On a daily basis I get asked why blogging is so important. Many SEO Specialists have written articles on this very topic all claiming the same thing expecting you to take their word for it. For example, back in Dec of 2008 I wrote a small article on "Why Blogging is so Important" in which I gave pretty good explanation as to why each website needs one. This article has gotten quite a few hits with no visible or mentionable results other than providing the viewer with a good reason to start blogging. However, telling you why you need a blog is experience and opinion based and is a tad bit different then showing you why you need a blog. So in this article on "Why do YOU need to blog" I will show you actual results that will clearly show the benefits of blogging on your website.

Blog Preparation
1) The first and most important step before you begin writing your blog article is knowing who your target audience is. In our line of work not only do we get other website owners and potential clients reviewing and studying our articles, we get alot of developers, seo gurus and other web masters reading them as well. As a Website and SEO specialist myself, all to often I write articles that lean towards teaching others web masters how to do what I am doing when in fact I am trying to teach potential future clients how to increase traffic on their site in hopes that they will contact us for services. So its very important to articulate your blog article in such away that you are attracting the viewers that you want to attract.

2) The second rule in writing blog articles is knowing what keywords you are wanting to target. Knowing how to write SEO Article/Blog Content is a whole other lesson in itself. Click the following link for these FREE SEO Article Lessons.

3) The third basic rule in blogging is adding the visual aspect that grabs your target audiences attention to make them want to continue reading. You can do this by adding pictures to your article. You want to keep it interesting by drawing in your audience. You will do this with a couple of relevant pics, bullet points, H Tags, as well as the typical bold, underline and italics formatting. If done correctly, you visually stimulate your audience into continued reading.

4) The fourth rule of blogging is a specific call to action. In our FREE SEO Lessons we teach you how to write articles that guide your viewers to some type of action. Afterall, what is the point of writing an article if you are in a product or services based business without asking your viewers to do something once they have read it?

and finally,

the last rule or suggestion to blogging is being consistent with your blogs. Its recommended to produce 2-3 blog articles a week for your target audience. This does three things; 1) keeps the flow of traffic to your site steady, 2) keeps the search engines coming back to your site looking for new content and 3) helps to establish your company as a specialist in your field which builds consumer confidence.

Benefits of Blogging
In order to understand the benefits of blogging you really need to understand what a blog is about and what its for. If you are reading this you should be able to see the importance already. In our blog we provide information that pertains to our services in the form of an article that provides "you" the viewer valuable information that will either cause you to implement our suggested strategy or to call us and have our Blog Team do it for you. You may or may not call us now, but in the future when a web related need arises the overall goal is that you remember who we are and to eventually capture your business.

Blogging is a dynamic way to provided fresh content on your website without having to create extra pages and links to those pages on your website menus. It's like a website unto itself within your current website. 

Our services are website design and development with an emphasis on the Joomla Content Management System. We also provide Search Engine Optimization Services. However, there is no way to cover on one (services page) all the services that we provide. That is where the blog comes in. We can write about an SEO tactic on our blog which will bring in more viewers all centered around one specific topic we are writing on that will grab viewers from the internet in a way we couldn't have done with our current website structure. The article is designed to engage the viewer with the goal of 1) them implementing our strategies and keeping them coming back for more or 2) for them to contact us to implement that strategy for them. 

"After all, generally speaking the sole purpose of a website or blog article is to capture future business. A blog opens doors to potential clients that your static website pages would not have."

Let me show you how this works:

As we mentioned before we offer SEO Services. Well this is a large field of services and the list of what we can do is long. So on our SEO Services page the keyword we are trying to rank for is SEO Services in Kansas City. Well if we have 100 Search Engine Optimization Services that we offer and we list every single one, then how do we rank for all 100 of those services on one page? The answer to that is we cant!

However, with our blog we can start writing articles on those individual services and start ranking and bringing in potential clients from the Blog Articles that we write.

Here is a case study of recent blog article:

One of our SEO Services is helping clients setup valuable backlinks to their website using a typical SEO Strategy that works. We picked a high ranking website (to use as a tool to drive traffic) that has lots of members and viewers that can be targeted for this article that we wrote.

The last article that we wrote is right below this blog article you are reading and its called: How to Drive Traffic with a Squidoo Lens.

