Business Blogs & Pointless Traffic
Ayup! Sometime around October last year, I completely removed my business blog. Why? It was bringing in tonnes of traffic, that, at the time, I deemed as pointless. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Yes, people would rock up, get the info they need and then leave. But at least the site an energy about it. Furthermore, although deleting the blog didn’t negatively impact rankings, the domain authority score plummeted.
A massive dip in traffic and backlinks; no worries! They’re just vanity metrics, anyway. This was my thinking. To an extent, it still is. But what signal is this sending to search engines?
There’s only so much E-E-A-T you can present on your homepage. And guess what? A low-traffic site isn’t going to help.
Having a company blog is a great way for small businesses in the UK to build their brand and grow their audience online. While social media is an important marketing channel, adding a blog to your website provides a number of unique benefits that can take your brand to the next level.
A switcheroo from the switcheroo
Last November, I wrote about my new approach to business SEO; zero blog required. Proof that I have no idea what I’m doing and should never be counted on for reliable advice.
Pointless traffic aside, a business blog helps in a number of ways:
Driving overall traffic numbers
Encourages backlinks
Builds overall trust and authority
Helps you show up in more places
Potentially supports your key pages
Improves your domain authority score
Provides clients with quick tutorials
A new approach to business blogging
So yeah, my blog over at Leaflet Lion is back, baby! Previously, some of my most read articles were on exporting print-ready files with Affinity and Canva. I’ve rewritten both of those, and they rocked up on page one of Google in under 24 hours.
So what’s new? Shorter posts, but primarily, a much more natural approach to writing. My business website is built on WordPress. Instead of using the Yoast SEO plugin, though, I now use SureRank. Huge, huge fan.
No traffic lights changing how you write, just a clean, simple set of suggestions. Each can also be dismissed when needed. You can enter a focus keyword, but it isn’t required. Additionally, it doesn’t flash red warning lights at you for not entering one.
Business blogging is a way to build trust with consumers. It can be an especially valuable resource for businesses that are selling a product or service online, as it connects the company's expertise with the offering on the website.
Good for clients, good for search engines
Most of our clients use Canva. I’m forever having to talk them though setting up and exporting their files for commercial print. Now I can revert back to sending them a link to a blog post. Simples!
My main goal in bringing the blog back to is to welcome in all of that (not so) pointless traffic once again. A nice busy site is sure only going to send better signals to search engines.
I try not to watch SEO content any more, but I’ve been dabbling in a few videos recently. One word that keeps popping up is trust. Building out a fresh new batch of relevant articles is partly how I’ll start to demonstrate our knowledge and expertise.
Note to self; don’t delete your business blog.
