Blog? A Blog Page For Your Website In 2020?
Blogs have turned out to be an integral factor in today's digital culture. Irrespective of gender, age, culture, people love reading exciting content.
Different categories of blogs ranging from digital marketing to fashion blogs are readily available on the internet. The interesting fact is that today's blogs are entirely different from the type of blogs that used to exist five years back the line. People have started writing blogs considering the SEO aspect as well.
During the earlier days, blogs were considered more like a personal diary, but things have changed a lot right now. Blogs are now a source of information. Blogs have evolved to such an extent that it is easier to reach the global mass through blogs than any other medium. Before moving onto the importance of the blog, let's have a look at the history of blogging and how it evolved.
History Of Blogs
Justin Hall is regarded as the first blogger. He created his first personal blog in the year 1994 and is considered as the founding father of personal bloggers. Even though the first blog was published in 1994, it wasn't until 1997; the term "weblog" was coined. Later on down the lane, Peter Merholz shortened the name weblog to blog. Later on, we saw the emergence of different blogging platforms, and people started pooling their own experiences and ideas to create blog content.
Blogger, a well-known blogging platform available to everyone, was initially founded by Pyra Labs and was later acquired by Google. Google made it free, and hence everyone had access to Blogger. This move by Google was the main factor that helped blogging become such a mainstream phenomenon.
Eventually, WordPress and Type Pad made its way to the market, and the entire landscape of blogging changed after that. A lot has changed over time in blogging, some of the oldest blogging platforms don't exist right now, while some platforms like WordPress are thriving.
What Sets A Blog Apart From A Traditional Website?
The main company website might remain static or idle for some time. Still, on the other hand, a blog page will be regularly updated with relevant information that has the potential to drive traffic to your main website.
Blogs will be updated consistently, and hence a brand is creating an opportunity to engage with their customers on a regular basis. Apart from that, blog content creates a platform where people can read, comment, and share their opinion, which won't be possible with a normal traditional website. A well-written professional blog can help your business in many ways.
Let's move onto discussing the benefits of blogging by considering the example of a small scale e-commerce website.
Keeps Your Website Fresh And Updated
Imagine a scenario where you land upon an e-commerce website whose contents haven't been updated for years. The moment you realize it, half of the trust towards that website will be gone. In such a scenario, we are forced to believe that the company might have stopped doing their business for some time now. Even Google feels the same.
In a world where e-commerce websites regularly update their products, Google doesn't want its customers to see outdated list of content or product. A website that regularly updates its contents conveys a clear message to Google that we are active and have something to offer for the customers. Having a blog is a more practical way of achieving it.
Reduces Bounce Rate And Keeps Users Active On The Website
You might have heard about the term bounce rate. Let's explain this with an example. A user clicks your website and lands on your homepage but immediately leaves the sites as he finds it unhelpful. That particular action of the user makes Google believe that the result they displayed is not useful and leads to an increase in the bounce rate.
While on the other hand, if a user keeps on browsing on your website for a while, it leaves a positive signal to Google that the particular site is beneficial for the users. An exciting blog page will make your users stay active on the website for some time, and the customers who visit your homepage from a blog will have reasons to stick around for some time.
Blogging Helps You To Get Your Keywords Indexed
One of the most common mistakes most SEO experts make is expecting their website to rank in the top 10 results of Google Search Engine for a particular keyword. You need to be the biggest brand in the country to get your website listed in the top 10 results with just a keyword-optimized page.
If you are not the most prominent brand, then you will have a hard time getting your page listed on the top 10 results. But blogs can help you in this matter. By adding keywords in your blog that explains the services and products you provide can help you in getting your keywords indexed and to rank higher.
Increases Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is the most needed factor for a business especially for an e-commerce or an online shopping business to thrive. A quality blog will help you to increase customer engagement for your business. Readers will have their own opinion about your product, services, or even the contents in the blogs. Your blog post readers might be your future customers, so by providing a platform to voice their opinion can do a lot good for your business. By doing so, users will feel more attached to your brand or products. Customer engagement can be an essential factor for websites that are mainly involved in online shopping.
Increases Website Traffic
High website traffic is what every business dream. Blogs are the perfect solution to help you achieve high website traffic. As discussed in the above points, by adding relevant keywords in your blog posts, it is easier to get indexed and rank higher in the Google search results. As your blogs rank high in the search result, it will drive more traffic to your website. The benefits of blogging are not just limited to increasing website traffic, but it also increases your sales and revenue. An increase in traffic means more will be the probability of getting a lead.
If you still doubt the benefits of blogging, a small statistics listed below will help you to clear your doubts.
Blogs are the most powerful method of content marketing, according to 37% of digital marketers ( source : http://www.contentplus.co.uk)
Companies with blogs get 67% more leads than those companies without blogs (Source: InsideView)
61% of US consumers have bought a product because of the blog post (Source: BlogHer)
How To Get Benefited From Your Company Blog?
A common question that would come into the minds of business owners or representatives who don't have any idea about blogging is how to get started with your company blog. Nothing to worry about, it's relatively easy. If your website is built on WordPress, it is straightforward to create a blog page. There are lots of online tutorials available to help you out on this. If you already have a blog page, but it is not active at all, then follow the below-mentioned points to make the most out of your blog page.
Create A Blogging Strategy
The first thing you should do is prepare a blogging strategy for your blog page. Make a clear idea about the areas you would be concentrating on, such as fashion, shopping, technology, and so on, to write blogs. It would be best if you also have an idea about the purpose of writing the blogs and to whom the blogs should appeal.
Identify The Right Keywords
Simply writing blogs alone won't do any benefit to your business unless it is not ranked high in the Google search result. Make sure to find the relevant keywords that match your company's products or services. Use those keywords in the blog content you write, thereby increasing your probability of getting displayed in the top ten search results in Google for that particular keyword.
Make Sure To Do Internal Backlinking
Content is the king when it comes to SEO. Always keep in mind that you are writing a blog giving importance to SEO as well. Internal backlinking in simple terms means linking one page of a domain to another page of the same domain. You can provide a link to the product page of your business from the blogs so that your blog readers might end up finding your product and buying it. Internal backlinking is crucial for both the SEO & as well to increase your product visibility.
Give Importance To Title And Description
These are the details search engines such as Google would be giving the first priority. Make sure the meta title and description contain the necessary keywords and are well within the specified character length.
Promote Your Blog
Once your blog is published, make sure to promote your blog by gaining external links to your blog page. External linking to your blog page helps to increase your SEO score and thereby to make your blog page rise in the search result. Try to gain as many backlinks to your blog as possible, but make sure not to gain spammy backlinks.
All business that follows the strategies mentioned above would end by gaining a lot of new customers. Those businesses who don’t have a blog page for your website, it’s never too late to create your new blog page. Go get your blog page up at the earliest and start making the most of it.
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