What is a blog and why do I need one?

What in the world is a blog and why do you need one? Or do you? Let's ask the knower of all things, Google. For anyone who wishes to improve their search engine ranking, a blog is a sure fire way of doing so. Why? Several reasons, actually. 

Here are six great reasons why you should have a blog. 

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Your Site is Alive
One of the reasons a blog is helpful to your search rankings is that it shows you have a site that is being updated regularly. Unlike one of those ovens they sell on late-night television, a website shouldn’t be something you set and forget. Fresh content has become a big factor in search engine results with Google adjusting their technology to favor sites that are updated regularly. 

You get more links
When search engines evaluate sites, one of the things they look at is the number of other sites that link to yours. Since a blog creates additional content it’s a great tool for inviting others to link to your site which helps the search engine results of your site. 

Blogs can also be used to create links to other content within your site which is another way that you gain “Google juice” or rank higher on a search engine. Search engines like seeing that your pages are tied together and you can use a blog to reference pages within your site. For example, I can link to my page about writing blogs and that helps people find this page. 

Blogs can expand your keywords
Keywords are one of the factors in returning search results to your site. When you write blogs, you can research the words that are being used to find your website and enhance those by writing content around that to return better search results. The more certain words appear on your site, the more heavily weighted your site is in this respect to search engines. 

Forget the Internet, Blogs define you
Even if there were no good digital reasons to have a blog, there is actually a real-world reason. By writing about your passions and your business, a blog can help your customers better understand your business and what you have to offer. In telling the story and sharing information about your profession you actually work to become an expert in your field. If you have a great story, this is the perfect place to tell it. Your customers will appreciate and like you more. And that could mean they’re happier to be your customers. 

Do you enjoy writing?
Another way blogs can help is that it can provide an outlet for you to tell the story of your business or passion. While a web page can be the introduction, a blog can be a great way to expand on your passion or vision. 

Where should your blog be
A blog should be part of your website. While there are good tools available that are independent of your site such as blogger.com, you’re far better off to have the blog resident on your site. Google is looking for yoursite.com/blog as the ideal spot to have the blog. This is one of the reasons I love working in both Weebly and SquareSpace template systems - they both include great blogging components that you can take over. 

Bottom Line
A blog is a great place to use your voice to tell your story further. Consider that it improves the appearance of your site to search engines and helps your customers better understand your vision, there’s no reason not to do it. Next week we’ll talk about the relevance of your voice and how you speak to your customers. In the mean time, let’s set up a blog or new website for you, shall we?