How many times have you heard someone say, I just want that top search result on Google? For a business Web site, the top spot in the search engine returns can be a lead generating machine.
Think about it. Google is where most people go when they are researching. What if there was a way to get your company’s Web site on that coveted first page? Well there is…
One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a Web site can have a huge impact on the overall Web site’s search engine rankings.
A blog does two important things in terms of the search engines:
1. Adds naturally occurring, keyword-rich pages.
2. Increases the potential for incoming links from high-quality Web sites.
The Impact of Blog Posts
Now let’s take our static Web site and add a blog. For the sake of this example, let’s say that there are five representatives in the company who have each agreed to write one blog post per week.
Here’s where our blog really starts to pay off. Each time a new blog post is added, a new page is indexed by the search engines. By the end of the first month, the Web site has doubled the number of pages originally indexed by the search engines.
Within a month, our Web site—which originally had 10-20 pages in the search engine pool—now has 30-40 pages that can possibly be returned in the top spot on Google. Stretch that out over the course of a year and our 10-20 page Web site now has around 250 pages indexed in the search engines.
And while a blog post a day is a lot of work, scale it back to one blog post per week and we’ve still more than doubled the number of indexed pages during the first year.
Each indexed page adds another ticket to the great Google lottery. The more tickets you hold, the better chance of winning the top spot in the search engine rankings.
Incorporate the Blog
If the goal is to raise the search engine results of the larger Web site, it is important to incorporate the blog into the larger Web site. Use a call to action at the end of the blog post to direct the reader to other parts of your Web site. Keep it on the same domain and provide clear links that encourage visitors to explore the rest of your Web site.
Make it easy for your reader. If the path to your larger Web site isn’t clearly marked, they will never find their way.