Using Blogs for Small Business SEO: Part Two

This post is the second part of “Using Blogs for Small Business SEO”. Last week we established that blogging helps keep your website fresh. Google and the other search engines love fresh, new, unique and compelling content; uploading a blog post once a week (or more), gives the search engines exactly what they want.

So what’s the second reason blogs are brilliant for small business search engine optimisation? Keywords. If you are writing a blog post about your products or services, you will naturally include a number of keywords which are the terms prospects use to search with.

Not only will your blog posts contain your all important keywords, but they’ll also probably include a host of variations on these keywords – plurals and synonyms are almost as important as the original keyword in the first place. An addition to your keywords, you’ll be using keyphrases – these are often known as the ‘long tail’. These are longer phrases that people may use to locate what they are searching for on the web. An example of this search would be: “how can I clean paintbrushes without damaging them?”, this is a typical example of a longer search query that a searcher may enter into Google. If you have written a well rounded blog post on your easy to clean paint brushes, there is a good chance that you will match this long tail search term, and your blog post will rank high in the search engine results.

A well written blog post will be focused, with keywords naturally occurring in the title, headers and body section. There are many schools of thought on keyword use, but all agree that in order to rank for your desired keyphrases, you need to include them in certain aspects of your website copy. The recommended ratio of keyword to text is about 5-10%. Don’t go over 10% as this may appear like you are ‘keyword stuffing’; a very old technique which only serves to get your site penalised by the search engines.

Because your blog post will be focused on a specific area, this, combined with the fact that it is new and unique content, means that Google and the other search engines will rank your blog post higher in the search results for the keyterms used in that post than possibly static pages  of your competitors. Getting people to your site via your blog is a great way to drive an increase in relevant traffic, and if you provide high quality content with strong call to actions, people will contact you/make a purchase/or whatever other result you are looking for.

If you’re still unsure whether a blog is right for your small business, call us on 023 8083 7271, and we’ll be more than happy to try and convince you! Or, if you know that a blog will help your small business website (which it will), get in touch and we can help create it for you.

Let us know of any other reasons why you think a blog makes a great tool for any small business – leave your comments below, we love reading them!

1 Comment October 29, 2009

The Importance of Marketing Strategies for your Small Business

You may think that you know enough about your business and the industry you work in, to not have a formal marketing plan or strategy. If you’re lucky enough to not be affected by the recession, and your small business is still performing well, you may take the stance of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ (or from my favourite childhood Disney film Beauty & The Beast ‘If it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it’!!).

However, if I may present another (non Disney) chiasmus quote: Fail to plan and you plan to fail. Even if your small business is doing well right now, you never know what’s round the corner. Small business that are successful at marketing always have a marketing plan. Marketing practices are constantly changing and evolving, so it’s best not to plan too far ahead; a 12 month plan should do it. Who knew 12 months ago that Twitter would suddenly explode into a mainstream marketing tool? If you don’t plan and review your marketing activities and continue to only carry out the marketing activities that you’ve always done, you may end up missing out.

You should ensure that your marketing plan is clear and simple – you need to be able to refer back to it easily, and track your progress against your goals and projections.

If you need assistance in creating a marketing plan for your small business, get in touch with SMEketing. We can help put together strategies for business with budgets large and small!

Leave a Comment July 9, 2009