Blogging is an incredibly powerful inbound marketing tool for every small business owner. Often overlooked and not used very effectively.
Here is my top 5 tips on how to use blogging to drive quality traffic to your website.
1. Stick to your core ‘theme’
It’s easy to see interesting facts and figures or topics and decide to comment on them. Perhaps save that desire for Twitter but always keep your core theme of your blog true and try to stick to it rigidly. You will build a following and get more traffic if you have a consistent theme to your content.
It’s best to write around 400 words per blog post. Some people write much more but busy people will struggle to read longer than that and it’s more difficult to keep their attention, than if your blog post is short and to the point. If your topic requires a longer post – break it down into parts or a series.
2. Use keyword-rich post titles
The ‘Title’ is the headline that you have given your post, this appears as the heading above the content of your actual post.
Focusing on the right keywords in your Titles can have a big impact on search engine rankings and traffic. Scan through your content and pick out the main topics you’ve covered in your post. Plug those terms/phrases into Google’s Keyword Tool. Look for the most popular search terms but also the alternatives it suggests. Then go back to your content and try to add these keywords into your post – in the title field, content, the meta description and your tags (see below).
PS When you are selecting categories/topics for your blog ‘filing’ system, make sure these also contain keywords if possible.
3. Keyword-rich URLs
WordPress does this for you and you can edit your auto-generated URLs (permalink) for each post to make sure they are as Google and search friendly as possible. And you want those keywords in there as it all helps with your SEO efforts.
4. Tag correctly
We know it can seem a pain to have to add tags to every blog post, but do do it and try to make them as Google friendly as possible. Again, think of the keywords that your target audience will be using to search online. Only use jargon or acronyms if they are widely used by your customers. This can be relevant in business-to-business marketing. Think like your audience at all times.
5. Description
If you’re using a WordPress plug-in like Yoast make sure you edit the meta description field to be keyword rich too. Ideally you should customise the descriptions for every post. You can set up generic/default ones to show if you do not customise one.
Orchard Marketing Associates is 5! And to celebrate, I’m publishing a series of blog posts on the theme of ‘five’ throughout January 2012. Designed to help make your marketing more fruitful in growing your small business quicker!
Enjoy this one – my last top 5 tip for now!