Top 10 Ways to Get More Customers by Blogging

get more customers

 

Most people (by now) know their website needs a blog. But how the heck do blogs convert to customers? Blogs essentially promote your website by keeping it fresh and regularly updated — if you blog and blog often! It doesn’t work if you don’t work it. Just to break it all down for you, I’ve mapped out exactly what you need to do to get more traffic from search engines and how to get more customers by blogging.

 

1. Get More Backlinks

The no. 1 thing you can do to get more organic search traffic (people finding your page by Googling you) is to get more backlinks (and to blog).

 

What Is a Backlink?

A backlink is simply a link that leads to your blog. For example, if someone at the Huffington Post decided to write an article about the top CBD skin treatments, they would need to include a list of treatments they recommend. Should they choose to write about a treatment you offer at your salon, they would probably include a link to your salon’s website.

That is a great example of a backlink.

The more of these you have from sites with strong domain authorities, the more you’ll end up on Google’s radar (and the higher you’ll rank on Google searches).

 

2. Write a Blog (or two)

The second piece of this puzzle (there’s really only three super important things you need to know — that’s how easy it is!) is to keep your website updated with fresh content. Google loooooves regularly updated websites.

The best way to do this? To blog!

The benefits of blogging are exponential. Posting a blog post once each week can greatly increase your chances of ending up on the first page of Google searches (as long as you keep getting those backlinks and your posts are optimized for SEO). The longer the post, the better — but try to strive for a minimum of 500 words or more for each post.

 

3. Research SEO Keywords

This is the third piece of the puzzle. You can’t just throw up any content and expect the organic search traffic to flow effortlessly to your site. You need to include search engine optimized (SEO) keywords into your posts — in the right places.

 

What is an SEO Keyword?

An SEO keyword is simply a word, several words or a phrase that someone types into a Google search bar to answer a question or to find information.

For example, if you want to find a cheap Thai place in Brooklyn, you might Google “cheap thai brooklyn.”

All pages with that keyword (inserted in the right places in the article, page or post) will appear closer to the top of the Google search.

Of course, these pages all generally have a solid number of backlinks, too.

Before choosing your keywords, research them. Find out how many times per month people search that term. You’d be surprised at the keywords people use when searching for services, products and information.

I once wrote an entire article about ‘How to Avoid Crowds in New York City’ only to find that absolutely no one searched that term.

 

4. Optimize Your Current Keywords

If you’re already blogging, great job! Have you been using SEO keywords in your posts? Whether you have or haven’t, it’s important to go back and research the keywords that you’re currently ranking for on your site.

Even if you’re not blogging, you can still do this. Your current web pages are probably already ranking for keywords. Granted, your pages might not be making it to the first page of any Google searches. Still, you’ll want to try to optimize your pages to ensure they’re taking full advantage of the keywords they’re already ranking for.

How do you do that?

First, use Google Search Console to discover which keywords you’re already ranking for.

Try incorporating said keywords into your articles more efficiently. Is the keyword in the first paragraph? How about a header? How many times is the keyword used in the article or on the page?

 

5. Promote Your Blog

Once you’ve got that blog post published, there’s a leeeetle more work to do. It’s time to promote yourself! Luckily, there are a ton of ways you can promote your blog.

Share your new post with your email list, social media followers and everyone you know.

Talk about it on Reddit an Quora. Link to it from your other posts.

 

6. Keep Writing Good Content

An important note: not just any content will do when it comes to your business. You need to write often and write well. This means topical articles that are interesting, relevant to your targeted readers, grammatically correct (mostly) and are infused with tons of voice to keep everyone entertained.

 

7. Format Your Blog Posts for SEO

All SEO blog posts need to be formatted correctly, too. Your title should be in ‘Header 1’ format, you need to organize each section with ‘Header 2’ subheaders (and sometimes even ‘Header 3’ subheaders).

Make sure your posts are around 750 to 1,000 words minimum.

Include inbound and outbound links.

 

8. Compress Your Images

Nothing kills SEO traffic like a slow site. One of the biggest offenders? Large images. Use a compression tool or plugin (or simply compress the images before uploading them to your content management system) to ensure you don’t lose visitors (or Google traffic) because large images are slown’ ya down.

 

9. Complete a UX Audit

How easy is it for your readers to find information, products and services on your site? Are your photos, fonts and pages outdated — or do they look fresh and professional? People can’t buy what they can’t find!

Hire someone to do a user experience (UX) audit to ensure you’re not the only one who loves your site.

 

10. Hire an Editor

I happen to believe that readers are pretty forgiving when it comes to grammar, typos and other issues.

But if you’re the type of person who consistently makes these types of mistakes, you might want to consider hiring an editor to ensure your point gets across — as clearly as possible.

Other reasons to hire an editor? They’re able to point out confusing sentences, can help insert links and keep your formatting under control.

In short, they’re sort of a babysitter for your blog.