Blog

Does Blogging Help SEO? 5 Ways Blogs Help Your Website

Posted on by Monica Synstelien

Blog: a noun, a verb, and one of the most important parts of a successful SEO strategy. When you think of blogging, what comes to mind?

Perhaps you remember recipes from your favorite food blogger. Maybe you’ve learned about your next vacation through travel blogs. Or you might keep up with your favorite influencer through their lifestyle blog. Of course, you could imagine blogging as something people do for fun or a way to keep a digital diary.

But if you own or work for a business, blogging is one of the most effective ways to get in front of prospective clients or customers. And yes, blogs do increase your SEO efforts.

Blogging is a way to build an audience, a community, and trust with the public. So when you invest in blogging for search engine optimization, you’re investing in your share of voice. You’re expanding your reach. And you’re establishing your expertise.

Does Blogging Really Help SEO?

If you’re looking for a traffic line that consistently trends up and to the right, partnering with a content marketing strategist or agency team is the quickest way to get the trend line you crave. And when it comes to increasing your organic share of voice, blogging is your best bet.

Businesses of all industries and sizes benefit from blogging. With the infinite potential for growth, each client who successfully engages in content marketing will have a unique trend line with one common thread: the line goes up and to the right.

do blogs increase seo traffic

Why Content Is Important For SEO

To expand your online presence, the path to success is clear. The more topics you cover in your customer’s journey, the more opportunities you give your customer to engage with your site.

When you don’t have a web content strategy to develop your blog section, you’re not speaking with your customers. You’re not answering their questions. And you’re kneecapping your organic traffic.

Learn about how Augurian’s Content Marketing team can create your SEO blog strategy.

5 Examples of How Blogging Helps SEO Marketing

Maybe you’re still not a believer. Or even more challenging, perhaps you’re unsure how to convince your company’s leadership that investing in blog content is worth it. Your CMO may ask, “why are blog posts important” or “what are the benefits of having a blog on our website”?

I’ve worked with clients of all sizes across all industries, and here are the constant benefits of blogging that I’ve witnessed time and again.

Blogs build links

Building backlinks (otherwise known as inbound link building) is a core search engine optimization tactic. However, despite being one of the oldest and most important SEO tactics, it is also the most challenging to master. But I believe that blogging is a simple solution to this complex problem.

Types of blog content that tends to get a lot of backlinks:

do blogs build seo backlinks

Digital marketers can spend hours, days, and weeks on link outreach. It’s a costly and time-consuming process, full of dead ends and disappointment. But we’ve learned that if you create something worth sharing, links build themselves.

Our agency has seen a successful blogging strategy outperform backlink outreach every time. When you build good content, people naturally want to point to it.

How to create blogs that build backlinks:

  • Cover a topic comprehensively
  • Cover a topic clearly
  • Involve subject matter experts
  • Create shareable infographics
  • Respond to what’s relevant

Blogging brings traffic to your website

Blogging is arguably the best way to increase traffic to your website year over year, month over month, and even week over week. Website traffic depends on several factors, but the most significant determining factor of how much traffic your website gets is how many users are searching for the content on your website.

Suppose your website is exclusively comprised of low-funnel pages, like service pages or product pages. In that case, your traffic will be almost entirely dependent on how many people are searching for your specific service or product. But some of your customers don’t even know there’s a solution to their problems. They don’t know what product or service might help them-and they certainly don’t know what brand to look for yet.

Your website can provide unique value by speaking to the customer when they’re in problem-solution mode. Your customers are asking questions that may lead them to your solution; if you’re not there to answer those questions, another competitor might be. Your website should empower users with knowledge and confidence. That’s when you’ve earned your conversion.

Your company’s blog shouldn’t be just about your product. Your blog is for the people who may buy your product, the questions they have, the fears they face, and the alternative solutions they may be considering. You and your customers benefit by accessing your content during each stage of their buying journey.

Blogging builds awareness

When you successfully utilize content strategy to grow website traffic, you’re also increasing the awareness of your consumer base. The blog content section of your website ensures that users are aware of your brand at all stages of their customer journey. The success of your blog content section is determined mainly by how helpful you are.

  • Does your website serve a purpose that people come back for regularly?
  • Does your website invite users in with valuable answers?
  • Does your website solve some type of problem?

If your brand is consistently showing up to answer users’ questions, it becomes effortless to remember your brand when it comes time to purchase.

Blogging builds trust (both from search engines and users)

Followed by awareness comes trust. So not only are you building awareness, but you’re also bolstering your authority by being helpful. While you may think that your product alone qualifies you as an authority, consumers often require more information before trusting your credibility.

Think about someone you trust as an authority on a topic in your life. For example, maybe it’s a friend who you call up when your car is having trouble. Your trust in their expertise grows not only when the friend fixes your car, but when the friend can answer questions that empower you to take the steps necessary to fix your car. When a person helps you, particularly repeatedly, you’re compelled to trust them.

If you continue to produce accurate information that answers users’ questions, you’re allowing users to rely on your brand for information. When you blog, you encourage your customers to trust you and empower them to revisit your content in the future for help.

