In the past, writing a blog to help with SEO for your small business was incredibly simple, as you just had to write some content with the keywords stuffed in, and there was no concern about whether the terms even made sense in context. As long as you got the keywords correct and included them the ideal number of times, your blog would get a high rank, and your small business would do well on Google.
Today, however, Google’s algorithms have advanced significantly, making readability, information, organization, and more just as important as including the keywords. Most small businesses now need a blog writing service to properly use SEO techniques and achieve the high rankings they desire. These blog writers will know exactly which strategies are the most important and make recommendations accordingly.
Select Your Domain Before Hiring a Blog Writing Service
Even if you know you will be hiring a blog writing service, you will still need to do some work yourself beforehand; after all, there needs to be a place for the written content to appear. It can seem incredibly tempting to create your small business blog on Blogger or WordPress. They are free, so you don’t have to worry about hosting or domain fees. However, Google’s algorithms consider not only the content of a given page, but also the actual URL and domain name. Spending the extra money to get a permanent domain name will be a small investment, but you will see dramatic results in terms of search result rankings. Ideally, you will select a strong domain name and then carefully plan each URL for new content contributed by the blog writing service. For the best results, select a URL that includes the keyword of the new article.
Plan out Your Keywords with the Help of Blog Writers
Even the process of selecting the right keyword for your blog has gotten more challenging within the last few years, and this is partially due to the increase in competition, which in turn influenced Google’s algorithms. Most companies tend to focus on the biggest keywords, such as “Chicago homes,” while ignoring the less common ones, such as “Chicago homes built since 1960” or “Chicago apartments for pets.” Your blog writing service will help you focus on the major keywords, but if you ignore more specific ones, you may miss out on potential clients. As you begin to establish your blog, add posts that use these lesser-used keywords, while still adding blog posts that include the major ones.
Let a Blog Writing Service Create Your Original Content
Perhaps one of the most important things that will set your small business’ blog apart in the rankings is original content. This means more than simply rewriting what you find somewhere else or had previously written; you also need to come up with new ideas. Once again, a blog writing service is an excellent resource for this, as the bloggers are creative enough to come up with new and interesting ideas. Be sure that your blog contains new content that is relevant to your readers, as this will improve your search rankings. Similarly, the content must be high quality; spelling and grammar mistakes will lower your Google rank, making it well worth the investment to pay for a quality blog writing service made up of writers fluent in your target language.
Space out the Content Written for the Blog
It is sometimes easier to hire a blog writing service to create multiple posts at once, as the bloggers will be familiar with your company while writing them. However, even if you have dozens of posts, that doesn’t mean you should post them all at once. While that is a good way to build up your original content, it will hurt you in the future. Get the blog started with a reasonable number of posts, but then save some for later. Aim to post once a week at a minimum, but three posts each week is ideal. When you post more frequently, Google sees that your page is updated regularly, and this improves your ranking. Just keep in mind that even frequent posts must be of high quality; if possible, let your blog writing service know that you would like to create a long-term contract.
Don’t Be Afraid to Use SEO Plugins on the Blog
If you aren’t very tech-savvy, then creating a website for your small business may be confusing enough without the addition of using SEO plugins or Google sitemap plugins. However, simply adding these plugins to your page can almost have as much of an impact on ratings as hiring a quality blog writing service. The plugins will let you easily use SEO tools to optimize your page. If you aren’t able to figure them out yourself after watching or reading some tutorials, hire someone who can manage the plugins for you.
Make Blog Writing a Social Affair
Since blogging began, it has been useful as both a social method of marketing and a way to take advantage of SEO. That means that if you truly want your blog to be successful, you need to have your blog writing service work on more than just blog content; it also needs to help you with social media networks. Ask the service to include a short description of your blog that you can use as an introduction on a social media page.
You should also go out of your way to comment on blogs in related fields. When you make quality, relevant, and informative comments, readers will begin to recognize your company’s name, viewing you as an authority source. Just be sure that any comments you make on other blogs are useful; simple ones, such as “nice blog,” will do absolutely nothing for your image, and may even hurt your search ratings, especially if you are simply aiming to create a backlink. In many cases, a blog writing service can also write comments for you to be posted on particular related blogs.