Blogging for business marketing is often seen as this very nebulous pursuit that business owners know they need to do but don’t know why or really how. It really shouldn’t have to be such a difficult thing, however. The fact is activity on the World Wide Web has always been driven by information.
So it follows that the more good, substantive information a website provides, the more credibility it will have when ranked with others in the space, and Google Search is all about credibility. After all, Google wants to provide good customer service. If your search results don’t turn up any websites that suit your needs, then you just might move on to Yahoo or Bing to find what you’re looking for.
For that reason, in the world of SEO, content is king. And with that business owners want to know how much is enough? The answer: it depends (nebulous, right?). The fact is that competing for Page 1 web traffic in just about any sector is a race. How fast you have to run that race to succeed depends largely on how fast the competition for the same Page 1 space is running.
You could be a goat herder in downtown Chicago and, with little more than a home page and some keyword rich content, score position 1, page 1 of Google Search for goat herders in the Windy City. But try that in the mountains of Peru and it’s an altogether different story.
The point is it takes some research to understand what the benchmark is for your industry (and your location, if local search matters to your business).
That said, on average businesses blog about once per week, which is negligible. And if you want to make considerable strides in your search ranking, you will need to do considerably better than that. How much better? It still depends. If your competition posts new content twice a week, try doubling that to jump ahead of them. It sounds like a bit much but businesses that want dramatic change in their web traffic and search rankings need to take dramatic steps.
Of course, all of the standard SEO tools (eg., meta data optimizations, photo compression, usable site structure, etc.) should be utilized in concert with content creation to get desired results, but again content is king. Without content, all the rest is just buttercream frosting without the cake. And that may taste good and all, but it won’t get you to the first page of Google Search Results any time soon.
If you would like to talk with a consultant about how search engine optimization can drive sales for your business, call Proctor Digital at 312.600.5155. We love helping small businesses skyrocket to the top of online search and visibility.