Want to know the biggest misconception my marketing students have when they enter my class? That social media is the best and only option to bring revenue into your business. The reality? SEO has the almost magical ability to generate 2x more revenue than any other channel.
Even more impressive? SEO gets 1,000% more traffic than social media.
Let’s think about that – social media platforms want you to keep people on their app. They don’t want you to be directing traffic to your website because that takes their users away from them (and their advertisers).
SEO, on the other hand, captures the attention of those who are looking for an answer to their problem right then and there.
And even more astounding – the first organic search engine result gets 39.8% of the clicks.
Getting to be that first result can feel like an impossible task in 2024. There’s so much competition.
But there’s one thing you might be overlooking because it feels like “no one reads them” anymore – blogging.
Blogging has long been and still is one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO and climb the Google rankings.
Let’s talk about how you can make blogging an effective tool in your SEO belt.
The Magic of SEO
You may be wondering just how much value SEO and website traffic can bring to your business. After all, don’t you have more control over other marketing strategies? Who cares how many people land on your website, right?
It’s time to think differently, because here’s the super cool thing about SEO – it compounds.
When you have content on your website that gets listed in Google and other search engines, you’re not just doing work that can only be seen for 2-3 days (I’m looking at you social media). Instead, you’re creating content that can be seen and drive revenue for years down the road.
Kind of like leaving that $20 bill in your coat pocket and finding it next winter.
One page can bring you tons of new visitors, leads, and sales.
How Blogging Supercharges SEO
The easiest way to build your SEO and create content that people want to read (because people are the ones who are going to be clicking on your website from Google), is to write informative blog posts.
Blogs, articles, news stories, whatever you want to call them on your own website, help you to bring in more people to your site and can help you rank higher on Google.
I want you to think about the last time you were hunting for some online help. What kinds of links did you end up clicking? I bet they were blog posts.
Sure, it’s great to get our sales pages to rank on Google, but most people need to build a bit more trust with you. Blogging does just that.
A well-written blog article (like the one you’re reading right now – meta), allows you to demonstrate your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness – or E-A-T.
The E-A-T concept is a bit of a backward way to show Google’s algorithm that you have good content that will help its searchers.
A lot of people think that Google is playing some sort of game, but in reality, they’re just trying to deliver the right answers for their customers. Blog articles are perfect because they often answer some of those questions while presenting a solution – your business – as the answer to their bigger problem.
In case you are thinking “Sure, but…” let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how blogging goes to work for your SEO.
Target Posts for Specific Keywords
Perhaps my favorite thing about writing blog posts is that it allows us to get super-specific. With a well-written blog post, you can create content and optimize it for keywords for which you’re trying to be found.
With a blog, you can go in-depth into one aspect of your business, one service, or one solution you offer, and give your readers great information about how you can help them.
The point of this isn’t to sell directly though. Instead, you’re demonstrating your expertise, setting yourself up as an authority, and building trust (huh, interesting how that came back around already), so that they choose to hire you to solve that problem for them.
Providing Fresh Content
I have a harsh truth for you – no one, not even Google, wants to come back to the same old site all the time to not find something new.
Those 5 pages you have are great, but you need something to pique their attention and interest.
Give them blog posts! Regular blogging – meaning at least once a month – invites not only search engines to come back to your site over and over again, but it also encourages your clients and leads to come back to you, too.
You’re quite literally giving them a reason to return because there’s something new to check out.
Attract Backlinks
When you’re writing high-quality content, people are going to want to cite you as a source. When they provide a link to your content, that is called a backlink.
These links from other sites to your own demonstrate to Google that you have some recognized authority from your peers. Backlinks have long been a huge part of a successful SEO strategy, and blogs are one of the best ways to have those built naturally.
I did an audit of my own backlinks the other day and found that most of mine are (unsurprisingly), linking to my blogs and podcasts.
Build Brand Awareness & Engagement
Perhaps the most obvious part of consistent blogging? You’re able to build authority and brand awareness.
When you have really great content that people want to read and link to, you can become known as the go-to authority for what you do.
More than that, a great blog post is far more shareable than any page on your website. If you want your dream clients to see your website and your business, then you have to create content that will get shared.
Blogs can hit different phases of the customer journey and can be quick for your dream clients to share in an email, on social media, or by linking back to you in their own blog.
5 Steps to Writing Blogs That Rank
If you’re trying to get more eyeballs on your website and services, you’ll want to write blogs that actually do something for your business.
Unfortunately, this means doing more work than just giving ChatGPT a topic and asking it to spit out a blog post.
How can you create a blog post then that ranks well on search engines AND brings in customers?
