How Important is Blog Writing for your Website?

A blog or articles section on your website is now more important than ever. With an estimated 1.1 billion websites in the world, blog writing is one of the most useful tools in standing out from the competition.

Yes, it takes time and dedication, but:

1 - Blog writing drives web traffic

Updating your website content regularly immediately puts you above your competitors who do not. New and fresh content in the form of blog posts or news articles gives Google a clear sign that your website is active, and therefore probably more relevant. It also initiates crawling and indexing of new pages.

2 - Blogs build reputation

By creating unique content on topics associated with your industry you position yourself and your company as a figure of authority in your area of expertise. Blog posts can give an insider perspective on current industry issues, compare products or services against each other or offer advice on choosing certain aspects of a product or service.

Regular blogging or articles not only work to increase reputation, but also allow a public personality to develop for yourself and your brand. The old saying goes that ‘people buy from people’, so adding some charisma and individuality to your blog immediately sets you apart from others and allows people to engage and connect with you more easily.

3 - Blog writing starts a conversation

Opinion pieces in particular can start a conversation with other industry professionals and experts. By creating that engagement, your content appears in front of more people. In turn this increases company visibility and drives more website traffic.

Creating social media posts to push your blog or article content is an ideal and free way to create interest in your content. However, choose your social media platform carefully to ensure you’re reaching the audience relevant to your business, and choose no more than 3 platforms to ensure you can keep on top of post engagement. Email marketing and including in a newsletter is also an effective way to reach your audience.

4 - Blogs provide endless content

Spending time writing a blog or article can be time consuming. So, making the most of that content and repurposing it for a variety of uses makes the most of that time spent. It also adds longevity to your content and allows you to present the same content in a variety of formats to increase engagement.

The content of blog posts can be repurposed into:

• Slideshares or presentations
• Infographics
• Short videos
• Social graphics
• Statistics/Did You Know social posts

5 - Blogs can drive leads

Blogs and articles can be seen as a softer sell option of your products and services. Combined with the fact you are positioning yourself as an industry authority creates more of a reason for potential customers to engage with you over your competition.

Research has shown that approximately 80% of people prefer to be sold to via indirect methods rather than the hard ‘buy now’ approach. Blogs offering information and featuring ‘calls to action’ are a perfect way to achieve this.

Top Tips for Blogs and Articles

• Research your competitors! Are they creating content? Is it getting engagement and interaction? If you are a regional company, find ideas for content from similar companies in other areas that aren’t direct competition.
• Put together a content calendar. This will help you formulate ideas of topics and help you create a schedule to stick to.
• Pick your keywords to focus on. Weaving these into your blog title, subtitles, first paragraph and meta description will help increase SEO. However, don’t overdo it! Littering your content with the same keyword will only signal a red flag to Google and your SEO efforts will be scuppered.
• Find your LSI keywords. LSI = latent semantic indexing. What does this mean? It’s the other search terms around your chosen keywords that helps signal to Google that your content is highly relevant to the topic area. Type your keywords into Google and see what else comes up in the search box that may be relevant.
• Include internal links to other pages on your website where possible. This helps with indexing and SEO and leads readers to other products or services of possible interest.
• Repurpose content as much as possible to squeeze every ounce of usability out of it.
• Revisit content periodically and update evergreen content to keep it relevant to today. Evergreen content is content that will always be of interest to readers and is always relevant.
• Make sure your content is written professionally. Not everyone is a writer. If you’re not comfortable with producing content that is well written and engages with your target audience well then hire in a content writer.

FWD Motion are a forward-thinking creative agency with a team of highly experienced web development and SEO experts. If you’re interested in improving your Core Web Vitals scores or your SEO strategy, then contact us for a chat about how we can help drive your company and your website forward.