Category: Google

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Why I started a Blog for my Business, and you should too.

laptop
Blogging

I’m starting a blog today, and the first question a new blogger needs to ask themselves is “what on earth am I going to write about?” Well, I thought a quick explanation as to why I’m starting a Blog might be a good place to start. If you are a Business owner and have a website of your own, reading this might be of use to you.

Choosing to build my own website using WordPress.org and then rebuilding and constantly updating it lead me to do a lot of research. There is so much written about WordPress and building websites it can feel a bit overwhelming. When you start thinking about what you want to include on your website, one of the default sections WordPress suggests to have is a Blog. However, when I started out, I immediately dismissed this idea because I thought I would have no interest or time to write on a regular basis.

Also blogging seems like a lot of effort and something perhaps a lot of people start and give up on after a few weeks (fingers crossed that ’s not me).

So why blog?

After doing some more research, I discovered the websites that receive the most amount of traffic, post to a Blog regularly. Which understandably makes sense, as having regular updates gives people a reason to come back to your website, but I still didn’t think that was enough of a reason to start one myself. I thought “surely I just need to set up a website and then potential clients will be able to find me through Google by default anyway?” But no, it’s not that simple.

SEO

When I first decided to build my own website a few years ago I didn’t realise I was diving into a rabbit-hole. As you dive further into the world of web design you will inevitably come across the term SEO (search engine optimisation).
This simply means that when a search engine like Google is indexing your website there are certain things you can do when publishing to make sure your site is being seen and the content is categorised accurately. In simple terms, you are increasing the chances of your site of being found when someone performs a search on Google and on other search engines (if people still use them?)

There are tons of suggestions online of how to optimise your website for search engines and again it can seem overwhelming and complicated; so much so that there are many businesses and freelancers out online who offer their sevices dedicated to this very specialist field.

Google has changed its algorithms over the years and you might have thought once upon a time all you had to do as a small business owner was build a website that looks good, and people will find it automatically and then the business just roles in. This is not enough, you need to be more active. If you have a blog that’s regularly updated with posts that are good quality and on topics relevant to your audience, it can make a massive difference to how your overall website performs in search engines.

Google doesn’t want to offer its users search results of outdated information. So if your site is one that is regularly updated it signals to them that the website is alive and offering content that’s fresh. Behind the scenes, your website is being ranked and Blogging improves your status. It also gives a reason for the search engine algorithms to index your website more often.

Getting traffic

Getting traffic to your website isn’t all about SEO. There are of course other methods such as paid for advertising and listing as a business on Google that can drive you traffic and ultimately customers. Also if your website is used as a shop or e-commerce you might approach advertising differently. For example the popular Shopping tab featured on Google search you are likely to be familiar with. Google themselves have their own guides for such businesses, however, I have also delved into this world of Google Ads and will perhaps write a separate blog on my findings and thoughts about it another time.

So if I’m deciding to write a Blog and you should to, then you should make it as interesting as you possibly can. Like anything in Business, if you put the time in you will see the rewards; in this case more online traffic and ultimately more clients.

So what’s next?

Going back to my original question “what on earth am I going to write about?” Well, perhaps about interesting online insights into topics such as this is a good starting point.
Hopefully, I can offer any helpful information that is useful for Businesses trying to raise their brand awareness online or perhaps other new media professionals starting out or trying to raise their own profile.

I ’d also like to interview some other creative and technical people I’ve met along the way and perhaps write about social media and marketing insights and trends. Who knows where this blogging path will take us?
If you’ve made it this far reading then hopefully my first post wasn’t too shabby. Perhaps you have a suggestion of a topic you’d like to read about so please get in touch if you do?

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I look forward to the journey.