000 pages of content get 6x more leads than those with 51-100. In simple terms, the more you blog, the more leads you generate. More content means more form submissions, more email opt-ins, more quote requests, and ultimately, more sales. Always remember that the content should be of quality and usefulness to your potential audience/clients.

Facilitates valuable discussion

Most blogs have comments sections under their articles. So, do we, the simple reason is that we want people to give us feedback whether they like our content or not. As a blogger or even a business getting feedback from your audience/clients is key when your goal is to keep improving. You need to see how your audience reacts and they might even give you ideas on possible missing or wanted content.

Allows you to achieve ‘freshness’

People that know SEO will tell you that “Content is king”. We have established this throughout this article/blog post. If you create or have a beautiful website and populate it with the perfect content and of course do some SEO you will probably rank in the search engines at least initially. Let’s say you leave your site as is for a month, you will start falling in the rankings. There is a very simple reason why this happens. Google may have come to visit but since there were no changes to you site it assumes that you have nothing new to say which probably means you may not be an “authority” in your industry. This is a very simplistic explanation of what Google really uses to rank websites. I just wanted to use the “authority” analogy which most people understand better than technical SEO. For you to be an “authority” you need fresh content. Read more on this topic in a previous article titled “5 things fresh content does for your website rankings”

If blogging is not your thing than get someone to do it for you. By someone I mean an actual professional. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at info@georgenicolaou.me