The blog as an effective SEO tool for small businesses

I’ve been on the hunt for research about a blog’s impact on SEO for a while now and whilst it’s far from conclusive, Hubspot have just  came out with research based on their actual customers on how a blog impacts their client’s business. With a fairly decent sample size of 1,531 of their customers (which are primarily small and mid-sized businesses.) Roughly half (795) blog and half don’t (736).

Those who blog see:

• 55% more visitors to their website.
• 97% more links to their website which is a primary factor in where your website shows up in search results. (Want a higher ranking, get quality links to your site).
• 434% more indexed pages – this is the number of pages that show up in search engines. Just because you have a site doesn’t guarantee it is being indexed (findable). Just because some of your pages are in search engines doesn’t mean all of your pages are.

Whilst this seems to present a pretty infallible case for blogging, it should be pointed out that blogs aren’t for everyone.  Consider the following:

• Do you actually have content to write about? If you don’t have much to say or don’t have particularly strong views, opinions or methods to share in your business sector then a straightforward press release every couple of months may be the better route.
• Can you commit to writing regularly? Along with authority, Google rewards consistency and in turns consistency builds trust with people. If you can’t maintain a blog then it’s probably better not to start.  We’ve all visited those blogging dead ends on the internet..if a visitor sees that your most recent post was two years ago, chances are they’ll think you are retired!
• Do you know enough about the technicalities to set up and maintain a blog?  Many systems make it as easy as possible, but there’s always better plugins to install and updates to make to keep your blog current.
• Would you need help posting on a blog?

I’ll add my top tips for small business blogging in the next day or so.