Go to any website. Odds are, that website has a blog on it. However, it’s typical to find a graveyard of old press releases and stale articles on it. Simply put, most blogs aren’t being utilized to their full potential. When the topic of SEO comes up, it’s usually followed up by a swarm of people suggesting blogging as the best way to boost your website’s SEO. So, does blogging help SEO? At HatchMark Studio, we help several clients with their inbound marketing and content creation, and that includes blogging. In this article, we will discuss the basics of blogging for SEO and some easy tips to get started on the right foot.
What Exactly Is SEO?
Maybe we should back up just a tad before we get too far. SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the practice of optimizing your website and its content specifically for the parameters that popular search engines look for. Basically, it’s tuning your website so that it performs well and ranks higher on websites like Google. The early days of SEO were the wild west. People would stuff keywords into white space on their websites and shoot to the top of Google’s first page. Today, Google has made it much harder to rank if you are being dishonest with your content. This is good news for everyone, but it does mean that you have to put in the work if you want to see the reward. Although it seems like a daunting task, it’s easier than you think to get your foot in the door.
Understanding Blogging & the Basics
Blogging has been a popular way for content creators to drive traffic to their websites. Most websites have a finite amount of pages on them. Even bigger websites only have 50-60 pages of regular content. Although that may seem like a lot, it only gives you so many opportunities for SEO. A blog, on the other hand, offers you endless opportunities for SEO-rich content. With a well-fed blog, your small six-page website can have 50+ articles on it that feed Google. This is why blogging is such an effective strategy for SEO gurus and website admins. Starting to make sense? If not, keep reading into the next section.
Seven Easy Tips for Effective SEO Blogging
If we can all agree that your blog is a good place to start packing content for SEO, we’re on the right track. However, we need to come up with some ground rules. Blogging just for the sake of it probably won’t get you very far. In fact, if you don’t do it the right way, you’ll be sorely disappointed with the results. Below are seven easy tips you can use for any blog on any website. Ready? Let’s go.
- Do your keyword research. If you’re trying to skip this step, please don’t. Without doing your keyword research, your blogging future is dead on arrival. Using an SEO platform like Semrush is a critical prerequisite to ensuring the content you write is sought after and able to rank.
- Keep your content topics relevant. Let’s say you have a website for your restaurant. An article that discusses the benefits of vaccines for dogs might not be your best bet. Even if it ranks well, you can’t tie it into what you’re doing at your restaurant. Keep the content in your wheelhouse so that you can position yourself as a subject matter expert. Additionally, you want every article to feature a small section that gives you an opportunity to sell your goods or services.
- Focus on long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are usually at least four to five words in length that drill down into very specific search queries. Imagine trying to rank for the keyword “drones.” It’s a nearly impossible task. But if you try to rank for “how fast can a drone fly,” you’re in a much smaller arena. This makes it easier to rank.
- Structure your articles correctly. The way you structure your content in your article matters. Make sure you are using your keywords in headers and SEO titles. If you’re not sure what best practices are for optimizing, you can download plugins like Yoast SEO that make it easy to follow along and make improvements to your content.
- Make your articles coherent and easy to read. Writing a bunch of junk on the page won’t do anything for your website’s blog traffic. In fact, it will probably hurt you in the long run. Poorly written content that is difficult to follow will result in a high bounce rate. Ultimately, this can lead to a decline in your ranking and possibly a removal from Google’s index. If you wouldn’t read it, why should anyone else?
- Make a content plan. Writing one or two articles every now and then isn’t going to cut it. You need to make a content plan that maps out what article topics you want to tackle and stick to it. Pretend your job and the success of your business depends on it. Treating it like a real task that needs to happen is the only way to get results. Consistent posting on your blog signals to Google’s bots that your website is alive. This results in more consistent crawls and better ranking.
- Track your keyword ranking. This is where using Semrush or other SEO platforms like it comes in handy. You want to carefully monitor and track the keywords you’re trying to rank for. This is the only way to legitimize the effectiveness of your blog and make changes to content that is struggling to climb through the pages of Google’s search results.
Final Thoughts on Does Blogging Help SEO
If you have a website and want to increase the amount of traffic you get, blogging is a great place to start. No one said it would be easy. Going toe-to-toe with other bloggers who are writing similar content can be a challenge. The great news is that Google is fair and rewards the best content. If you follow the tips in this article and maintain consistent posting, you greatly increase your chances of having an article on Google’s prized first page. We wish you luck on your SEO blogging journey!
Let Us Handle Your SEO Blogging
We know how it is. Even with the best intentions, it’s hard to find enough time in the day to write articles. That’s why partnering with an agency can make your life easier and keep you tracking toward your SEO goals. Our content writing experts take care of all of your keyword research and blog writing for you so that your website can start ranking. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can put together a winning inbound content strategy for you!
