Blogging is a powerful thing. It not only creates valuable digital assets for your business, but it also has a huge impact on search engine optimization (SEO) - the very thing your small business needs to get discovered online.

1. The SEO Benefits
Of Small Business
Blogging

2. Small Business Blogging — When A Website Alone Doesn’t Cut It
Plodding along with a website that you update when the mood strikes you will help you keep your
most loyal of customers and nothing else. That’s not a solid growth strategy to build on, and if
you’re like most small business owners, you want to develop more traffic, generate leads, become
a thought leader and sell more stuff. Small business blogging is one way to accomplish this in a
hurry and improve your business communications.
You likely already know what a small business blog is and how it works. What you may not realize
is how much it can boost your site’s traffic and search engine optimization (SEO). It’s no longer
a “neat trick” to add a blog to your site, it’s rapidly becoming a necessity and something every
business owner should be doing if they want to establish themselves as an authority in their
industry.
How A Blog Improves SEO
Adding a blog (and posting regularly) immediately improves
the content on your site, which benefits the humans who
visit by providing fresh material. Again, we all know that
any chance to add good, useful, optimized content to your
site should be taken. The search engines will love your blog
because every time you add keyword-optimized content,
the search engines get another page, with another set of
title tags and they start indexing these things.
It’s simple. Better, more frequent content keeps your
devoted visitors and the search engines coming to your site. People and search engines both
want the same thing, new, hot and fresh content. That’s Web Marketing 101 and small business
blogging makes producing new content easier. Posting weekly, or better yet daily, sends the
message that your site is active and worthwhile. The people out there on the Internet will have
more reasons to visit, and the search engines will notice that you have an active and engaging site.
Yes, search engines can detect if you have a site loaded with old information. Blogs generate a new
URL for each post, making them a megaphone for the search engines to hear and index.
The best SEO benefit a blog can crank out is the backlink — the holy grail of SEO actions. When you
deliver engaging, relevant content, your visitors do cool things like make comments at the bottom
of your posts and put your link on their own blogs making you an authority. Search engines love the
folks who can be considered authorities. You can return the favor and link to other blogs and when
those blogs link back to you, the content starts spreading and search engine rankings dramatically
improve.
You Have A Blog. Make Sure It’s Working For Your Business.
Anyone can start blogging about their small business, get excited and then let it dry up after the
initial excitement wears off. Make a plan to generate content consistently and consider outsourcing
the task if needed. Frequency matters because more posts mean, more indexed pages for the
search engines to capture for their results. This leads to more organic traffic and more of your
communications reaching the eyeballs of folks interested in your services.

3. A study by HubSpot shows that publishing five posts in a seven-day period drives 6.9 times more
organic search traffic and 1.12 referral traffic than website owners who don’t blog.
Now that you put your frequency plan into action, make sure each post does its job. You must
optimize your content. Title your posts with language that incorporates industry keywords and
generates interest in what you have to say. Work those keywords into the first paragraph as
naturally as possible. Use the keywords consistently and keep publishing multiple posts every week.
The Benefits Of Becoming An Authority On Your Blog
Becoming an authority may sound a little far-fetched for some business owners. After all, no of
us dreamed we would be doing what we are doing, we just want to be successful. Other business
owners may not particularly care about being an authority they just want to sell more. They are
both right and they both still need to become an authority.
You don’t need know everything about your
industry to become an authority. Perhaps a
better term here would be, “reliable source of
information.” Remember earlier in this document
where we talked about “backlinks” and visitors
exchanging a link to your site if you link to theirs?
Information about your industry can work the same
way. It’s called a conversation. (I know. That’s so
1995.) If you attract active visitors they will share
what they know on your site. You will consistently
learn more as you post more and everyone sees
your site as a reliable place to give and take
information. Now your blog/site is a hub for the
best and most valuable contacts in the industry.
Now consider the customer’s point of view. If they visit two sites to learn about web-design services
and one site is nothing but a gaudy commercial about the services they offer, are they learning
anything? If they visit your blog, take part in an active conversation and learn more about web
design, don’t you think they will use your service over the people beating a big bass drum. They
know more and you know more.
Being an authority does not mean you are some omnipotent being, it means you offer good
information frequently. More people trust your site, they visit more often, share your links and the
search engine rankings improve dramatically.
Building A Community
Now, if your site becomes a place where visitors offer up advice, provide insightful comments,
come back often and recommend your services, you have a community of folks that are focused on
your business. The search engines will, once again, follow in a big way.
This utopian community sets its foundation in the comments. You build trust from your visitors by
replying to their comments, but you can also speed the process along by commenting on the blogs

4. of businesses related to yours. Don’t leave a flippant comment on someone else’s blog like “nice
work.” Read their stories and leave a thoughtful comment. This is an easy way to partner with a
related business, and it builds those precious backlinks we keep talking about.
You can also analyze the comments of your subscribers and offer more content about those topics
in future posts. This shows your responsiveness and that the customer service you provide would
also be top-notch. Yes, you can build trust, as well as traffic and improved search engine rankings
with a blog.
Extending That Community To Social Networks
This is actually the easy part. Any blogging platform worth a
nickel will provide a simple widget for moving your content
out the social networks. Many businesses have a solid
foundation of subscribers on social media sites and they
are starving this captured audience. A blog, with its easy
connections to social networking sites, now gives this group
something to see and a good reason to take the plunge and
visit your site.
Social networking sites also support the critical “backlink”
action as your community members share your site with
their friends. Again, your blog makes acquiring the precious
backlinks easier on social networks as well.
Think of social networks as a free and easy way to rapidly
extend your blossoming community. Don’t make Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ a complicated thing. Use these
networks for what they are — a good communication vehicle. You can:
• Learn what interests your community.
• Highlight your projects.
• Keep your site visible.
• Use the social networks to communicate if your site ever runs into a snag and needs some
downtime.
Don’t be a bore
Many times you will see small business blogs that have an article with tremendous potential that’s
ruined with a boring headline or a lead paragraph the meanders for what seems like ages and never
gets to the point. Writing for blog requires that you put the most important points right at the top.
Don’t waste time with an introductory paragraph that promises good things later. This is not your
college thesis. You will draw in your reader and improve your SEO by making your point quickly and
incorporating those keywords in a natural way.

5. What Should I Avoid? Duplicate Content!
While outsourcing or developing your own content, watch out for duplicate content. Google does
not like duplicate content. Don’t copy and paste information from another one of your own page
and do not copy the words from another site. Google can detect duplicate content in a hurry. Many
companies also offer duplicate content checkers to make sure your are not plagiarizing.
Wrap It Up...
Small business blogging requires an investment of time. Nevertheless, it is still one of the most
economical ways to boost traffic, communicate your company’s message and establish you as an
authority. If time is something you don’t have, it’s still inexpensive to outsource new content.
The SEO benefits are enormous and a blog is rapidly moving into the “must-have” category for
marketing your business.
WAS THIS HELPFUL?
SHARE OR CONNECT WITH US ONLINE!
digitalsherpa.com/blog
www.facebook.com/digitalsherpas
www.twitter.com/digitalsherpas
www.linkedin.com/company/digital-sherpa
www.youtube.com/digitalsherpas