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Do You Actually Need a Blog For Your Website?

By Justin |  Jul 6, 2018 (5 min read)

SEO

If you are building a new website, you might have heard that ‘you need to have a blog.’ Most business owners have no idea what a blog is, or why it might be important to your site visitors.

The term ‘blog’ is a shortened version of ‘weblog’ and is the page on your website where you share updates, ideas, tips, answers to questions and company news.

It’s a great way to share valuable information with your customers and prospects. It’s also a place to add a bit more personality to your brand.

Why is blog writing important to your website?

Since Hubspot began to introduce the concept of inbound marketing, the focus of the web has shifted. The key to having an engaging website is now about giving your visitors useful information and entertainment. This makes them trust you, and want to keep coming back.

The blog on your site is an ideal way to do this, as well as create a strong search engine ranking through quality content.

The two biggest questions people have when starting a business blog are:

  • How long do my blog posts need to be?
  • How often do I need to update my blog?

How long should a blog article be?

Some SEO experts believe that to rank more successfully you need to go for longer, 1000+ word content. Others focused on the mobile platform will suggest having short-form content that answers questions succinctly.

Of course, the answer for your site is likely somewhere in the middle. There is no ideal volume of words that you should hit, and in fact, what it is more is what you are trying to share.

Your blog post length should be determined by what makes the most sense for your readers and visitors, and the topic you are writing about.

How often should you update your blog?

Once again, Hubspot has done a deep dive into this area. According to their research, a site that blogs up to 16 times a month will reach the optimum amount of traffic. Anything over about four blogs is considered optimum.

Posting once or twice a month on your blog is still good; however, you may be missing out on some of the benefits of fresh content that Google rewards.

As a rule of thumb, adding one new piece of useful written content per week can be a great start. Any new blog posts will serve a dual purpose:

  1. New blogs give you a reason to share on social media and via your email list, which reminds your customers and prospects about you (similar to what advertising and remarketing do for you).
  2. Blogging adds a higher volume of keywords, links, and backlinks onto your site that the search engines can then index and show to potential visitors.

What should you write about in blog articles?

Cranking out a high volume of useless updates doesn’t work. You need to be saying or sharing something useful to the people who are in your target market. Remember also that not having relevant content has been shown to grow your bounce rate, which is not ideal.

To make sure what you are blogging about is relevant, think in terms of the needs, worries, frustrations, questions, and musings of your customers and prospects. For example:

 

Do they have things they want to know before they buy from you?
You can write a blog to answer those questions before they ask.

Do they want to know what other people think?

Share some stories from happy customers as guest posts.

Do they need to know about products or services that compliment yours?
Give them ideas and resources that are useful.


These are just some basic ideas to get started, but hopefully, it helps to show the value of regular updates on your blog. Remember that blogging is not meant to create more work for you. It’s meant to do the legwork for you in terms of growing trust and value in the minds of your customers and prospects.


Brandastic is an Orange County SEO agency. We help our clients to increase their Google rankings, improve keywords, and grow organic traffic to their website. Learn more how we can help your business with our SEO agency services today.

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