It is almost a natural outcome for the blogs of a business to exist in a self-contained vacuum. Many businesses do not tether their writing to a central ethos, and instead merely write for the sake of content creation. The content and style of a blog should always be in consonance with its central purpose; to drive traffic and, more specifically, to create leads. Here are a few techniques that will help you make your blogs more optimized in the field of lead generation.
SEO & Titles/Keywords
By virtue of merely writing a blog you are contributing to your site’s overall SEO, irrespective of its content. Every published article gives search engines something new to index, which in turn increases the chance that your site will be discovered. However, it would be remiss of you to then assume that blog content is irrelevant to the subject of SEO, as it (and as a consequence lead generation) can be further enhanced by intelligent choices used in its creation.
One such choice is to carefully construct your title. Within Google organic searches, the title is perhaps one of the best predictors of click-through rates, as it is the first line that people see in a Google search term. Google then uses click-through rates as one of the markers to determine how high a particular page ranks organically. Consequently, a high organic ranking means more traffic, and thus more lead generation. It is therefore important for a keyword (or multiple keywords) to be present in your title if you want more leads.
To explain this idea further, it is imperative to have a brief understanding of how keywords work. Keywords are words or characters that people type into Google in order to search for a particular good, service or piece of information. The better a keyword is (i.e. the more searches it has) the more likely a page that uses it will rank higher. A truly optimised blog post will implement as many high-quality keywords as possible, both in its title and in the body of work itself. However, knowing which keywords are of high quality can be difficult, as applicable keywords are transitory for every subject. It is thus important that keywords be researched prior to each new blog being written, as optimised words can change week to week on the very same subject.
Once keywords are found, their placement is just as important. Search engines put a great deal of weight on earlier keywords, so in addition to being in the title it would be a wise move to backload them in the opening paragraph.
Backlinks And The Value Of Unique Content
Briefly summarised, backlinks are a hyperlink from one web page to another. They are relevant in the realm of lead generation as backlinks act as a marker for Google’s search algorithm. A blog post that is heavily backlinked is a great signifier for website popularity, and tends to be ranked higher in organic searches. Naturally, it would be in a blog writer’s interest to have as many backlinks as possible, as a higher Google search ranking almost universally means a higher number of leads.
It may then seem tempting to simply pay for cheap backlinks as a way to artificially inflate your blogs search engine rankings. However, Google has developed measures in order to ensure the legitimacy of backlinks. For instance, Google checks if the site linking to your own is popular, trusted and shares relevant keywords with yours. Furthermore, your own site has to have a multitude of click-throughs in not just one blog post or landing page, but in multiple pages. So if you wish for your blog to enhance lead generation, you must ensure that your backlinks are indeed genuine. The easiest way to achieve this is to avoid the use of regurgitated content. If the ideas expressed in your blog are found elsewhere (whether unwittingly or otherwise) then there is little incentive for any external website to reference your work. However, if unique ideas are expressed eloquently, then you have further increased the likelihood of lead generation.
Integration Of Social Media
Your blog’s ability to generate leads does not have to be entirely contingent on the arbitration of Google. The invention of social media has fortunately created new pathways for blog distribution. Once written, notify your audience on any of your regularly used accounts as to the existence of the blog, and a brief synopsis of what it contains. Though it may seem on the surface that you are only notifying people who are already your fans, and thus new leads wont be generated, further analysis shows this to not be true. Increased page views of any sort results in increased visibility in search engines. Thus distributing your content to your fans inadvertently increases the generation of new leads.
Tailoring To A Purpose
Though there are several methods apart from blogging to generate leads, it should be recognised that not all these methods are created equal. Internet marketing is only increasing in its viability, and blogs are playing an evermore integral role in its development. It is therefore of deep importance that whatever your business, you ensure that your blogs are as tailored for lead generation as possible.
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