SEO has been on the top of many of my clients minds as of late. With the algorithms for how search engines rank websites constantly changing, it can be hard for a website owner who isn’t investing in managed SEO services to know what to do to stay relevant in Google and other search engines.
Probably the best, most effective way, is to constantly be updating your website’s content. Search engines prefer to see websites that are active and current, rather than old and stale. They are likely to give preference to the dynamic and ever-changing ones, over the ones that are rarely touched, in their results.
If you aren’t actively blogging and updating your website, your SEO will plummet, you will have nothing original to promote on social media, and you will have no clout with potential leads or customers. Also, you will have less pages than your competitors, many of whom may be actively blogging, to put those valuable calls-to-action which help generate inbound leads for your company.
Blogging is your friend.
Generally the best way to refresh your website is with blogging. This is called “content marketing” and this marketing tactic will never get old with the search engines. They are all about content…content…content…and more useful content for their searchers. The more content you have out there, that people find helpful, the better you are likely to rank in SERPs (search engine placement results).
According to Search Engine Watch:
“Digital marketing, especially for longer sales cycles, revolves around building engagement. You want to develop a relationship with your page visitors, so they come to view you as the industry authority and trust what you have to say. Search engines watch for this type of engagement.”
But so many people come up with a laundry list of excuses to avoid blogging or writing informative articles for their websites. I’m guessing their excuses really stem from that fact that they perhaps don’t like writing, or find business blogging/writing boring and tedious. I mean, who wants to sit down and carve out time to come up with words, sentences, and paragraphs?
Plus, as busy entrepreneurs and business people, there are so many other things they could be doing, right?
Why blogging is important.
As I have said before, people just don’t pick up the phone book anymore to find companies to do business with. They, instead, flip on their computer, or grab their tablet or smartphone and start their search there.
I am still amazed at the amount of money people will put into yellow page advertising, yet they won’t spend it on having content written for their website, if they don’t have the time to do it themselves. This is detrimental to your marketing and business long term.
Where do you find the time to blog?
I get that many people don’t feel like they have time for blogging, maintaining and updating their website. I really do get that. As busy business owners we tend to not give our own marketing efforts “the love” that they need. I am guilty of this too.
But, by not staying on top of your website content, you are really hindering your businesses ranking with search engines. What if your competition is actively engaging in inbound content marketing, and you aren’t. Chances are they will soon overcome you, if they haven’t already, in SERPs.
You are basically allowing your website to fester, die and be overtaken by those who are actively doing inbound content marketing. Ugh…
You may want the check out Darren Rowse’s article “7 Tips for Busy Bloggers on Finding Time to Blog” to get some ideas for how you can carve out some time to take care of this important marketing task, if you plan on going it alone.
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing relevant, valuable and consistent content to attract and retain their target audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action and the conversion of website visits into sales.
What do I blog about?
Content is always a big stumbling block for many people. They aren’t sure what they should be writing about or how often. The key thing to remember is to make it quality content that your readers and website visitors are seeking out.
Many people start off good and strong, pumping out lots of content on a regular basis, and then hit a brick wall after they have written a few articles and can’t think of anything else to write about.
Or, even worse, they feel like they are writing and writing and aren’t getting any traction from all their hard work, so they stop. This is what causes most bloggers to fail – the lack of immediate return on effort.
As Derek Halpern, of Social Triggers, says:
“The more time you spend working on something without a reward, the harder it is to continue doing it. And that’s why, I believe, most bloggers fail. They start their blog with good intentions, but fall off the beaten path because they waste time on pointless drivel that doesn’t deliver what they really want: more traffic… more leads… more sales. It’s sad, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Remember, the content you put out on your website is there for a long time. Many a blogger has written an article and received not comments or feedback for a year, then all of the sudden their post gets discovered and ends up on the front page of Reddit, or some other similar website, where it takes off like wildfire.
Am I saying that is going to happen to you? I don’t know. But, if you aren’t putting it out there, I can guarantee you 100% it won’t happen! Just because you don’t see immediate results doesn’t mean you should give up.
One trick I use for blogging is to create a list of blogging ideas. This can be done in Evernote, on your computer in a text file, or in a paper notebook on your desk or that you carry around with you.
When I think of something that I might like to write about in a future blog post, I instantly stop what I am doing and write it down real quick, before I forget it. Then, when it comes time for me to write, I go to my list and browse it to come up with topics to blog about.
How to get started again or to start blogging for the first time.
If you are ready to start blogging again, or even for the first time, be sure to read my article on how to write a blog post. It includes a “blog post template” to help get you started on thinking about the structure of your blogging.
Also, be sure to check out “What is the Ideal Length for Things Posted Online” and the nifty infographic to get some insight into how long your inbound content should be across all of your marketing channels, including social media.
But, I really don’t want to do it.
Of course, there are alway people who really just don’t have an affinity for writing or don’t want to do it. Period. End of story.
For those people, you have two choices — sit back and do nothing and deal with the circumstances, or throw some money at the task and consider it part of your marketing budget.
If you need help with writing content for your blog posts, simply because you can’t find the time, be sure to contact us for more about how we can help you out with that. Content marketing and blog posts is a service that we offer.
What are your biggest challenges for actually getting out there and keeping your website fresh? Let’s discuss below.
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