If your New Year’s Resolution as a small business owner is to increase your website traffic in 2019, then this post is for you! We’re going to share the ONE single thing you can do that will pretty much guarantee A LOT more visits to your site. Here goes!

The One Thing You Can Do To Increase Web Traffic Next Year:

Consistently Blog.

(We recommend publishing one or two posts per week that are 1,500-2,000 words.)

Blogging is the cherry on Top of your small business website!

Get our blogging guide! 15 pages of tips and tricks on becoming an expert at small business blogging.

So how does blogging help your website? To answer this, let’s first talk about what Google likes and doesn’t like.

Google LIKES:

• Active websites that are frequently updated with new content

• Helpful websites that answer real life questions

• Humanized websites that speak to people

Google DOESN’T LIKE:

• Stale websites (The last updates were made circa 2015 … eeeeeek!)

• Boring, confusing, or irrelevant websites (People quickly leave because they’re uninspired or can’t find what they’re looking for … ouchy!)

• Robotic websites (The text on the site is written for search engines, not for people … nooooo!)

How blogging supports the things that Google likes:

• Each time you publish a new post, you’re essentially adding new content to your website and another page for Google to index.

• Blogging provides the perfect platform for you to answer common questions and address the pain points of your target buyer persona.

• Good news! You can and SHOULD write your blog in the same conversational tone you use with your clients and customers.

An added benefit to consistent blogging is having consistent material to use on social media! Each time you publish a new post, you can share it on social media. You can also create fun infographics or pull quotes from your posts to get the most mileage out of the content.

Keys To Successful Blog Posts

We need to be clear about this … blogging in and of itself will not magically make your website traffic numbers sky rocket. Your posts need to:

1. Align with the business you’re in

If you’re a jewelry store, blogging about your nana’s secrets to making sauce is not going to help drive quality traffic to your site. However, blogging about the benefits of platinum over white gold wedding bands … bingo! That topic aligns with your business and makes perfect sense to discuss on your website.

2. Speak to your target buyer persona

This is key. Prior to even writing your first blog post, you need to have a very clear description of who you’re writing it for. In fact, your entire website … not just your blog … needs to be written and designed for this person. Your target buyer persona is your dream client or customer. The person who you wish every customer or client could be like.

We strongly recommend taking time to read HubSpot’s blog post, “How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business.” It will guide you through the step-by-step process of researching and developing the perfect buyer persona for your small business.

When creating your buyer persona, try and specifically identify:

• Their name

• Their age

• Where they live

• Their relationship/family status

• Their education level

• Their occupation

• Their annual income

• Websites they like / what blogs or YouTube channels they subscribe to

• Magazines or books they like to read

• Podcasts they listen to

• Their hobbies

• Brands they like

• Social media platforms they spend time on

• TV shows they watch

Some questions to consider about your target buyer persona and your business:

• Does your small business offer a solution to a pain point your buyer persona is experiencing? What is that solution?

• What hesitations does your buyer persona have when it comes to taking the next step toward addressing their pain point? How can you reassure them?

• If your buyer persona doesn’t address their pain point now, how will it impact them in the near future? How will it impact them a year or more from now?

• If they do resolve their pain point, how will it change their life?

• What can your business offer your buyer persona specifically to alleviate their pain point or fulfill a need they have?

Once you flesh out every last detail of this ideal customer, writing blog posts for them becomes easy as pie.

3. Be optimized for search

After completing your buyer persona research and development, you’ll have a solid understanding on their pain points and questions they need answers to. This information is key for creating great blog posts!

Tips For Optimizing Your Blog Posts

• The topic should align with a common question that your target buyer persona might plug into a Google search.

• The title should contain the keywords you’re trying to rank for. (i.e. The 5 Benefits Of Going With A Platinum Wedding Band Over White Gold)

• The URL slug (that’s the part after the forward slash) should be short and only contain the critical words. (i.e. www.yourwebsite.com/benefits-platinum-over-white-gold-wedding-band)

• Use headings within your post that contain the keywords you’re trying to rank for.

• Write your copy for humans, not for search engines. Keyword stuffing will only hurt your rankings so there’s no need to pack your post full of them. Use keywords where they make sense.

• Link to high-quality, authority websites when possible.

• Use keywords in image names when relevant.

• Size your images for the web (ideally they should be less than 500KB)

• Try to make each post about 1,500-2,000 words.

  
  

How To Come Up With Blog Post Topics

The biggest piece of advice we can share on starting a business blog is to be organized and prepared. Developing an overall content calendar will be tremendously helpful in setting you off on the right track. While there are many tools available to help you do this, we have an easy way of plotting it all out using the Google Drive!

How To Make A Content Calendar Using The Google Drive

Coming up with blog post topics really begins with your content calendar. You should have a rough idea of what topics you want to cover over the course of a month. For instance, this past month, we focused on website design. The majority of our blog posts and social media messaging all tied into website design.

Planning out broad topic themes will then help you narrow in on topics for blog posts that relate to these themes.

Here are three ways you can come up with awesome topics for blog posts:

1. Make a list of the most commonly asked questions you receive from your customers or clients.

2. Perform Google searches related to these commonly asked questions and then scroll to the bottom of the page to see a list of other related searches. This is a great trick for coming up with blog post topics as well as keywords you should consider using!

3. Interview your best customers and ask them for ideas!

Track Your Success

Now that you know the secrets to managing an amazing blog, you’ll want to make sure you can track the success of your efforts. If your website isn’t currently synced up with Google Analytics, we encourage you to make that happen before launching your blog. Google Analytics cannot go back in time to track results. If you want to capture all the traffic data from your blog, you’ll need to implement Analytics from the start.

To sync your website with Google Analytics, you’ll first need to create an account by visiting https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics. You’ll be walked through some simple steps and then be given a tracking ID to place on the back end of your website.

Once you’re set up on Google Analytics, you can learn:

• What blog posts are most popular

• How people are finding your website

• Which social media platforms are driving the most visitors your way

• What your top performing pages in general are

• What pages are in need of improvement

• The location of your visitors

• How people are using the search function on your site

• And so, so much more!

Running a blog and a website is a learn-as-you-go-process and having a tool like Google Analytics is critical for you to measure your success.

Stats On Businesses That Blog

If you’re still unconvinced that blogging should be a part of your 2019 marketing plan, let us share a few from HubSpot …

B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not.

Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI.

Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.

At the end of the day, if you can write your own posts, the only thing that blogging costs you is your time. Increase your website traffic next year by committing to consistently blogging. We promise you will see results that will make you smile!

New to blogging? Download our free Guide To Blogging today! Inside, you’ll discover:

• How To Pick A Topic

• How To Write Your Post

• How To Optimize Your Post

• Formatting Your Post

• And More!