It may seem a bit redundant to preach the importance of a blog here in the Anvil Media Blog but working in search engine optimization I am continuously finding new reasons that highlight blogging as a major optimization opportunity for any website. More and more (especially in the age of COVID) users are looking for updates, news, or really any content from their favorite businesses or organizations. A blog can be the perfect place to answer this call for content. While a business should generally stick to their area of expertise, some companies use their blogs as a forum for fun posts aimed at building a loyal community around their brand. Blog content can come in many forms including:
- Articles
- Videos/Pictures
- Infographics
- Frequently Asked Questions
- And more…
This week the Anvil team would like to highlight the importance of a blog for search engine optimization with 5 Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Blog.
1. Add Fresh Content
Google and other search engines love fresh content. New content means new information for search engines to index and add to their database. The more information they have the better they can answer users’ questions with up-to-date information. You may ask yourself, “How can I add fresh content to my site?” Of course, the answer is a blog. A blog is probably the easiest way for most sites to add fresh content to their site. Most companies spend a considerable amount of resources creating and approving the copy for their home page, product pages, or about us section and as a result these pages rarely change. A blog acts as a conduit for anyone in the company to create expert content for the site as often as they want. Anvil would never advise creating low quality content just for the sake of growing your site, but it is a way to increase your digital footprint quickly. The more content you have available the more pages search engines can crawl and index and the more opportunities you have to appear in a search results page.
2. Earn Links
Linking plays a huge role in search engine optimization. Every SEO professional will recommend your website earn more high-quality links, even if you already have thousands. Unless you are an Amazon, Netflix, or Wikipedia, you should always be looking to earn links. Blogs offer a great opportunity to publish highly linkable content. Creating interesting, visually appealing, and informative blogs can help you gain links from reputable sources who are citing your content as expert, authoritative, and trustworthy. Your business can also use a blog to link to other businesses in your industry or niche, which can in turn earn you the goodwill and a potential future link form that business.
3. Build Thought Leadership and Authority
The reputation of your business is built through the quality of the product or services you offer. Your customers expect your to be an expert on your product, service, or area of business. In the age of Google that expertise is demonstrated through your position in a search result and the content you have on your website. Similar to the world of academia you create and grow your perceived expertise through publishing. Publishing unique content which drives views, engagement, discussion, and linking can help improve your standing and reputation in your niche. Creating a single piece of well thought-out well researched content may get your company the temporary spotlight, but a blog with a regular posting cadence of strong content can help establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.
4. Keyword Relevancy
One of the simpler yet more important reasons a blog is vital to a business’s SEO is the ability to build keyword relevancy. Every blog is a chance for you to use your existing keywords and reinforce your keyword strength or introduce a new keyword your business wants to target. While your business may be able to establish keyword relevancy using product, service, and other descriptive top-level pages a blog adds and builds upon that relevancy and opens your site up to growth.
5. New Opportunities for Structured Markup
Structured Markup or Schema Markup is an area of SEO the team here at Anvil is very excited about. Over the past few years structured data markup has grown and evolved and rich results in Google are becoming increasingly prevalent. In fact, Anvil will be hosting a webinar on Structured Data and Voice Search later this month highlighting the importance of structured markup optimization. How does a blog fit into this? There is no better place to try out new structured markup than on a blog. With a blog you can post articles, videos, question and answers, and event updates, all of which have a structured markup to go along with them. A blog is a perfect place to experiment and try new strategies to help your website grow.
Conclusion
One metaphor I always go back to when thinking about a blog is how a blog is like the sail of a ship. Your website, the ship, and can be as big or as small as you want, but odds are you are not making it very far without something pushing you forward. Without a blog your website is susceptible to the waves and tides of the internet. So, hoist the main blog sail and catch the user traffic to propel your business forward.
If you need help launching a new blog or just need a refreshed round of keyword research contact Anvil Media, we offer a range of services including blog copy writing.
