Do blogs on websites matter anymore? In fact, does anyone actually read blogs these days?
Surprisingly, the answer to both questions is a resounding YES! From a very basic perspective, blogs are a great way to boost your site’s SEO juice. However, that’s just one of a myriad of reasons why your site should have a blog.
Three Reasons Your Site Needs A Blog:
- Thought Leadership – You’re an expert in what you do. You’ve spent a lot of time, effort, and money to become very, very good in your field. Blogging about what you do in a relatable, easy-to-understand manner establishes you as an expert to prospective patients who visit your website. Someone in need of a complex dental procedure is more likely to visit a doctor who can explain the procedure in a descriptive and educational blog post than a doctor who has a simple line or two on their services page stating that their office does the procedure. Essentially, your blog posts act as a lead generator for your business.
- Extend Your Brand Beyond Your Site – Simply put, blog posts give you content that is easily shareable across multiple online platforms, such as your social media channels. A single good blog post can act as tentpole content to be used in multiple ways. For example, the graphics from the post can be shared on visual social media channels while the written content converts into video and audio clips. Those soundbites can be uploaded to YouTube or turned into a podcast. Some posts can be leveraged as press releases to raise awareness of an important topic. You can ask colleagues to comment on your blog post – maybe offer them an opportunity to be a guest blogger on your site to provide an alternate take on your post. One solid, well researched and enhanced blog post can be used to generate weeks of content across a number of different channels.
- It’s SEO Gold – I know I mentioned that blogs are beneficial for your site’s SEO earlier, but this can’t be overstated – Blogs Drive Search Rankings. Some of the key factors Google uses when ranking sites include whether the site has fresh content, pages that are keyword rich, and if other sites are linking to the site in question. The first two of those factors are super easy to tackle with a blog – do a little keyword research, write some blogs, and voila, you’re generating new content that targets important keywords for your rankings. The third one, inbound links, is a lot more challenging. However, as you go through the first two items on this post, the inbound links will come.
In previous blog posts, we’ve referenced having your practice sit on a busy street corner versus a not busy corner. How does a street corner get traffic? By giving people a reason to come to that area. A blog is just one of many ways to generate traffic to your site. New content provides an opportunity to attract someone’s interest. It also gives Google a reason to say, “Hey, this site is active and interesting, I’ll bet someone searching for that topic would enjoy it. I’ll put it higher on my list when someone searches for that same topic.” Okay, the Google bots “probably” don’t actually say that, but you get the idea! A blog is a fantastic way to enhance your site.