Many businesses have blogs on their website to provide the reader with industry news, yet not many people understand the function of having a blog on your website. 

Simply put, a blog allows you to provide your audience with updated industry information and allows the audience to engage with your post through comments or shares on the actual blog post. A blog is a tool used for two-way conversation on your website which also has many SEO perks. 

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SEO perks of Blogs

Blogging can help your business rank in search engines as search engines scan, assess, and process the content on your website. Search engines will categorise and rank content based on relevancy which is why blogs need to provide useful information with the correct keywords that your audience would search. 

Blogs can be considered reliable sources of information if it effectively meets the needs of the audience, therefore a business can be seen as a thought leader in their industry all thanks to their website blog. If a blog is considered a reliable source, it will lead to higher rankings in the search engine results. 

A study conducted by InsideView found that 66% of businesses that incorporate blogs into their SEO strategy tend to generate more leads than those businesses that do not. 

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What can a blog be used for?

There are many reasons a company should incorporate a blog on their business website, with the main point being that it will help your business rank on search engines. 

In order for businesses to become thought leaders in their industry, blogs are a good way to share information about a given topic and become an expert in the industry. This way, the audience will trust the information you share on your blog and share it with those around them. 

By incorporating a blog onto your business website you are able to cultivate an online community by engaging your audience with content similar to their interests. For example, if you are a property business and your audience is looking for property, your blog can feature the latest information on the property market that the news or other online sources may not feature. 

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Blog SEO tips 

1. Focus on 1–2 long-tail keyword

As previously mentioned, using keywords on your blog content can assist in optimising your blog posts however this does not mean incorporating as many keywords into your blog posts as possible. In contrast, adding in an abundance of keywords can hurt your SEO as search engines consider this keyword stuffing. 

A good rule to remember is to rather focus on one or two long-tail keywords per blog post. By keeping the focus of the post narrow it allows you to spend more time optimising for one or two keywords, although you can use more than one keyword in a single post. 

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2. Optimise your meta description

A meta description is an additional text that appears under the search result. This piece of text gives the searcher more information about the content so they can determine whether your content is what they are looking for and results in them clicking on the link. 

The length of a meta description is around 300 characters as it wants to give the readers more insight into what each result will give them. In addition to the meta description being reader-friendly, it should include long-tail keywords for which you are trying to rank. The keyword is bold in the meta description making it easier for the reader to make the connection between their search and the result.

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3. Link internally when possible.

Linking to your content by using inbound links assists the search engine by showing the validity of your content. For example, if you have written a blog post about a topic that is mentioned in another blog post or web page, it is best to link to that page (similar to what we have done at the end of this blog post). 

Internal linking will help keep visitors on your website and also surface other relevant and authoritative pages to search engines. 

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Does blogging help for SEO?

The simple answer is yes. SEO quality is boosted by blogging as it positions your business website as a relevant answer to your audience’s question. Businesses that specifically use a variety of on-page SEO tactics in their blog posts have more opportunities to rank in search engines and get customers to visit their website. 

Still not convinced that blogging is beneficial to SEO? Check out this article on SEO vs Content Marketing. This article will explain that any successful digital marketing campaign, SEO, and content marketing encourage each other. 

Tags: blogging, SEO