I’ve been on the hunt for research about a blog’s impact on SEO for a while now and whilst it’s far from conclusive, Hubspot have just  came out with research based on their actual customers on how a blog impacts their client’s business. With a fairly decent sample size of 1,531 of their customers (which are primarily small and mid-sized businesses.) Roughly half (795) blog and half don’t (736).

Those who blog see:

• 55% more visitors to their website.
• 97% more links to their website which is a primary factor in where your website shows up in search results. (Want a higher ranking, get quality links to your site).
• 434% more indexed pages – this is the number of pages that show up in search engines. Just because you have a site doesn’t guarantee it is being indexed (findable). Just because some of your pages are in search engines doesn’t mean all of your pages are.

Whilst this seems to present a pretty infallible case for blogging, it should be pointed out that blogs aren’t for everyone.  Consider the following:

• Do you actually have content to write about? If you don’t have much to say or don’t have particularly strong views, opinions or methods to share in your business sector then a straightforward press release every couple of months may be the better route.
• Can you commit to writing regularly? Along with authority, Google rewards consistency and in turns consistency builds trust with people. If you can’t maintain a blog then it’s probably better not to start.  We’ve all visited those blogging dead ends on the internet..if a visitor sees that your most recent post was two years ago, chances are they’ll think you are retired!
• Do you know enough about the technicalities to set up and maintain a blog?  Many systems make it as easy as possible, but there’s always better plugins to install and updates to make to keep your blog current.
• Would you need help posting on a blog?

I’ll add my top tips for small business blogging in the next day or so.

We’ve just started working with Electric Fencing Direct, one of the country’s leading online suppliers of electric fencing and related products.  Their current site and e-commerce system is over five years old and ripe for an overhaul, kicking it off by leveraging our extensive e-commerce development experience.

It’s a fairly competitive market and we will deliver a site that will differentiate it from their competitors so that their customers will know why it’s compelling, valuable and better than the rest.  UBIshop, our own bespoke e-commerce system is pretty comprehensive and will deliver the following:

• a suite of browsing and searching tools that will provide rich, detailed information about EFD’s products and services.  Customers should be able to find the items they were looking for and the ones they didn’t realise they needed through as many avenues as possible.
• a strong focus on accessibility as it’s important the site  is accessible to as many people as possible.
• search engine optimisation tools built in at every stage of the process.
• every page will include clear links to privacy, security, shipping, handling and return policies as well as frequently asked questions.  We believe nothing turns a customer off more than hidden charges or misleading information.
• customers will be able to collect items in one place and check out quickly, with the minimum amount of distraction.

Does your e-commerce system deliver all of this successfully?  It it doesn’t then contact us.

In previous posts, I’ve talked at length about how to increase your visibility on Google.

Whilst relevance, links and properly keyworded content has been dealt with, the true precursor to search engine success lies in how authoritative your website is.  If you create content that others wish to refer to, pass on and discuss then you are definitely on the right track.  Furthermore, if “real people” are developing a relationship of trust with your website then the great news is Google will too.

“If a site is an authority in your industry, you can bet that it will be for Google as well. So if you’re a web designer, a link from Smashing Magazine or A List Apart helps, as a lot of other web design sites will be linking to those sites, thus causing those sites to be ‘hubs’ in the web design space.” – Joost De Valk, Yoast

Within the context of search, authority takes into account pretty much all the different elements of your site and then makes a call on whether your content is likely to seriously influence others, or at the other end of the scale, just sound like jibberish.  The more influential, authoritative and trusted your site is, the better your search engine ranking.

There are numerous factors that can influence the perception of your site’s authority but the main ones are:

• the domain name (a .gov.uk domain is going to be more trusted than a .biz)
• quantity of links
• quality of links ( this is highly important…see Joost De Valk’s quote above)

Inside Google

It’s impossible to know exactly how Google operates.  There has been a story doing the rounds for some time now that Google has a “white list” of authoritative and trusted websites.  I’d make a guess the BBC website is on there… It’ll be pretty much impossible to get on to this list but you could take a stab at getting links from some of them.

Avoiding negative trust

Not a complete list, but any of these activities will have a negative impact on how search engines perceive your site’s authority:

• buying and selling links
• rubbish content – avoid repetition, scraped or spammy content.
• linking to a bad neighbourhood – sex, viagra, financial scam sites)
• growing too quickly – Google will start to smell a rat if a brand new domain with one page of content becomes an overnight sensation.
• lack of link diversity – do all your links look like they are being culled from the same source or groups of sites?  It’s not the number of friends you have, but the quality.
• comment spam – don’t leave them on your site.  They’ll get indexed and then your rankings will plummet.

If you can generate unique content and stay away from all of the above, you’re halfway there.

Next up will be how we can generate positive trust signals.