Writing blogs is an important tool in any small business marketing toolbox because blogging can help you stand out online.

Blog posts can:

• Improve your website’s position in Google searches.
• Build your brand loyalty and trust.
• Generate material for social media posts.

Writing occasional high-quality blog posts is worth the effort. Before you start writing your next blog post, here are some pointers to keep top of mind:

Blogs and SEO for Small Businesses

If you are writing blog posts for your website to rank well in online searches, keep this in mind: Google does not reward blog posts just because they are frequent or new.

You may have heard that fresh content is important. That only applies to some topics, such as sports results or world news. For other topics, older web pages often rank the highest.

Instead, aim for high-quality, in-depth blog posts which show experience, expertise and authority. This type of post is usually longer than 2,000 words and will take time to write, but is worth the effort.

Highlight your Unique Voice and Specific Expertise

Google searches now focus more on what they call “helpful content” as AI-generated content is becoming more common. How does that benefit you? If a blog post about a generic topic is easy to write, then someone else has probably already written it.

Your unique voice and experience, though, can offer something fresh. If your knowledge is local to a specific area – even better. First-hand experience and a personal viewpoint can make your content stand out and rank better.

For example, if you run a garden shop in Penticton and write a blog post about “What we learned about transplanting roses in Penticton”, it will be more interesting to your local customers than “How to transplant roses” on a multinational
company’s website. And don’t forget to include your own photos instead of using stock photos.

Build Brand Loyalty and Trust

You know your customers best, and you know what questions they have. By writing in-depth blog posts, you can show that you understand them.

You also demonstrate that you have the knowledge and experience that they need. When your website is full of authoritative material, it increases your website’s EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) score, a score that Google uses to analyze websites.

More Content Means More Opportunities

Each new website page is another chance to rank in an online search. Your blog post pages can focus on very specific (“long-tail”) keywords. For example, “landscaping business bookkeeping Victoria” instead of “bookkeeping services”. The closer someone is to buying a product or service, the more specific the keywords they use.

And, if you write your blog posts in such a way that the content is easily divided into chunks, it can then be used for several social media posts.

Follow SEO Best Practices

Understanding SEO, or search engine optimization, and following a few best practices will help you maximize your blog content. Here are some best practices tips to keep in mind:

• Choose the focus keyword, synonyms and related words for your blog post. Use them naturally in your text, headings, and in meta tags.
• Add internal links from other pages on your website to the new blog post and vice versa. Use keyword-friendly anchor text for the link, for example, ‘Transplanting roses in Penticton’ instead of ‘Read More’. Internal links can increase the time a user spends on a website.
• Use sub-headings, bullet points, images and white space to break up the content.
• Check that the post is easily read by running it through something like the Hemingway app.

Small Business BC is Here to Help

SBBC is a non-profit resource centre for BC-based small businesses. Whatever your idea of success is, we’re here to provide holistic support and resources at every step of the journey. Check out our range of business webinars, on-demand E-Learning Education, our Talk to an Expert Advisories, or browse our business articles.