Click to view larger image

<--- This article was written Feb 22nd and within 22 hours of publishing this blog article, not only was it showing up within the top 10 results, we were at position #7 for the search term "How to Drive Traffic with a Squidoo Lens" which is exactly what we were wanting to do. 

As your create and provide more and more relevant information for your readers several things will happen.

1) Your site will obviously receive more hits.

2) Your readers will pass on your articles to others.

3) Your overall site page rank will increase, thus passing on your sites page rank to your blog articles even faster.

4) As page rank and relevance increases your articles will start to be indexed quicker by the search engines giving your articles a leg up over other similar articles that have been out longer than yours.

5) Your followers will increase. Building your blog followers is very important. Allowing them to interact with your blog by being able to leave comments will give you the interaction with your visitors in a way that not only keeps them coming back but also provides valuable feedback on more of what they are wanting and needing.

Click to view larger image

Within a few days our position moved from #7 to the #3 position and is holding. So the whole point of this example is to show you that not only do we bring traffic to our website in from our static website page called "SEO in Kansas City" we are now bringing in visitors based on one of our non-mentioned services that we offer in a very short amount of time by using a blog. This article alone has made us $2700.00 in less than a month as well bringing more relevance to our entire website as a whole.

Summary: Blogging gives you the ability to rank individual articles that will draw traffic to your site that you would not have normally gotten from your static pages. It increases traffic, helps to raise page rank, bring more relevance to your site, provides value to your readers and open doors to new business and opportunities.

Here is a quick SEO Blog Tip: The best way to get a backlink from someone else's site to yours is not necessarily trying to convince them to link from their home page to yours (that generally doesn't happen) but to have them write a small and quick blog article/review of your site and services in their blog. These types of backlinks are more relevant in the search engines eyes and works well in driving more traffic to your site from a blog that has many viewers over just your link being on their site.

If you need help setting up your blog or creating a blogging strategy that will work for your company, please contact us and get a FREE Project Quote.

Comment (0)

I get asked all the time about viable back links that will drive traffic. This first thing that pops into mind is getting links pointing back to your site from websites that have 1) high traffic and 2) large page rank. Of course the next question I get asked by my clients is "can i do this myself". The answers is, Yes you can and our recommendation for today is to setup an account with Squidoo.com.

Our Squidoo accounts:
http://www.squidoo.com/joomla-website-design-development
http://www.squidoo.com/xtremeseo
http://www.squidoo.com/joomla-teaching-forum-community

These accounts took about 15 minutes apiece to setup and drive an extra 800-1200 hits a month to our site. We capture the keywords we want to rank for within our links that we setup at Squidoo. 

The awesome thing about driving traffic with Squidoo is that it allows you to create multiple landing pages for your keywords you want to rank for. Depending on your industry its not that hard within a few weeks for your Squidoo page to be showing up on the top 10 results for your keyword. They click on your Squidoo link within the results, are taken to your Squidoo page and are driven back to your website.

Another SEO tactic that you can use with Squidoo is to create a specific landing page on your website that caters to those that came to your page from Squidoo and offer them a special service or product offering. This tactic is also great if you are into list building as well as getting your clients to forward on your Squidoo Landing Page to their friends and colleagues. 

HOWEVER,

If you do not have the time to setup a Squidoo Lens, then we would be more than happy to assist you with this. Just simply contact us and let us know what you are looking for and lets see what we can do for you.

As always, we are here to help your business grow.

Comment (0)

Is Google trying to set new SEO Trends or was there such a demand on Google to share a little bit about how its algorithm works? Either way, Google has published is own SEO Starter Guide for the general public.

For most of us this is old school daily tactics, but for others it will open your eyes to the fierce competition that is out there competing against you and your site. 

This is a helpful SEO Reference Tool produced by Google. If the #1 Search Engine on the planet makes suggestions, I would definitely apply what you learn.

Comment (1)

It’s Rodney here and I am giving away 15 days of FREE SEO LESSONS (Search Engine Optimization). Need to Drive Traffic to your Website? Need to get on that first search page so people can find you? Let me show you how for FREE!

We have been asked, so we are delivering! Our Xtreme SEO System is Coming Soon!
Sign up at http://www.xtremeseo.com

Look for our email!

Take care for now..

Don’t forget to forward this to everyone you know who could use some help driving traffic to their website. Its free for everyone!

Have a Great Day!

Comment (1)