Why Your Business Needs a Blog

Jul 2
09:04

2015

Christina Thomas

Christina Thomas

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Despite the seemingly fickle nature of Google’s search engine, there are a handful of methods that have always worked. The overriding goal is to provide viable content for your incoming traffic, which drives up the conversion rates.

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Every since the early days of search engine optimization,Why Your Business Needs a Blog Articles it quickly became clear that Google’s ranking signals could vary quickly enough to catch your online business unawares. Techniques that worked last month might very well have either stopped working, or negatively-affected your website the next month.

The SEO landscape, in fact, is littered with websites that no longer rank anywhere near where they used to, several updates later. Haphazardly building backlinks to shoddy content farms and numerous directory submissions – which were such popular methods in the mid-2000s – have been significantly reduced in effectiveness, or no longer work at all.

Methods That Have Withstood the Test of Time

Despite the seemingly fickle nature of Google’s search engine, there are a handful of methods that have always worked. The overriding goal is to provide viable content for your incoming traffic, which drives up the conversion rates for the advertisers that keep Google afloat. This is where inbound marketing comes in; it embraces Google’s mantra “Content is King,” by engaging your audience and providing something of use to the reader, who in turns elevates the profile of your business.

Both of these further conspire to drive your website up through the rankings – along with other factors, of course. As time wears on, you’ll be able to see the results reflected in an increase in your Pagerank and a decrease in your Alexa ranking; the latter measures how many people are visiting your blog.

How Does Inbound Marketing Work?

Unlike traditional marketing methods, inbound marketing is subtle and useful. You’re not banking on flashy signals to grab the attention of otherwise uninterested viewers; in fact, they’re already searching for you! Your goal is to make sure you deliver once they find you via keywords, word-of-mouth, other link building efforts and more. So, instead of waving colorful flags to draw the attention of your potential clients, writing a blog to take advantage of inbound marketing seamlessly inserts you into their lives.

Methods to Optimize Your Blogging Efforts

Of course, keywords are important – how else will you find your traffic? Remember, the major advantage that inbound marketing has over traditional marketing is how well-targeted it is; in fact, it’s perfectly well-targeted, because people are typing in keywords into the search engines; your goal is to incorporate those keywords into a blog post that meets their needs. Write to inform; not to sell. You simply don’t have to be a salesperson with inbound marketing, because your traffic is already hooked – just make sure you reel them in by giving them what they came for:

  • depending on the keyword, competition can be fierce; spend time coming up with likely phrases people type into Google Search when looking for a product or service
  • you have to separate yourself from the clutter by truly writing to your readers so they don’t go elsewhere; the best way to do this is to provide information – no selling – in an engaging form
  • you know that humans are visual creatures, so make plenty of use of explanatory images like infographics; but don’t forget the text
  • whatever you do, do not forget the call-to-action; this common mistake in inbound marketing efforts can cost you the benefits of a great blog post

The final point above is essential. Fact is, people need to be told what to do in order to get them to click – so do not be vague at the end of an informative blog post about what they should do. They simply will not spend much time looking around the page for directions or hints. Take the opportunity to have them fill in a short form, download a whitepaper, or click to learn more about your service.

How Inbound Marketing Affects Your Bottom Line

Since you’re spending resources on inbound marketing, you might wonder how, exactly, it affects your bottom line. Metrics show that it has a high return on investment – especially when you spread your content around social networks.

And really, this makes sense; the crux of inbound marketing is to attract people who are already using the kind of keywords you will have built your website around, and which reflects your products and services. Then, the on-page content seeks to convert them (they are already interested, so more than half the battle is won), and your call-to-action is the closing deal. With a blog, the sky is truly the limit for your business.