Should I be blogging?

It takes a lot of time and effort (and discipline) to start blogging and to stick to it. It really can be a chore when you have a business to run.

But recent changes to the Google algorithms have meant more value is put on good quality and regular new content. That is what is going to keep Google coming back to your site and what will drive your rankings.

Here’s what you need to do –

• Add a blog to your site
• Set it up to be SEO friendly
• Put together a content calendar
• Write about stuff. Regularly

Getting a blog added to your site, like WordPress (or Tumblr) is pretty straightforward, then you will need to set it up so the post URLs are all meaningful (i.e. to use the post name rather than something like blah.com/news/?p=639). That’s the technical bit sorted.

Next it would be good to try and put together a “content calendar” or “forward features plan”.

The effort you put in to create this diary of what you’re going to be blogging about (and when) gets you round the problem of sitting down and trying to think about what you’re going to write about every week. That really is annoying. Obviously things will crop up unexpectedly that you’ll want to write about – and that’s fine.

Does it work? Yes it does.

Here is a graph showing organic traffic to a retail website over the last year – the only SEO we’ve been doing is content. Bearing in mind everyone else is going to be optimising their sites and link building – this shows that blogging is just as – if not more effective than those activities.

Google is always running on about providing its users with the best experience. Loads of backlinks to a website do nothing for user experience – but good content does.