Let’s break it down a bit.
Do Some Keyword Research
With any SEO strategy, you have to start with some keyword research. In episode 79, Lauren Gaggioli and I talked about some of the simplest ways you can do this, including using free tools like AHrefs Keyword Generator.
It’s free to use and can help you start getting ideas for what you can target and write about. Keep in mind with any keyword research that you’re trying to think like your customer does. They’re the ones performing the searches in Google and they likely don’t know your technical jargon.
A really powerful strategy to take keyword research even further is to do some preliminary work, rather than jump on a call with two or three of your best clients. Ask them how they talk about your services and what you do, because that’s likely how others are going to, too.
You might find that what you think is going to work is way off base and you’ll get more niche keywords than you might ever have thought of.
Keywords are all about trying to anticipate and think like your client. Bypass that by just asking them.
Use Keywords in Headings
This might seem like it’s just for Google, but in reality, using keywords in your headings helps orient your actual human reader, too.
Think about it – they typed something into Google looking for an answer. When you use those same keywords (and related ones), in your headings, they know that they’re getting an entire article that talks about a solution to their problem.
Another important component of this? No one wants to read a super long article either. You have to break up your text into shorter paragraphs so it’s easy to keep the eye moving. Headings are a great way to help your reader skim through and find what matters to them (and yes, they all skim. It’s OK.).
Write a Catchy Title
You can write a fantastic article, but if your blog doesn’t have a great title, no one’s going to click on it from search engines.
Yes, you want to include the main keyword you’re targeting in your title, but you also want to ensure that your reader knows why they should click it and read it.
I went through many iterations of the title before I landed on “Harness the SEO Magic of Regular Blogging.”
Let’s break down the process.
First, I knew I wanted to talk about blogging and the impact of doing it regularly. I did some keyword research and discovered that “SEO magic” was one I could target easily and it aligns with many of my clients joking that SEO feels like magic.
I could’ve just left it as “SEO Magic of Regular Blogging” but that is pretty descriptive. Where’s the action? The enticement?
All I did was add an action verb to the start – “Harness.” Now, I have a title that tells you the outcome you’re going to get from reading this.
Other ways you can write an eye-catching title include:
- Using numbers (lists are very clickbaity but that’s because they work)
- Include an offer, like a freebie or template
- Add some kind of tease or result
This is quite literally all about trying to hook someone in to want to click and read your entire article. The more people that click on your result over someone else’s, the higher your rank can climb.
Optimize Images You Use
One of the best ways to get more eyes on your blog posts is to include some images.
For one, they help to break up your entire blog post, but they also allow more visual learners to see things differently.
If you’re sharing data or multiple posts, it’s super easy to demonstrate that in a good visual or graphic.
Even if you’re just adding a funny gif to your blog article, you want to ensure that you’re optimizing that image for SEO and your users.
Do that in 3 quick steps:
- Compress or resize the image for fast page speeds
- Rename the image something descriptive, i.e. red-ford-truck.jpg
- Add descriptive ALT text
When you follow these steps, you’re helping your site to load quickly AND providing context for your images to Google and users who can’t see your images.
Really, it’s a win-win for the SEO department.
Link to Other Posts
This one applies to your own website and others’. When you’re creating a blog, think like you’re writing an essay for college. Your professors probably required you to have at least a few citations to back up your point, right? (Yes, even us English majors had to do this.)
Blog articles are the same. Not only do you want to link to other relevant blog posts and pages within your own site, but you want to link to external sources that back up your point, too.
This helps to build trust with your readers and with Google, showing them that you’ve done your research and that you have the expertise you’re claiming to have.
For external links, I often find statistics or case studies that back up what I’m saying (this article is riddled with them), or I link to resources that I like.
When I’m linking to my own posts, I try to find at least one phrase in the article that aligns with another article I wrote.
This helps to show Google that my content for this keyword doesn’t just exist on one page, but it also helps my readers get to other articles that might answer some questions for them.
This maximizes the “juice” that I get out of my articles and makes them go further in my content strategy.
Get Started with Regular Blogging
The real SEO magic with blogging? Doing it regularly.
When Google and your customers know when to come back and find a new article, it helps you connect with them in a way almost nothing else can.
Blogging is one of the best ways to drive fresh traffic to your website and connect with your dream clients.
You’re giving them content that’s answering a problem for them, and you’re doing it for free.
That value builds trust that can lead not only to sales but to raving fans who promote your business over and over again.
Ready to make blogging a consistent part of your marketing strategy? Download my free checklist to help you write blogs that rank.
It has extra resources inside to make it easy for you!
