Blogging and Google Rankings: How One Helps the Other

In the old days, competition between businesses happened through print or broadcast, or on street corner signs. But now it’s all about getting the best position on Google. And if you’re looking to improve your position on the search engine results page (SERP), it’s time to look into how blogging improves SEO.

Include Better Keywords

Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing and hidden pages to boost SEO. But that certainly doesn’t mean keywords are irrelevant when using blogging to boost your search rankings.

Blogging gives you a great opportunity to populate your website with long-tail keywords, which help websites rank higher when a certain phrase is searched. Unless you’re the biggest company out there in your industry, your business page isn’t likely to be the first result for short keywords related to your business.

For example, if you own a barbershop, big chains are likely to show up first for the search term “barber.” But if you own an independent barbershop in the Midwest, you could create blogs aimed at specific search terms, like “how to keep your hair healthy during the winter.” As people search for information about this topic, you have the opportunity to rank higher than your corporate counterparts.

Answer People’s Questions

Along the same lines, blogging is great for answering people’s questions relevant to your business. Doing this is a great strategy for building trust between you and your audience, but it also helps you out initially by boosting your SEO.

In recent years, Google has been making changes to its algorithm meant to improve the user experience. As companies began stuffing their websites full of hidden pages and all the keywords they could think of, users were finding useless pages made by people who were trying to hack the algorithm instead of fulfilling a search intent.

The changes in the algorithm brought the focus back to the users by rewarding pages that best answer popular queries with higher rankings on the SERP. And when you create a blog, you can create lots of content that dives into narrower topics and answers queries related to those long-tail keywords you want to hit.

Providing quality answers in your blog also keeps people on your page longer, which is another signal to Google that your content is helpful to users, yet another way you’ll find your SERP rankings increasing.

Link-Building

Blogging gives you a great opportunity to include links to other pages on your website. Google prioritizes websites that are easy to navigate and have lots of opportunities to move from one page to the next in a way that makes sense. In blogs, it’s best to keep the number of links in check since too many will come off as spammy. It’s also important to use good keywords as anchor texts to improve the link’s actual usefulness.

Another great goal is creating content other websites want to use. When you get more people arriving at your website from outside sources, it’s a clear sign to Google that your website contains the kind of content their users are looking for.

While creating a consistent blog may sound like a lot of work, putting in the time and effort will give you the edge you need in the space where competition is the fiercest.