Guest post by: Brian Bourn

When we build websites and blogsites for our clients, we almost always recommend a custom designed WordPress site with an integrated blog. In fact, part of our intake process with new clients includes explaining the value of blogging for business and how it can help them increase website traffic and attract new clients. You can learn more in the article 6 Reasons Why WordPress is Perfect for Small Business.

Relevant, targeted, and fresh content is what search engines like Google want, and high rankings within the search engine results are what every website owner wants.

So how do you feed the search engines regularly updated, focused content and increase your website rankings?

The answer is blogging. The main pages of your site tend be more generalized and provide an overview about you or your company, your products and services, or your programs. A blog however, allows you to focus content on specific topics that your audience wants to know about. And, guess what? The search engines reward you for your efforts.

Want the proof?

We launched the Bourn Creative blog in the summer of 2009 and since then have had several blog articles appear in the top ten search results of Google for targeted keyword searches. The posts that appear in the search results link directly back to the blog posts and articles, not the Bourn Creative home page.

The Bourn Creative home page didn’t even appear anywhere within the same search results. These first page rankings on Google resulted directly from publishing well written and targeted content that focuses on our readers and the information they want.

So, blogging helps your website visitors, your prospects, and your target market cut through the labyrinth of search results and find a direct path right to your content.

Also, after analyzing the Bourn Creative website in Google’s Webmaster Tools, we found that the majority of external links or inbound links to our site pointed straight to some of our best blog articles.

When it comes to search engine optimization, getting a referring link (a link to your site from another site) is like getting someone to vote for your site and say that your content is good enough to share with their readers too. Building inbound links, or external links, is one of the hardest parts of search engine optimization (SEO) and one of the most important.

Want more proof that blogging is great for business?

Through Google Analytics, we found that during the last month 5 out of our top 10 landing pages were blog articles that were reached through our email newsletter, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, search engine results, and other referring sites. Also, we found that the majority of our new visitors reached our site directly through a blog article.

So what do all these blog stats mean?

For us, publishing a blog with well written, frequently updated content has attracted new visitors to our site via search engines, enticed friends from Facebook and followers from Twitter to click-through the links we posted, and has earned the Bourn Creative site external links from other websites.

Overall, blogging has been one the most effective ways we have been able to increase website traffic with new and regular visitors and that IS the whole goal of marketing your business online!

If you want help with your blog or want to start a blog of your own, I invite you to read more of our articles on blogging for business and web design, or contact us to help you build your online presence with a custom blogsite and blog training.