Blogs - should you bother?

The latest SEO technique is to use a blog to generate additional traffic to your website. This
can mean significant increases in traffic, especially if you can generate qualified traffic. But
how effective is a blog in improving your search engine rankings? That all depends on how
well you do you write the blog.

Disciplined Content Creation

You want to attract visitors who want exactly what you are offering on the website. That
requires a disciplined approach to content creation:

1. Research and consider carefully what your post is about, and always keep in mind why you
are writing it. In other words – don‟t lose sight of the objective!

2. Identify the keyword phrase/s that people are using to find information relevant to the topic
of the blog. You can use www.wordtracker.com or Google Adwords keywords tool to
identify these. Or study the report in the backend of your (modern) website that details the
words/phrases that your website visitors used to find your website in the first place.

3. Ensure you place keywords in the title of the blog and early in the first paragraph. Then put
some additional emphasis on those words, such as bold / italics

4. Include “exact match” keyword phrases throughout the body of the article.

5. Add tags i.e. a short list of specific relevant keywords - this may be used in the post page
Keyword meta tag.

6. Write a concise Excerpt, loaded with keyword phrases - this may be used in the post page
Description meta tag.

If you are not a great speller - use the Spell Checker.This article may be the first introduction
a potential client has to your business and you must impress them right from the start.
Remember that you NEVER get a second chance to create a first impression!

 

Business Blogs Should Inform & Educate

A business blog is there to inform and educate potential clients about aspects of your business
by trying to provide useful information without a blatant sales pitch. On a website, this is
known as having „‟pre-sales pages‟‟. You are inspiring trust and credibility by providing free
information. Encourage visitors to “read the free report” or “contact us for more information”
but don‟t overdo the sales pitch. Your goal is to convey your depth of knowledge; provide I
for free and so build credibility.

Blog Search Engine Optimisation

If you want to maximise the effectiveness of your blogs, it is not sufficient to just write it and
forget it. You need to ensure that your Business Blog is properly “optimised” to produce
unique, accurately categorised, and clearly-labelled content. This requires some SEO work on
your blog to ensure that your Posts, static Pages and Category pages are unique. WordPress is
probably the fastest and easiest blog platform to customise. It also has a comprehensive array
of free SEO options, although some of these may be outside of the scope of new website
owners.

 

Accurate Content Cataloguing Pays Dividends

If you pay attention to detail to blog generation, blog publishing and Search Engine
Optimisation of the blog page, you should see dramatic improvements to blog traffic. At the
same time, it will ensure that visitors get exactly what they were seeking, thanks to the
accuracy of your blog content cataloguing efforts.

That will encourage social networkers to bookmark the website, or specific webpage, and to
come back looking for more information.
Good luck with your efforts to achieve a high ranking – I hope this article has helped.