Here are the facts – there are only two factors which determine whether or not your website will successfully deliver more business or not:

1. Number of website visitors
2. Number of website visitors taking action

This post is the first in a two part series which will show you why blogging is so important to achieving the first of those requirements for a successful website. If you already understand why blogging increases site traffic, then you should probably dive straight into part 2 which is all about how blogging can inspire more visitors to take action.

Blogging improves your SEO

We’ve all come to understand that if your site doesn’t rank well in the search engines, then the chances of having lots of website visitors are pretty slim. Obviously, no visitors = no chance of conversions (visitors taking action and becoming leads or customers). So we all agree then, that being on page 1 of Google is important, right?

These days, Google is able to accurately digest the content presented on each webpage and determine how truly relevant it is in relation to the search term entered. It has become commonly accepted that Google prefers pages that are dedicated to a particular topic. This means that generic pages which cover a wide variety of topics won’t be viewed as favourably as niche pages dedicated to a single subject.

So you can see then, that by having a specific page (blog post) on your site which is purely dedicated to a niche aspect of your business, product, or service and rich with relevant keywords and phrases, you stand a good chance of getting this page (blog post) noticed by Google and ranked highly.

Blogging increases your website’s entry points

People don’t visit websites any more; they visit links. It’s true. Go on, try it for yourself – enter a search for something into Google, and look closely at the results you are presented with. You should notice that there are traditional static webpages, blog posts, videos, PDF articles, slideshow presentations, podcasts… and the list goes on.

Blogging technology allows you to create as many ‘web pages’ as you want. You’re no longer restricted by a ‘6 page website’ as was sometimes the case with traditional web design. Now you can publish as many web pages as you can knowing that each one is a freshly baited hook which could potentially attract many new customers.

Blogging spreads your digital footprint far and wide

Yes, word of mouth is still the most powerful form of marketing available to all businesses. However, simply getting people to talk about you to ’spread the word’ in the offline world can be a very slow process.

The beauty of the internet is the sheer accessibility of information and the ease with which we can pass it on. Creation and distribution of information online is rampant. Thankfully, technology has automated large parts of this process for us. I know that as soon as I press publish on this post, it will be sent to hundreds of distribution services.

I also know that people will use the ‘Spread the word’ buttons at the bottom of this page to share this information with people in their own networks. Each time this happens, it creates yet another digital pathway to guide new visitors into this site.

In part 2, we’ll describe how blogging can boost your business by increasing the number of visitors who take action on your website.