Are you becoming tired and unmotivated to continue writing content for your website? Perhaps you’re struggling to come up with fresh ideas, or you feel blogging is irrelevant and outdated in the face of newer content marketing strategies. Blogging, however, is far from dead, and it’s time to reinvest time into one of the most powerful sources of information on the internet. Google, and other search engines, will certainly reward you for it!
If you’re taking considerable time to write blogs on your website, you’re going to want to make sure you’re they are getting found and that they are appealing to your audience. Blogs can be hugely beneficial for search engine optimisation if done consistently and correctly. Keep reading to find out the 3 main reasons why your blog isn’t being read, and what you can do to change that…
1. You’re not optimising your content for search engines
Generally speaking, blogs are an invaluable way in which you can keep your website updated with fresh, original and relevant content; all of which tells the likes of Google and other search engines that your website is a source of useful information that it should point browsers towards.
If you have dabbled in SEO across your website already, perhaps in the form of inputting meta titles and meta descriptions, you’re missing a trick if you’re not using your blogs as an opportunity to weave in long-tail keywords. It can be tricky to optimise your website’s metadata with longer keyword phrases, particularly when taking into account the recommended character limits and that long-tail keywords are often less specific by nature.
Readability is another important factor to consider when writing SEO-friendly blogs. Depending on your industry, you need to place yourself in the shoes of who you are trying to address. Over-using technical jargon or writing in an overly formal tone may make your blogs undiscoverable for your target readers, especially if they are beginners in a certain field. Simplicity and an understanding of the language your reader is using is the key to getting found on Google.
This is where your keyword research comes into play. Using tools like Google Keyword Planner will provide you with insight into the kinds of phrases people are actively searching for on Google, as well as the level of competition these phrases have. You can then begin to slot in a handful of targeted phrases within your main bodies of text, and crucially, in H1/H2/H3/H4 Headings.
Finally, make sure you’re not falling at the last hurdle and publishing your blog without internal links. Failure to link to other pages on your website, where relevant and where it makes sense to do so, is a common shortcoming in the SEO process. Again, blogs are the perfect opportunity to develop a strong internal linking structure throughout your website; not only will this improve the usability of your website, but it will also increase browsers’ average Pages Per Session and dramatically improve your domain authority on Google.
2. Your subject topics lack focus, or use for YOUR audience
At the heart of writing content that converts, is knowing your audience. Ask yourself; who is your target reader? What needs or problems do you they have that YOU can address? What kind of content are they already consuming? Why are they consuming it? These kinds of questions will then help you shape your blogs around subjects that are compelling and useful. This exercise will also help you identify who is actually driving the need for your particular services or products.
As well as asking yourself these questions, it’s essential that you find out what questions your target audience is asking. You can then ensure your blog serves a purpose: to address these questions. Not only will this help you fulfil Google’s ‘relevancy’ criteria, but it will also boost engagement with the content you are putting out, increase the average user session on your website, grow your website traffic and potentially yield higher conversions.
To find out what questions your audience are asking search engines, Answer The Public is an invaluable tool. If you’re struggling to get the creative juices flowing, Answer The Public is also fantastic for brainstorming content ideas which you can then work into a blog schedule. By simply typing in a word or short phrase related to your industry, specialism or subject topic, Answer The Public will generate a wheel of branches that contain specific questions. For example, here at InSynch, it would be useful for us to know what questions people are searching for surrounding ‘SEO’, and thanks to Answer The Public, we can discover a whole host of potential blog titles that we know for a fact will be useful to our audience, such as: ‘Why is SEO important?’, ‘Which SEO plugin is best for WordPress?’ and ‘Which SEO techniques should be avoided?’
Given that the main objective of a search engine is to provide people with answers to their search queries, addressing questions generated by your research will not only promote the discoverability of your blogs but ensure they rank high up in search engine results.
3. You haven’t got a clear content strategy
Once you’ve done your keyword research, and established those all-important questions you want to address in your blogs, you’ve got all the tools you need to develop a sustainable content strategy moving forwards. Working your focus keywords and niche topics into a structured blog schedule is a great way to encourage your writing to delve deeper into a particular subject. By launching into a topic unprepared, and without having done your research, you’ll likely fall into the trap of trying to cover too much under one umbrella, and this is when your writing lacks focus and directness. Narrowing down your topics and putting in place a clear content strategy a month or two in advance will help you write detailed, tailored content that is of value and meets the specific needs of your audience.
You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “consistency is key” applied to a variety of scenarios, and blogging is certainly no different. Keeping to a regular schedule of detailed, compelling and original blog post topics will keep you in demand and reward you with an engaged audience. Top tip: Create demand for your content by being the first to cover anything new in your field! I find that sticking to a blog schedule and consistently researching emergent trends within your niche keeps you on your A-game in terms of producing industry-leading content.
Here at InSynch, our experts can assist with creating SEO-focused blog schedules and a bespoke content strategy for your business. Book a free, no-obligation 1-2-1 with one of our Digital Marketing Experts to find out more.