We’ve been barking on about blogging for quite some time and since Google’s Panda algorithm update, which rolled out internationally in April, websites with an effective blog strategy have been visibly rewarded. But the rewards have been there since long before Panda.

Why Bother with Business Blogging?

A blog has a host of benefits for a business, including:-

  • Offering you a platform to communicate (often in a more conversational manner) with your clients and potential clients.
  • The ability to share your opinions on news from your industry.
  • The ability to share your knowledge about your wider industry, thus proving yourself something of an ‘authority’ on it.
  • Enhanced traffic through long tail searches
  • The potential to garner natural links back to your website from other websites, which in turn can benefit you from a SEO perspective.

An Example of Blogging Increasing Search Traffic

Back in November 2010, we decided it was about time to start practicing what we preach. We set aside time to update our own blog regularly. Since then we have seen the number of different keywords referring traffic to our site more than double.

 

Here are the figures for the number of keywords referring traffic. Brand keywords refer to searches for anything with ‘Tecmark’ in them while non-brand includes anything else!

Month Total Keywords Brand Keywords Non-Brand Keywords
April 2010 147 30 117
May 2010 137 17 120
June 2010 135 19 116
July 2010 134 15 119
August 2010 141 19 122
September 2010 140 22 118
October 2010 143 19 124
November 2010 312 32 280
December 2010 258 28 230
January 2011 341 41 300
February 2011 432 36 396
March 2011 752 40 712

Our Google Analytics data shows us that the majority of our increased traffic from search is down to the blog. We’ve also acquired links to a number of our posts from other websites who are quoting our research or the data we share here.

So yes, it’s worth it! Whether you allocate resources in house or use professional business blogging services, ensuring the addition of content to your website is absolutely beneficial from a search engine optimization, traffic generation and online brand awareness perspective.