What You Need to Know about Blogging for SEO

Most business owners recognize the importance of being seen online. After all, people are using the internet on an ongoing basis to search for everything they might need. It doesn’t matter if it is a new shirt or an emergency plumber, those searches happen all of the time and when a match is found, it means a new customer to the website listed at or near the top. That is why it is so important to consider search engine optimization (SEO) and all that it can give to your business.

Of course, as is the case with any type of marketing tactic, there are different ways to use SEO. They may differ from each other in many ways but one thing that they all have in common is their ability to help a business grow. One of the ways that you can use SEO is through your blog. In fact, this is one of the best ways to build your website with the power of SEO behind it. All it takes is some effort on your part and the knowledge that will help you do things right from the start. Keep the following in mind when blogging for SEO and you can see tremendous growth.

Blogs 101

First of all, it is important for you to understand blogging and what it has to offer. A blog is a shortened form of Weblog and, at one time, it was a way for people to communicate that was considered to be separate and sometimes above a typical website. Today, blogs are so popular that they are no longer considered different from a website. In fact, the line has been blurred to the point where most people wouldn’t know the difference if you asked them. At it’s very basic level, however, a blog is just a way to put content online, and Google loves content.

Something else that you might appreciate about blogs is just how easy it is to set things up so they are search engine friendly. Many of them meet the general criteria right out of the box and at that point, you can optimize them for even more search engine love. Here is how to do it.

Content

One of the most important things to consider when blogging for SEO is your content. At one time, it may have been possible to put up so-so content or perhaps outright rubbish if the keywords were included. Today, quality is what matters but it isn’t always for the reason most people think. Google is smart, but they aren’t yet smart enough to tell a good piece of content from a bad piece of content (outside of some machine generated content). What they can do is gauge how others are interacting with your blog.

For example, if you have a great piece of content, it is going to be consumed by many of the people who land on your page. This means that you will have a low bounce rate and people will be staying on your page longer. Google sees this as being a sign of quality and they will rank you higher as a result. In addition, people are going to share great content, either by linking to it or by using social media. Those are also signs that your website is worthy of a higher ranking.

Links

Another major player when blogging for SEO is links. This would include the links on your website and links coming into your website. Both of they can have a positive impact on your SEO efforts.

Links on your website would include links out to creditable sources; particularly those that are relevant to what you are saying. You don’t need to worry about diminishing your page rank as a result of those links; just include them naturally and they will help. Links from one page of your website to another will also help to build up the ranking power for the page receiving the link.

Another important type of link is the one coming into your website. This can significantly build up your website rankings. In fact, you could think of each link to your website as being a vote for your website. Some of them are going to occur naturally but it might also be necessary to reach out and ask for the link as well. When this is done in the proper way, it can really impact your rankings.

So, as you can see, blogging for SEO is alive and well. Regardless of whether you already have a website or not, a blog can be added to build up your rankings and to help you see more success for your efforts. It helps to make you more visible to the search engines and ultimately, you are more visible to those who are interested in what you have to offer.