Here’s what we always tell our clients…Writing quality content on a regular basis is one of the most important and essential components to grow your Google rankings and as a result, your business. As your rankings grow, your business grows.
Content became king last fall as Google rolled out an update which affected sites that didn’t have good, quality content. In fact, with the Google Panda 4.2 update that was just released a few days ago, some sites that were hit hard during the last Panda algorithm update may even see an uptick if they worked to reverse that while maintaining quality content as a result since.
Yes, Google giveth and Google taketh away.. Hopefully you’re site is on the giveth side!
First Things First; How Often to Blog
We believe that you should be writing quality content on a regular schedule. What happens is that Google sends out its little bots to check your site. As Google finds that you are actively blogging and your content appears every Tuesday at 10am (or any regularly scheduled date) then your site becomes relevant.
If it finds no posts or updates when the little bots return, it also makes note of that and eventually will stop paying those little visits and you start all over again.
Of course frequency is great, but is it really doable? Meaning…if you start out thinking you can blog quality content twice a week but after a month or two you lose steam and only get a post in every other week, you’re actually doing more harm than good.
Google likes to see consistency.. so set up a realistic schedule you can live with and stick to that on a regular basis. It’s better for you in the long run if you can do one post a week over a series of months that posting sporadically.
How to Find Your Niche Topics
We’re often asked what to write about. Do you know your niche or do you write about everything under the sun? There are quite a few blogs like Lifestyle blogs that write about many different topics but still have a central theme for the blog.
Check out these tips to drilling down what your niche really is.
- Write out a category list of everything your business provides to your clients.
You know your business better than anyone and should be passionate about your offering and the results it provides. What do you do to help people every day? What problems are you solving for them? What are the pain points of your clients and how do you make them better?
- Write out all the keywords that your business should be ranking for. If you don’t know these–get with your SEO specialist to understand what they are. If you think this is as simple as “Wedding Photographer Phoenix”…..I’ll be the first to tell you that you’re mistaken.
Do comprehensive keyword research (or have it done by a professional like us!) and use those keywords combinations to help give your post added traction to building your website traffic. Many writers miss this opportunity, which if applied becomes the juice that really gets the engine going.
- Write down every topic that you enjoy writing about that is also related to your business. For instance, you may love to blog about travel, finance, recipes, parenting, photography, or business in general.
- Next, which one or two of these top-level niches do write about more often?
Take a look at your current blog Categories and see how many posts are in each one. The data found here just might surprise you! Hopefully, you have Subcategories under your main Categories.
Do one or two of your Subcategories have the highest number of posts? This is an easy way to see just exactly what you tend to write about the most!
Become a Niche Content Writer
Let’s say you are a massage therapist and write a lot of self-care posts. By looking at your subcategories, you see that you write a lot of tips about making the most of meditation and yoga.
You can become a niche content writer in both meditation and yoga with a secondary niche about massage. Or you can go one step further and become and industry expert on full self-care and wellness, because in your industry you are solving issues that people and have and some that they haven’t even thought about yet, which is golden!
This doesn’t mean that you can’t write about other topics, but your main posts should be on your main niche topic. A key thing to remember is in order to have a successful blog, writing needs to be cohesive. Find your voice and make it conversational to keep your readers in tune… this is uber important! You will lose readers or they will raise a side-eye if you all of sudden start writing about doughnuts and you have a health-food blog.
For your business blog to show your new niche, go with it and make your transition over a period of two months and post on your new niche every other week.
If your blog is solely about one topic and you have lost interest, then start back over with what your business is currently offering and make a new list.
What Else to Write About?
Write about triumphs, successes AND failures. Write about your team and how they currently support your customer base. Report on events, things you’re doing and awards you’re winning… and by all means, make sure that last press release is posted on your blog to reinforce Google that you’re worthy of their support.
If you still need some help—contact us! Our team is here to help you get the traction you need from your blog by adding quality content that helps your business grow! It’s our business and we can help!
If you’re not passionate about your business, then you’re in the wrong business. Writing quality content about what you are passionate about – on a regular basis with appropriate keywords; now THAT should always be your niche!