Business Blogs and SEO: Frequency Matters!

As small business owners, everywhere we turn it feels like we’re being preached at about ways to boost search engine rankings to build our online presence. Use social media, identify keywords, create a blog, use directories -- the list goes on and on and on with ways we can go about building visibility online.

I know because it’s what I do, so I’m not knocking it. But it’s important to tread through all of the resources offered and do some research to truly identify what works and what doesn’t -- or more specifically, what works for specific businesses and what doesn’t. You want to use SEO boosting techniques that have been proven to work for your type of small business.

One SEO boosting technique we’ve found that does make a significant difference in search engine rankings is posting keyword rich, relevant, and recent content. 

An Unexpected Search-Ranking Slide

One company found this to be true by inadvertently testing it on their business. The company already knew that posting this type of content was an important tactic to add to its online marketing arsenal, but until dealing with a sudden and unexpected personnel shift, it didn’t know how much of an impact it really had on search engine rankings.

In August of this year, the company’s SEO report showed them ranking on the first page of Google for the majority of their 20 keywords. However, they dropped to the second and third page of rankings for the month of October. Why?

When looking at what changed, or what they’d done differently, they realized that the only change was the fact that they hadn’t posted the typical 20 – 30 monthly blogs and articles for the month of September because of a lag due to the personnel change.

What can we infer from this? That strategically posting keyword rich, relevant, and informative blogs and articles makes a significant impact for a local business’ search rankings. The company’s strategy included:

• Identify the right keywords for their local business.
• Using a 1-2 percent keyword density per post.
• Posting 5-10 posts per week to external websites and directories/blogs with an emphasis on high ranking sites to create inbound links.
• Outsourcing the writing content for greater efficiency.
• A focus on consistency for posting.
• Coming up with new and relevant content for the different posts.
• Responding to comments on their posts with a focus on engaging the audience.
• Including a consistent bio and message about the company and the author/business owner.

If you’re not already posting frequent and relevant content that meets the criteria outlined in the strategy above, you might be wise to begin doing so. It will have a significant impact on how often you get found by the search engines online.