-By Jim Lodico
Hitting Google's front page makes an SEO happy as a boy who just got the latest video game for Christmas. And the #1 Google ranking is truly the holy grail of the SEO world. Grab it, and there you get your everlasting flow of free traffic, loyal customers and through-the-roof sales. Nothing left to wish. Nothing to strive for, right? Wrong. I mean come on. Top Google ranking? We can do better than that! Much better in fact. How many times have you heard someone say, I just want that top search result on Google? For a business website, the top spot in the search engine returns can be a lead generating machine. Think about it. Google is where most people go when they are researching. What if there was a way to get your company’s website on that coveted first page? Well there is…One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a website can have a huge impact on the overall website’s search engine rankings.
A blog does two important things in terms of the search engines:
1. Adds naturally occurring, keyword-rich pages.
2. Increases the potential for incoming links from high-quality websites.
Playing the Numbers—Static vs. Dynamic Websites
The average small business website includes anywhere from 10-20 static web pages. These are the basic pages you see on most sites such as the home page, an “about us” page, product descriptions and even pages with contact information. Once created, these pages rarely change. In some cases, even small changes on these pages can be an expensive proposition that involves bringing in a web designer.
If the site is well-built with all the appropriate code and metadata, the search engines will index these 10-20 pages of content. If the site is highly optimized and focused on a limited number of keywords, the search engines may connect those 10-20 pages with the right keywords (the search engine terms used to find information). However, due to the inherent needs of a website, some pages aren’t indexed for the desired keywords (i.e., contact forms). Best-case scenario, 10-20 pages are recognized by the search engines as possible returns for the targeted keywords.
The Impact of Blog Posts
While a blog post a day is a lot of work, scale it back to one blog post per week and we’ve still more than doubled the number of indexed pages during the first year. Each indexed page adds another ticket to the great Google lottery. The more tickets you hold, the better chance of winning the top spot in the search engine rankings.
The Power of Incoming Links
Now let’s say that our faithful bloggers have been adding their daily posts on topics of interest to their industry. Word gets around that they put up some valuable information and at the very least offer a voice for the company. A couple of blog posts have been emailed to fellow colleagues and even better, fellow industry bloggers are starting to link to the blog. The site starts to appear on fellow bloggers’ blog rolls and specific posts are linked as references and points of discussion in other online publications.
Google likes these incoming links. Google likes them even more when the links come from sites that are relevant to the content in the blog. Then one day, a mild-mannered New York Times reporter is conducting research for a story related to our company’s industry. Because the blog has added a number of indexed pages to the website and others have started to link to the blog, it pops up in the reporter’s Google search.
Google really likes incoming links from big, high-traffic sites like the New York Times. Along with the initial traffic sent to the blog from the New York Times article, Google sees that the New York Times linked to our site in an article related to keywords indexed in our blog. Google recognizes that the New York Times is an important Internet site and makes the connection that because the New York Times has linked to our little blog, our blog must be important. Thus Google moves it up the search engine rankings.
Indexed Pages + Relevant and Reputable Links = Search Engine Success
At the 2009 WordCamp San Francisco (a gathering of WordPress users), Google’s Matt Cutts pointed out the importance of being both relevant and reputable. Incoming links from reputable sites such as the New York Times in which the content is relevant to the content in the post are highly valued by Google.A blog is one of the best ways to continually add pages to a website that generate relevant and reputable links.
Quality of Pages Indexed and Incoming Links
When conducting this experiment, you can find sites that don’t rank as well on Google yet have more pages indexed. This is often because the pages indexed do not rank for the keywords searched. A topical blog naturally lends itself to keyword-rich posts just by the nature of the content. The same holds true with incoming links. Too many incoming links from websites that are not relevant to the content on the site can actually hurt a website’s search engine ranking.
Incorporate the Blog
If the goal is to raise the search engine results of the larger website, it is important to incorporate the blog into the larger website. Use a call to action at the end of the blog post to direct the reader to other parts of your website. Keep it on the same domain and provide clear links that encourage visitors to explore the rest of your website. Make it easy for your reader. If the path to your larger website isn’t clearly marked, they will never find their way.
ROI
Measuring the ROI of social media is tricky, but consider the value of the top spot on Google. How much would you pay for the top organic search return? Although it doesn’t happen overnight, a blog can be one of the best ways to get there. Have you seen a jump in the search engine rankings since adding a blog? If your business is not blogging, what’s holding you back?
Measuring the ROI of social media is tricky, but consider the value of the top spot on Google. How much would you pay for the top organic search return? Although it doesn’t happen overnight, a blog can be one of the best ways to get there. Have you seen a jump in the search engine rankings since adding a blog? If your business is not blogging, what’s holding you back?
