Do Blogs Need SEO?
You have probably heard of SEO or ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. It has become a buzzword in the marketing world with business owners who want to get their websites seen. A big part of this optimisation process is understanding keywords for SEO. But are keywords still relevant in SEO? Are they necessary to create a blog article that sells more of your motorcycle tyres or that next cruiser?
Let’s find out…
What is SEO?
SEO is when you optimise your website/blog content for the search engines to get more of the right people to see it.
When someone types/speaks something in the search bar of Google, for example, it will bring up any pages it thinks will be useful on the topic. It will find ads (PPC) and organic results on the search engine results pages (SERPs). What we will be talking about here are organic results, which appear just below the paid ads.
These search engines use ‘crawlers’ to collect information on the content that they find. They follow the links in the pages found and use this information to work out how this page is connected to others in its database. The main goal of the search engines is to bring up results that are relevant to the user’s query or topic.
But how does that relate to SEO blogging?
If 99% of customers have searched for a local business online in the last year, you want to be creating great marketing content to appear to be high in the results pages to access these new customers.
This is where SEO content comes in.
There are many SEO practices you can do to achieve this, such as improving your headline and mobile responsiveness etc…, but one of the best places to start is by using an SEO keyword strategy.
What are SEO Keywords?
SEO keywords are words that people use in the search engine to answer their questions. If you know what people are searching for, you can get your content in front of their eyes and avoid talking to the wrong people who have no interest in your business.
You can use keyword research tools, like SEMrush to find out what terms people are using. When choosing SEO keywords, there are plenty of free and paid keyword research tools out there. They will tell you different information like the difficulty to target certain phrases, as well as the popularity of these terms. How you choose keywords for SEO depends on your goals and your specific audience.
So Do Blogs Need SEO?
Organic SEO has a great effect on the visibility of a business.
Compared to PPC ads, for example, organic SEO has a much bigger return on investment. 70% of marketing experts when surveyed agree that search engine optimisation creates more sales than paid ads.
Let’s put it this way, the same survey tells us that Google will create 3.5 billion searches every day through its algorithm. And if over two-thirds of all clicks on the search engine results pages go to the top 5 results, will your business get any of this traffic?
You need your blog content to be seen as valuable and accurate as this will rank you higher and get you more exposure.
But wait. SEO keywords are not more important than your human audience.
Many people get caught up in SEO content and end up ruining their ability to get new customers. SEO keywords are crucial to getting your blog marketing efforts seen, but you should never place it above communicating with your audience.
Some keyword research will take you away from the context of the article topic and your niche. Your knowledge on a topic outweighs the reach and results you could ever get from stuffing your blog article with SEO keywords.
Google will also award you with a heightened position on the SERPs if it sees that people are engaging with them. It will be seen as a relevant source of information due to factors like their longer dwell time on the page.
Summing Up
SEO blog writing will help you get more customers as it increases your visibility on search engine results pages, which will drive the ideal people you want to target to your website and blog.
It’s no wonder why 61% of marketers make increasing their SEO their top marketing goal.
But, although having SEO optimised content is a critical part of a business’s exposure, you must prioritise your niche and always look to talk to the humans reading your blog articles.
The most successful blogs have a great balance of knowledgeable people writing on topics they understand and who rely on SEO keyword research (and other SEO practices) to help further their reach.
If you are looking for SEO experts who know marketing and motorcycles, check out our content marketing services here.
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