Make yourself a priority

Use your blog to boost SEO.

Your blog is the most powerful non-techy tool for boosting your SEO.

It’s one of most powerful SEO tools, period.

By regularly updating your blog with quality posts, you give Google all the good stuff it craves: fresh content, consistency, and relevant keywords. With each post, you give yourself a little boost up the Google ladder.

Make your FAQs user-friendly.

FAQs make great blog posts for a couple of reasons:

Reason #1: People are probably already asking Google the same questions they’re looking for on your website.

And the questions people type into Google make the best blog titles. If I ask Google, “What do I need to do to start a podcast?” and your blog has a (well-written, quality) post that’s called “3 Things You Need to Do When You Start a Podcast,” Google is more likely to serve your blog to me, and I’ll end up on your website. 100% organically.

Reason #2: Blogs have lots of space. FAQ pages don’t always have lots of space.

Different people like different amounts of information. I call them “detectives” and “scanners.” Detectives want every word you can give them. They’re going to sift through all your details before making a buying decision. Scanners, on the other hand, get overwhelmed by too many details. They want quick, digestible content. And of course, there are folks who fall somewhere in the middle, too.

Creating FAQ-inspired blog posts allows you to give everyone the exact amount of information they need.

Direct answers on the FAQ can be short and sweet for the scanners, with a link to a more detailed blog post for detectives and those in between. Just be sure to format the blog post clearly — even detectives need some guidance from your headers, bold text, and images.

Create pillar content.

Pillar content is all about providing as much information as your reader wants to dig into, leading them from one piece of your content to another.

When folks are looking for a solution to a challenge, they’ll often dig many layers into a person’s blog, spending literal hours consuming one person’s content. Let that person be you!

Using the podcast example from above, the blog called “3 Things You Need to Do When You Start a Podcast” might feature a little blurb under each of the “3 Things,” with hyperlinks to more detailed posts on each of the items.

This blog content can also inform other channels—for example, with some tweaks, a blog can be turned into a script for a YouTube video or a solo podcast.

And it works the other way, too! Podcast and video transcripts can be adapted into readable blog posts. As you adapt them, be sure to include the keywords you’re wanting to feature.

Protect your content.

When you post your content on social media, that site can determine whether your it’s seen by your followers—including whether it stays up or is taken down. Posting on your own website gives you more control. Unless you’re doing something super sketchy, it’s unlikely your website host is going to remove your content.

Show your values.

Consumers used to care more about what a product or service accomplished than how its creator wanted to shape the world . . . But now, 3 out of 4 consumers want the brands they buy to reflect their own personal values.

That means you need to share your own values with your prospects — and your blog is a great place to do it.

You don’t need to create a blog post called “My 5 Top Business Values.” And, in fact, you shouldn’t. People won’t read it. It’s a little snoozy.

Instead, address your values more subtly throughout your blog content. Show us who you are at your core, why you do what you do, and how you’re trying to shift the world (in minuscule or momentous ways).

Of course, you can add in more overt values-oriented content here and there, too. But if you’re only addressing your support of LGBTQIA2S+ people in June, for example, readers might raise their eyebrows. By contrast, if your content often includes ideas about love, acceptance, and diversity, we’ll be ready to accept those values-forward posts (and line up to support your business).

Your blog is a critical tool for your business.

Publishing consistently can have a powerful effect on your SEO, user experience, client relationships, and bottom line. And you probably already have everything you need to start writing your blog. So go ahead—get started!