Content has been a driving force in search engine rankings for years. HubSpot found that 55 percent of marketers say blogging is their top inbound marketing priority to boost organic traffic.
But as new methods for search engine optimization (SEO) emerge, is blogging still a valuable investment for business owners?
How Do Blogs Affect SEO?
The purpose of search engines is to provide the most relevant and useful information possible. Organic search engines like Google use algorithms to determine where you fall in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Blog posts work to meet those ranking factors by increasing your site’s dwell time, or the length of time a visitor spends on your website.
They also help decrease your bounce rate, which is the percentage of site visitors that leave a webpage without taking any actions, such as clicking other links, filling out a form, or buying something.
Why is all this important? When accessing the value of a website, Google search looks for three things: Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness, otherwise known as EAT.
When someone chooses to stay on your website and visit other pages, Google notices. When you post regular blogs that are high quality and address topics relevant to your audience, search engines take note.
Bottom line: when blogging addresses all three EAT factors, search rankings go up. Even with all the new strategies and tools available, blogging continues to be the least expensive and most efficient way to increase search traffic.
How To Strengthen Your SEO Strategy for Blogs
Decide on One Target Keyword
You likely have a few sprinkled throughout your various web pages, or maybe you’re going with the principle of ‘keyword stuffing,’ but in truth, every blog post that you publish should focus on one focus keyword. Using multiple relevant keywords can confuse search engines and impact your traffic. If you’re not sure which one to pick, you can get primary keyword ideas and insight from sites like Ahrefs.
Incorporate Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer search queries (3+ words). These search phrases tend to have a lower search volume, but they also have less competition. Plus, since people that use long-tail keywords tend to be much further along in the buying cycle, including them in your blogs can lead to a better conversion rate. Keyword tools like Answer The Public are great for discovering search phrase options.
Incorporate Inbound Links
Your blog content should offer numerous internal links where readers can click through to other pages on your website such as the contact page, or a specific product or service page. Internal linking improves the user experience by offering a clear path for your readers while encouraging them to spend more time on your website, thus boosting your search ranking!
Be a Solid External Link Option
At the same time, your goal should be for your blog to serve as a solid reference for other websites to link to, also known as external links (or backlinks). Well-crafted, informative, SEO-optimized posts get noticed and shared, which in turn increases your ranking even more.
Update on a Regular Basis
Search engines are focused on providing the most relevant and up-to-date information possible. So, the longer your site sits with outdated content? The less trustworthy it appears.
Consistently posting new blog articles signals to search engines that your site is active. If you are already posting quality blogs, no need for duplicate content: carve out time to regularly update them. Traffic from blogs is compounding, which means it gains results over time.
Digital marketing trends come and go, but blogging remains one of the best tools in your kit for boosting SEO.
At Elevato, our content creators know how to strike the right balance between technical SEO and creative storytelling, assisting with blogs, whitepapers, content strategy, and more.
Get in touch with us today, and let’s discuss how you can better reach your target audience through compelling content!