One of the topics I often discuss in my books, to my clients, and at speaking engagements is the value of a business blog not just as a tool to create conversations, build relationships, and develop brands, but also to increase search engine rankings and visitors to a business Web site.
Many business owners think of blogging as a chore that delivers little added-value to a company’s bottom-line, but the truth is actually exactly the opposite. A business blog is an incredible tool for search engine optimization because of what I call the compounding effect of blogging.
First, you need to understand consumer behavior in the 21st century:
Where do you go to find information about a business, product, store, etc. when you need it? Do you check the Yellow Pages? Nope. The vast majority of consumers turn to Google or their favorite search engine (with Google being #1).
Here’s how the compounding effect of blogging phenomenon works:
- You have a business Web site made up of 20 pages. That’s 20 entry points to your business Web site for Google to find, index, and deliver in relevant keyword searches.
- You add a business blog to your Web site, and you publish a blog post everyday for a year. Now you have 365+20=385 entry points to your business Web site for Google to find, index, and deliver in relevant keyword searches.
- You publish posts on your business blog and those posts offer interesting, useful, helpful or entertaining content that your audience finds value in. In other words, those posts are shareworthy.
- People find your blog content and realize it’s interesting and shareworthy. They share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. with links back to your business blog. They blog about it on their own blogs with links back to your blog. Now, the number of entry points to your business Web site (via your blog) has increased exponentially. Your Google search traffic increases as all of these additional incoming links to your blog and Web site boost your Google search rankings, and traffic to your site from referrers across the Web increases, too!
- Your Web site went from a static destination with 20 standard business entry points to an interactive, engaging site with hundreds or thousands (or more) of entry points and an increase in traffic from search engines and referrers! You can’t buy that kind of exposure!
The compounding effect of blogging really is that simple. It’s about creating shareworthy content and entry points, and it’s a form of marketing that business owners would be crazy not to leverage!
Image: Flickr
