So you finally did it … after years of listening to all the SEO and marketing experts, you started a blog.
But after countless hours cranking out content and posting articles on the blog, you haven’t seen much of an uptick in website traffic or improved search results. So what happened?
For many of the technology and ERP blogs I see, a few simple tweaks can go a long way in helping to get all that new content found and indexed by Google and start driving a little more traffic to your website. Here are some of the most important elements of structuring your blog entries for better search visibility.
1. Keywords in the Blog Title
The title of your blog entry is more important than a lot of people realize.
Not only does a compelling title improve the chances of someone actually reading the rest of the article or clicking through to your blog from a search result, the title also holds the most SEO value – more than any other element in the blog entry.
That’s because the title of your post is also reflected in the title tag of the page – a highly visible HTML tag that Google reads and heavily relies on to determine how the page (blog entry) should be indexed in search results.
So it’s important that this title (and by definition, the title tag) includes your most important keywords for that entry.
The tricky and creative part is crafting blog titles that are compelling and read well while also incorporating your primary keywords – without the keywords sounding forced or unnatural.
Bottom Line: If you want a given blog entry to potentially rank in Google for “Sage X3 Process Flows”, you need to include “Sage X3 Process Flows” in the blog title.
2. The Blog URL or “Permalink”
Another area of overlooked SEO opportunity is in the URL structure of the blog entry.
In WordPress, you can customize the URL using the “Permalink” function.
When you customize the Permalink, be sure to include the same targeted keyword phrase that was part of your blog title (previous recommendation above). What you don’t want to do is accept the default URL that can sometimes include an article ID number or other technical gibberish based on your blog’s default settings.
For instance, I’ve seen plenty of ERP blog entries that reside on a URL that looks something like this:
YourCompany.com/blog/articleID=1234 …
When you’d get much better keyword visibility out of a URL like this:
YourCompany.com/blog/erp-software-for-manufacturers
Keep your URL structure as short and concise as possible. You can delete unnecessary words like “and” “the” “if” etc.
3. Keywords in the Blog Article Body
This one might seem obvious … but if you want the blog entry to potentially rank for “business intelligence reporting”, that phrase should be included a few times in the article itself.
4. Internal Linking
Most ERP blogs are overlooking opportunities to link to other content within website. In other words, one blog entry can reference and link to another blog entry.
For example if you mention Sage 300 ERP in a blog entry, link that phrase to your Sage 300 ERP product page. If you mention Dynamics GP Support in a blog entry, link to your Dynamics GP support page.
When I mention Sage Partner Marketing or how to improve local SEO in the context of this blog entry, I’m going to be sure and link to relevant pages (see how it works?)
Internal linking is important because:
- The keyword phrase you’re linking from can pass some SEO value to the destination page. For example if you link Sage 300 ERP from a blog entry, it’s a signal to Google that the destination (landing page) of that link is about Sage 300 ERP.
- It can help Google more easily crawl, discover, and index other pages on your website.
- It helps people easily move from one page to another on your site (in the context of what they’re already reading) without having to search for what they want in the menu.
5. The Blog Isn’t On Your Website / Domain
For your website to garner any SEO benefit from all the content you’re posting and traffic you’re generating, the blog must be part of your domain. In other words, the blog can’t be hosted on WordPress and located at something like AbcReseller.wordpress.com when your main company website is located at AbcReseller.com.
In addition, there’s plenty of debate about whether the blog should be located on a subdomain or subfolder of your website. Without getting into the technicalities and different scenarios, I’ll just say that most of the ERP Partners Juice Marketing has worked with really should have their blogs in a subfolder like AbcReseller.com/blog and not on a subdomain like blog.AbcReseller.com.
SEO Plugins for WordPress
Hopefully you’ve learned a few helpful tips that you can implement on your blog. If you’re using WordPress, the easiest way to ensure all your SEO ducks are in a row is to use an SEO plugin.
Two of the most popular and widely-used are Yoast WordPress SEO and All In One SEO Pack for WordPress (If anyone cares, I prefer Yoast).
Can’t Make Heads or Tails of It All?
If your head is spinning and none of this gibberish makes sense, perhaps it’s time to contact Juice Marketing.
We’ll comb through your blog, write up recommendations that are personalized for you, and run through everything step-by-step to ensure you completely understand how to structure better and more search-visible blog entries going forward.
Happy Blogging!
By Mark Badran
Juice Marketing
“Squeezing the Most Out of Your Marketing Dollar”
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What about RSS feeds for blog articles. I used to use the Google RSS feed tool but they shut that down and I am not sure whether its worth it to use a different one.
Excellent intro on search optimizing a company blog.
Another tip, and something that Mark has done in this post (and maybe didn’t mention to avoid TMI), is to add an image to your post and to rename the image to reflect your long tail keyword before uploading it. Also, include your keyword in the alt text of the image.
Something else that’s very important in B2B blogging is to have big, bold calls to action (CTAs) in your sidebar and in the footer of your posts. Attract and then convert!
Steve – yes, both great points. The Alt+Text tag on images AND changing the file name can contribute to the support and visibility of your primary keyword phrase (yes, the blog entry was getting long and I figured TMI. Great catch!).
While I was trying to focus primarily on search visibility, a call to action in blog posts is an important part of converting some of that website traffic into customers – another element of effective blogging.
Thanks for adding your thoughts and valuable insight!