Gane.ca

Previously I have talked about the things your website needs and the offsite things you can do to make your website successful, so the next piece seemed very organic - why should I operate a blog? Well a couple key reasons - content for search engines, reasons for people to visit your site again, and establishing yourself as an expert in your field.

Having content for the search engines to index is important, and often overlooked when discussing search engine optimization. If you don’t have the content your potential visitors are looking for, well, they will never become visitors. Statistically speaking, it is impossible for you to cover every keyword that may pertain to your business, service or product.

Based on the slide above, we can determine that Google, the undisputed leader in search, sees a large amount of unique searches everyday. Something that works today, may not have the same affect in six months. Putting an average of how many of my searches end on blogs or forums, I’d have to say 7 to 9 of every 10 searches do.

This is what has made social media success, constant fresh content from people you want to hear from. What if your favorite company selling widgets was blogging on those widgets, how to get the most of them, and other subjects; wouldn’t you follow it? Check it often? Share it with your friends? If you run a blog, you can create this type of following and recommendation eco-system, and that is the best part of the blog.

And those visitors who return, and recommend you are important. Getting a recommendation for your product or service is important, and a real advantage of social media. As Internet users we prefer fresh and exciting, vs stale and unchanging and a blog is a way to stay fresh and exciting. It also gives a reason for people to come back to your website, and increase the potential of creating a lead or customer from a visitor.

The last point I always cover when discussing this it that maintaining a blog helps establish yourself as an expert in your field. It allows you to demonstrate knowledge and understanding on your subject matter of choice, and comment on the latest news and developing trends. All this is important for reasons above: it allows you to create new content for search engines and create a connection for visitors to return for.

I could go on about why a blog is important, and why you should do it. I just wanted to illustrate these main points: content, repeat visitors and establishing expertise. Those are why I think a blog should be a major part of any web presence, communication plans or social media strategy.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them, just comment below! Or subscribe to my RSS Feed or follow me on Twitter!