Learn about how Augurian drove results for an e-commerce biz by building trust through search blogs.

Blogs can boost your other web pages (this is internal linking)

You already know that your blog can attract backlinks from external referring domains. But the link power goes both ways. Your blog can also link internally to your most important pages, boosting those pages’ link equity, SEO authority, and internal URL rank.

seo-blogging-linking-crawlability

Internal links are particularly potent when the subject matter of a blog is relevant to a product or service your company provides. Links can be simple anchor text or a button CTA.

And when a blog post garners a lot of external links, strategic internal linking can transfer that link equity to another page.

A Few More Questions About Blogging for SEO 

By now, I hope you’re convinced that blogging is one of the best ways to boost your website and support your SEO efforts. But perhaps you’ve got some lingering questions.

How Do Blogs Increase SEO Authority?

Because blogs are excellent at organic link building, blogs are also fantastic at increasing SEO authority. Domain authority is Google’s measure of how credible a website is. And while domain authority is an industry metric influenced by many favors, we know backlinks matter. The more backlinks your blog generates, the more authority your website will have.

Does Adding Pictures to a Blog Help With SEO?

Great blogs include more than just optimized copy. They also have other content elements, like images with keyword-rich alt text, to satisfy the users’ experience. The images you include and how you describe them in alt text help position your blog in the SERP to answer questions.

The success of your blog images can also leapfrog outside your blog and directly into the image results page on google. So if you create an excellent infographic that people find valuable, don’t be surprised if that image begins to rank elsewhere in the search results.

How Does Updating an Old Blog Post Help With SEO?

Content strategy doesn’t stop at producing content. A genuinely excellent content strategy includes revisiting old blogs to maximize results.

For some blogs, an update is obviously required. When a blog is specifically relevant to a particular time frame, it’s important to revisit that content every year and update the references. For example, the top design trends of X-year should be updated annually to reflect the current design trends. Or perhaps you’ll publish a piece of content where you provide a list of things, and then after time goes on realize you’ve got another item to add to that listicle.

Pro tip: never include the year or number of items in the URL.

organic-search-experts-monica-synstelien

Where does our confidence in SEO blogs come from? Explore our digital marketing client wins to find out. 

Blogging for SEO Do’s and Don’ts from Augurian’s SEO Experts

For new companies just beginning to develop their brand and online presence, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Starting somewhere is better than never starting at all. So, if partnering with a content agency just isn’t within reach, take these basic steps to craft a beginner’s content strategy:

  • Research Your Topic: Don’t write about something just because it “feels right. Make sure that there are people who want that piece of content. Consider what search terms your customers might use to learn more about your industry. If you have a known competitor who creates great content, look at what topics they choose to write about and put your spin on it. And when you’re ready to make your topic research even better, invest in SEO writing tools.
  • Consider Investing in SEO Tools: To level up your web content development, consider using a Content Marketing Tool. Some content marketing tools, like SEMrush, will support your keyword research and competitive intelligence. Dive into keyword research tools to discover long tail keywords, and build thoughtful key-word rich content without keyword stuffing. Other content marketing tools, like Canva, will enable creative asset development. There are also free plugins that reveal search volume like the SurferSEO extension. If you’re investing time in content marketing, sharpen your efforts with technology.
  • Outline Your Content: Don’t just start writing.Once you’ve done your research to establish a topic is worth writing about, it’s critical that you consider exactly your content needs to include to cover the chosen blog topic comprehensively. Again, visit competitors for context here. Google the topic you’re trying to cover and look at how the top-performing pages outline the content. Follow the format that works best for your blog, but don’t stray far from what is winning in the search results.
  • Use a Writing Assistant: Don’t stop editing once you’ve written a final draft. Instead, incorporate a free writing tool like Grammarly or a Flesch Kincaid Calculator to ensure your content is readable and error free. Like previously mentioned SEO and content marketing tools, using a writing assistant will improve your content and sharpen your writing.To learn more about how to write to rank, check out our tips for writing killer content.
  • Get Specific About Success: When it comes to content marketing metrics, the measurement options are near infinite. A good marketing strategy should always be backed by data and have specific KPIs to measure against. Consider what your goals are when it comes to content marketing. Is it traffic? Is it conversions? Is it positioning your business as a thought leader? Maybe it’s everything! Whatever you choose, make sure to measure your efforts against something tangible.

Blogging for SEO Pays Off – When You Do It Right.

Blogging can revolutionize your online presence. But not all blogs are created equally. If you’re an established company looking to reap all of the benefits of a well-executed blog strategy, partner with an experienced content strategy firm like ours.

Augurian’s content marketing team specializes in blogging for SEO, focused on results that drive business growth. Learn more about how our content marketing team can amplify your businesses’ digital presence, so you can have confidence in your marketing investment.

Ready to talk? Get in touch. Or, explore more success stories with blogging for SEO:

Monica Synstelien
Monica Synstelien
Manager, Organic Search at Augurian
Monica Synstelien
Latest posts by Monica Synstelien (see all)
Explore Our Latest Digital Marketing Tips
Back to Blog