Blogging for business has SEO benefits too

By Phil Kelsey pkelsey

Marketing experts will advise you that blogging for your business will help you humanise your brand and engage with customers. SEO consultants like me recommend it too.

Before I start, I want to say this: there are businesses out there that have never had to invest in search engine marketing because their website naturally brings traffic as a result of consistently publishing new blog posts about topics that interest them and their market.

With that in mind, here are five strong reasons that businesses can relate to and hopefully encourage your company to start blogging for itself more often.

1. Naturally attract more search traffic, by accident

A general rule of thumb is the more pages with quality content you have, the more natural search visits you will receive. A reason for this is because each article will be unique and naturally include phrases that your prospects may type in when they need some information. If the phrase they use only correctly appears on your article, then the search engines should recommend your page in a strong position.

2. Strategically attract more search traffic

The above point covers those who just hop on and start writing. However if you use keyword research techniques then you can strategically place phrases that actually have traffic but very little matched results. To check this, find some keywords using the Google keyword tool and then type your target phrase into the Google search box and wrap the phrase within inverted commas, like so; “how to remortgage to release equity”. You can see that Google has highlighted when the exact phrase is mentioned and if you use their page preview button you can glance at the quality of the content/page.

Look at this example, it’s a very poor page and only briefly mentions the phrase. Imagine what you could do with 500 words around this topic with some cool info graphics embedded.

3. It allows you to demonstrates your expertise

I think this speaks for itself.  Imagine all the people who visit your website before they decide to give you a call. If as well as a quality service page, they see a range of articles around like-minded topics that is a mixture of how to articles, your opinion on recent industry news, or just more detail about what you do – that prospect will have a stronger opinion of your business which may result in more conversions (like phone calls).

4. It triggers social engagement and starts a community

Write your blog posts in a way that urges a response from the reader. Whether it’s a comment saying “this is the most informative and easy to follow piece I’ve read on this topic” or “I’m not quite sure I agree with something you said, I feel that … “ both are giving you and opportunity to reach out and interact with like-minded people. You may even get more social shares out of it, or even be asked to start guest writing for other blogs – what a result that would be for your brand!

5. Provides a home base for all your marketing

With an effective blog, you always have a space to bring people back to no matter what marketing methods you’re using. Whether it’s a link within a press release to an infographic or a video presentation, or simply a list of recent topics for your newsletters – there will always be an online door for someone to walk through.

How to get started:

The most recognised blog platform is WordPress. It’s quick to set up and there are thousands of free themes that can quickly be modified to suit your needs and corporate brand. Remember, the whole point of my articles is to help you become more self-sufficient with your online marketing so I strongly recommend reading this article from WebHostingBuzz about how to set up a WordPress blog in 5 Minutes.

Phil Kelsey is the Managing Director of Spiral Media, a Lincoln-based website and online marketing consultancy. Phil and his creative team create online strategies for their clients by combining their design, development and online marketing skills, which involves search engine optimisation to increase traffic and conversions.