Following up in our series of SEO basics and what you need to know, we want to look at a simple topic that still finds ways to trip people up: blogs. In the early days of the internet, blogs were usually small self-publications of average users that wanted to break into journalism, or just wanted to have a public space for their diary where they could connect with other people. Skip ahead a couple decades to today, and those people are still around, but now, you can add foodies, amateur and pro chefs, and thousands of businesses.

Businesses learned that blogs are an easy and cost effective way to boost their SEO efforts by adding content and keywords to their site while providing readers and visitors with helpful information regarding their searches and queries. As we mentioned in a previous blog post (see, they’re important!), blogs are educational tools that pull double duty to get your site in front of curious minds. They kind of work like subliminal advertisements for your business that give people a reward (information) just for checking out your site, assuming that you wrote it and presented it well.

Tips for blogs

Word length varies, and that’s okay. Summed up, Google grades you on keywords per so-many-words. The more words your blog article has, the more keywords you can technically fit in. If you have a shorter blog, you can’t cram as many in, otherwise you’ll be penalized for keyword stuffing and that’s a big no-no / pretty bad for your business. Not only does the page not index, they may impose some penalties on your site as a whole. As long as the content is good, even if it’s only 300 words, it’s better to keep your visitors informed and engaged with fewer words, rather than blathering on for thousands of words just to cram in keywords. That’s where conversion rates start to come into play, but that’s another discussion.

Don’t copy and paste. This is another thing that Google and other search engines look for when reviewing your SEO and marketing strategy and will impart more serious penalties on your site, especially if the content is taken directly from another site. Make each piece of content unique to avoid any issues.

Make it interesting. You don’t want to bore your reader off your page, you want them to stay and read until the end so they feel compelled to look further into your site to learn more about your products, services, and/or overall business. If you bore them away, another company with more engaging content is going to get the sale.

Cross promote your content. One of the beautiful things about blog articles is that you can promote them on your social channels for easy and engaging content to stay at the forefront of people’s minds while they mindlessly scroll Facebook or Instagram – and maybe even get some new eyes on your site as well. Marketing and advertising are comprehensive and it all comes back to the product and the content.

Consult with a marketing firm. It’s tough to do all of these things on your own. It’s entirely possible to do it, but the quality will likely lack somewhere in your overall business strategy. We’ve got a team of pros who specialize in SEO, SEM, content writing and management, social media, design, and everything you’d ever need to build, enhance, and augment your marketing strategies. Give us a call to learn how we can provide you with engaging content to boost your monthly site engagements, conversion rates, and more.