So you want to optimize your website for the search engines, and you've heard that blogging can really raise its visibility, especially in Google. Before you start writing up a storm and preparing for the rush of traffic from the search engines, take a moment to consider what you want to accomplish – and what needs to be in place for your blog to deliver the results you hope to achieve.
Let me give credit where it's due: most of what you're about to read is taken with permission from a particularly insightful post on our SEO Chat forums by one of our regulars, Anthony Mangia, a well-respected member. He noticed how many of our members, particularly newcomers, have questions about blogging and what it can do for their rankings. So that's where he started, with the question of whether blogging does, indeed, help your rankings.
As with many things in SEO, the answer is both yes and no. "Blogs are not inherently different" from any other web page, Mangia notes; in fact, "they may even be worse" because "chronological navigation is subpar." So what kind of value can you get out of a blog?
Mangia mentions four points that should be of interest to anyone trying to increase traffic to their pages. First, blogs give you a specific place to add fresh content to your web site. Fresh content keeps people coming back for more. In fact, blogs can indirectly encourage you to keep adding fresh content, "because nobody wants to see that the most recent post was 3 months ago," Mangia observed.
Second, blogs give you a place to put linkbait - and a little more flexibility with it than you might otherwise have. If you work for a large company, for instance, you might find yourself at odds with the marketing department about putting any new content on the website that isn't tightly aligned with the company's image, whatever that may be. Blogs can potentially let you be more creative with writing the kinds of articles that people enjoy reading and linking to. Think about it: when is the last time IBM's marketing department put out a cool top 10 list?
Third, blogs help you build a community around your website. They open up possibilities for networking with others in your industry. You can learn things, build a good reputation, get related links, and develop a following of people that will spread word of your posts in the various social media.
Fourth, you can use RSS feeds with your blog to increase your exposure. Increasing your exposure often leads to more links...which often leads to higher rankings in the search engines. At the very least, it never hurts.
So, to sum up the benefits of blogging, no, Google doesn't automatically put you on a special list of its favorite people just because you blog. "But blogs do create opportunities for you to create content that will get links and rank well," Mangia wrote. Now that you've seen what you can do with your blog, let's look at some of the other things you need to consider before you jump right in.
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