In the mid-1990s, blogging started out as personal online diaries. People used to share their thoughts and post about their lives or specific subjects on the Internet. Over the years, the functions of blogs have evolved. Blogs and the fresh content they offer a website’s visitors are now one of the best ways for businesses of all sizes to gain organic traffic, grow their following, and improve their search engine visibility.
There are a lot of ways that your blog can enhance your SEO. But it’s not as simple as just throwing a few posts onto your site. So let’s look at some of the reasons and ways your blog can help your site rank higher!
Google Values Current, Fresh Content–So Do Your Visitors
You may update your Team section, but beyond that, you probably haven’t made many changes to your website since it was built. And that’s a good thing. You worked hard to build your site just right. If you make too many changes, your site can become disordered.
But Google values fresh content. A blog is a perfect place to add new, high-quality content that focuses on topics relevant to your audience. Frequently adding to and updating your blog can make a huge difference in your SEO.
New Content is Valuable Because It Is More Accurate
Would you trust an article from 2015 as much as one written a month ago? Of course not! Google feels the same way. If a website hasn’t been updated in several years, it may have even been abandoned.
But when a website offers new, updated content, search engines like Google and Bing know that it is alive and well, and there are live people behind the site who care about what visitors want or need. Then their algorithms have more reason to index your website more often!
How Often Should You Post to Your Blog?
There are a lot of opinions on how often you should post to your blog. Unfortunately, there is no perfect one-size-fits-all formula. The best thing you can do is post—and post consistently.
If you are starting a new blog, it will take some time to get a lot of content written and posted. While this may seem overwhelming, the benefit is that you also have plenty of valuable information about your industry and the services you can share with the people visiting your site. In addition, the quality of your posts will go a long way toward establishing your expertise and authority.
How Long Will It Take to See a Difference in Your Ranking?
For businesses without a strong web presence, climbing the ranks of the search engine results pages takes time. It is a process. While it can be frustrating to wait for the fruits of your labor to grow, it will happen.
So how long are we talking about? Once you’ve optimized your pages using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, it can take another three to six months for Google to rank them. This can vary depending on the industry you’re in and the keywords you have used. In especially competitive industries, ranking your pages can take up to a year. This is due to the high level of competition, domain age, and accumulation of content.
Make Sure Your Site’s New Content Is Crawlable
How does Google know what is on your site? It has little bots crawling the web like tiny spiders, inspecting billions of websites. They collect and add information to Google’s web index. There, Google catalogs the data to be easily retrieved later when someone searches for the content you offer.
For your site to be indexed, it must be crawlable and readable by these bots. So, ensure the pages and posts you want to rank are indexable. Sometimes, people will turn indexing off during development and forget to turn it back on once the site goes live. This is a big mistake.
Is This All a Little Overwhelming?
No problem! I write blogs for businesses like yours every day. I can help your business get the web exposure it deserves by writing well-researched, fresh content for your blog. Contact me today for a free consultation!
