Why Is Blogging Important for SEO?

The internet is full of advice for small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to get their websites ranking on the first page of Google. But, as with anything on the internet, not all of that advice is necessarily correct. At the end of the day, search engine optimization (SEO) is not a perfect science. The rules that we should be following to please Google’s almighty algorithm aren’t really clear, and they’re constantly changing. Certain practices, however, can be pretty much ubiquitously recommended as best practices, and blogging is one of them — though, maybe not for the reasons you’ve always heard.

Content Freshness: Fact & Fiction

A lot of SEO professionals will talk about “content freshness” — that is, how recently content has been published on a  website. It’s clear that in some instances, content freshness absolutely affects rankings. If you search for “best android phones” in 2020, you’re not going to want to read an article that was published in 2012, as the phones mentioned in that article will now be out of date. So, articles published within the past few months have a clear leg up in ranking over older ones — they contain newer information that’s more relevant to what anyone searching “best android phones” is looking for (new phone releases happen all the time).

What this doesn’t mean, however, is that having more recent publish dates will automatically mean that your site or your article ranks above others. In fact, brand new content is synonymous with content that lacks authority, as there aren’t any backlinks pointing to that new content the instant that it’s published. That said, however, frequently publishing content means you’re maximizing opportunities for backlinks and building on the list of keywords that your site is optimized for.

Grow Your Keyword List

In SEO, we talk a lot about the importance of long-tail keywords. As opposed to a short tail keyword, like “drug rehab,” a long-tail keyword includes a little more detail regarding what someone might be searching for — for example, “drug rehabs with 12-step programs.” If you’re consistently publishing content, then you’re constantly thinking of new content you can create that will be useful to your audience, and you’re giving yourself more opportunities to rank for relevant searches.

Building on your content archives will ensure that you’re optimized well for a wider variety of keywords, giving you more opportunities to rank for relevant searches. In this sense, a blog acts as a gateway to the rest of your website — a user may land on a blog post because they searched a specific topic that you wrote a blog about. From there, we can utilize strategic internal linking and calls to action in order to keep them on your site and push them through a conversion funnel. More keywords means more opportunities to rank, which means increased traffic, and therefore, more opportunities to convert search visitors to qualified leads.

More Blog Content Means More Backlinking Opportunities

Another benefit to consistently producing content is that you’ll have more content to build links back to. As you’re creating new blog content, it’s important to distribute this content around, whether for guest posting opportunities or to be used as a source of information for other blogs. Every link that you have back to your site from other websites increases your reputation in Google’s eyes. When you’re producing quality content on a regular basis and syndicating it out, you’ll grow your backlink profile quickly, and more easily establish authority in your niche. Keeping this practice up will ensure that you rank well for relevant searches in the long haul.

Is More Blog Content Always Better?

Logically speaking, when we say that more content means more keywords and more opportunities for backlinking, one can make the assumption that creating more blog content is inherently better. In general, this is true! However, it’s also important to be realistic regarding how much unique content you can create in a given period of time, and how many topics you can cover that are relevant to your business. Pacing yourself by creating a content schedule for several months or a year at a time, and strategically choosing articles to revisit and reoptimize with fresh content over time, is a great strategy to help you stay relevant to a wide variety of searches.

Strategy Is Key

Overall, blog content is great to have on your business’ website, and it pays dividends to continuously produce new content. The key component in all of it is having an underlying content strategy that allows you to optimize for a wider variety of long-tail keywords, which in turn will help you generate more backlinks, and ultimately, earn more traffic and opportunities for conversion.