Stand out in Search: How Blogging as a Business Benefits SEO

Over 2 million blog posts are published on the Internet every day. But that number pales in comparison to the 5.5 BILLION Google searches every day. The question that remains is how do you stand out in the sea of searches across the web? Marketers could answer this question in a number of different ways, but for lasting results and relevancy, you need Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without an adequate SEO strategy across your site, it’s nearly impossible to rank in the search engines.

Pro tip: Order a transcript of any videos you produce to quickly turn videos into written content.

Content in all forms can give you a lift in search-ability, but the easiest way to get started is simply through blogging. A blog allows you to not only write what you know, but share what you know — and that’s how you get in front of customers and ahead of competitors. Learn more about the reasons blogging can help boost SEO with the following benefits:

1. Build Authority

With a continuous stream of blog posts, you can show your audience that you are an expert in the industry. Over time, customers will begin to trust you and start to consider you as a source of truth. There’s no need to reveal all your trade secrets, but writing about small tips and tricks shows others that you know what you’re doing and are a trustworthy source of information. And when you become a relevant source of information online, it boosts your SEO authority.

Within SEO, there are scores that predict how well a page or domain will rank in a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These are called a Domain Authority (DA) and a Page Authority (PA). A DA and PA are calculated using a number of different factors, but one of the main elements is the number of links pointing to a site or page. This means that the ability to rank in Google (your authority) is largely based on people sharing your content!

2. Generate Backlinks

When other sites share your content, your site is generating what is called a backlink. These are also referred to as “external links” within the marketing community, and the links send a signal to search engines that you are a trusted expert on a topic.

For example, LemonLight, an Austin-based video production company, uses their blog to keep consumers up-to-date on the current production trends and video how-tos. By using the MOZbar, a free SEO Chrome extension, you can see that the blog has a domain authority of 40, a cumulative score based off links to the entire site, and a page authority of 32, a score representative of 348 links pointing to the blog.

That being said, if LemonLight stopped updating their blog completely, the score would start to drop because links can become stale over time — much like how content is only relevant for so long. Blogging as a business can be difficult, but content generation and building your score can be no trouble at all with the right network of people.

3. Grow Partnerships

Creating a blog and giving your brand a voice is important, and in the same vein comes growing a network in your space. One of the biggest SEO benefits in the blogosphere is that partnerships are mutually beneficial.

When you connect with another company or individual to start guest blogging and sharing content, you’re creating valuable backlinks and vice versa. It’s easy to see how well this works in the market research field. Take a look at zapp.io, a popular market research blog. A simple scroll through the page shows you the numerous writers contributing to this blog. And just to drive the point home, take a look at Sasha Laferte’s bio:

Laferte is writing for numerous other companies. This effort is allowing her to form relationships and brand herself as an expert. When people read her posts on other websites, she is not only promoting herself, but ZappiStore, as well. It allows people to feel comfortable sharing her articles as well as other pieces from ZappiStore.

4. Boost SEO Rankings

If the entire goal of content is to be seen, you need to rank on the first page of Google for your target keywords, otherwise you’re not going to reach your audience. Fortunately, over the past few years, the Google algorithm has become proficient in determining what is relevant content, and a blog is the pathway to relevancy.

Google also likes long-form content, and by providing a steady stream of well-written information around specific subject matter, you’re not only giving Google bots what they want, you’re also creating more opportunities to target valuable keywords. You’ll quickly find that the benefits of blogging are cyclical and can perpetuate into large gains for your industry.

Wrap-up

Maintaining a blog generates opportunities that allow healthy growth within the SERPs. Each benefit lends a hand to improving website SEO, which makes the possibilities endless. We only discussed four opportunities within this piece, but the more you start to extend your content marketing efforts, the easier the process becomes. A content strategy will start to fall into place and eventually you can dive into different forms of content, such as eBooks, videos or whitepapers.