Web copy basics: How a blog can help your business
When some people think “blogging”, they automatically think of personal diaries, travel junkies, and home chefs. At least, those were always my associations.
The truth is that “blogging” could be for an individual or a business, because a blog is just a regularly updated page displaying information. And that regularly updated page displaying information can play a key role in increasing your business’ website traffic, engagement, authority, and, therefore, success.
Here’s what I mean.
Increase traffic with SEO
SEO = Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, SEO has to do with making changes and using strategies on your website in order to get more quality traffic and rank higher in Google search results.
(P.S. This is important because very few people actually scroll over to page 2 or 3 of their Google search results. I may have done that once in my life when I was in high school and thought page 2 would have a good source for my Greek Gods project. Most of us only glance at the top few results, so that’s where you want to be.)
How does a blog help with SEO?
The more pages your website has, the more chances there are for your website to appear on Google searches. People are able to discover your business when searching for general information, which means people who wouldn’t normally click on your website are now doing so.
Blog articles give you the chance to link to other parts of your website, which helps Google crawl/discover these parts. These internal links help lead people to other parts of your website, too — such as the part that encourages them to buy whatever you’re selling.
Blog articles also give you the chance to have other websites link to your website, because you have helpful information that might be valuable to their site visitors or readers. This, in turn, further aids SEO.
If your blog is keyword-optimized — which means it has strategically placed keywords that people will search up in Google — your blog pages are more likely to pop up higher in search results, which means more clicks into your website.
That overview is just brushing the tippity tippity top of the SEO & keyword iceberg, so I suggest you take HubSpot’s free SEO course or read their article on Blog SEO to learn more.
Build trust & positive relationships
I recently visited 2 dentist websites. The first was my local small-town dentist, and the second was another nearby dentist I was thinking of switching to. The first dentist just had basic contact information on their website. It was pretty sparse. The second had an entire blog with articles covering various dentistry concerns and questions, in addition to their basic contact information.
Which dentist seemed like they knew what they were doing more?
The second, of course.
Their in-depth blog told me they knew their stuff. They were able to educate others because they were that knowledgeable. Plus, the whole blog thing came off as uber professional. It made me trust them.
This is what a blog can do for your business and site visitors. It can build authority, trust, and good relationships with people. Even if someone isn’t going to your website to buy something and they’re merely visiting your blog, they’re more likely to visit again and again and eventually take action.
TL;DR
Blogs aren’t just personal diaries — they’re a valuable business tool!
Strategic blogs geared toward SEO can help increase website traffic, which means more leads & conversions.
Informative blogs can also help build trust & positive relationships with site visitors (which, again, means more leads & conversions).
If you want to chat more about blogging for your business, send me a message!
Best,
Megan
