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Is Your Blog Attracting Enough Attention?

Is Your Blog Attracting Enough Attention?

Nowadays it seems like everybody has a blog. It makes sense when you consider the amount of attention a blog can gain for a website. Blogging increases a website’s ranking on the search engines and attracts more visitors. This can be especially beneficial for businesses. Numerous studies have shown that the more times a person visits a business’s website the more likely they are to think of that business when they need what they offer.

An interesting blog keeps the reader engaged, encouraging them to check back often and share content with their friends and family. When a website receives a lot of visitors, their ranking on the search engines improves. All of this is very good news for individuals and businesses wanting to increase their exposure.  However, a poorly written blog or one that does not follow Google’s guidelines can have the opposite effect; visitors quickly lose interest and search engine ranking drops, sometimes falling off the list entirely.

Why writing quality matters

Have you ever tried reading a poorly written blog? Sometimes they don’t make any sense, other times the spelling and grammar is so terrible that it becomes all you can focus on. Occasionally you come across several different blogs on different websites that are exactly the same, word for word. These types of blogs are not interesting, not worth sharing and are quickly removed from Google and the other search engines.

Google sets certain criteria for web content. All web content must be easy to read, relevant to the website and it MUST be original. Google scans every single webpage to ensure that content is not copied from another website or blog. Penalties apply if all of the web content is copied, or just a small portion of it. This includes content that has been copied even if the words have been changed slightly.

Attracting more visitors

The best way to attract more visitors to your blog is to consistently post relevant and interesting information. Keep in mind that a blog is not meant to be an advertisement of your business but a marketing tool to attract visitors to your website. Once they are there, they might just search around. Even if all they do is read and share your blog, you have the opportunity to gain potential customers that come to trust your business and recognize your brand.

Let us help you create and maintain your blog. Alter Impact has over 14 years of experience creating quality web content for businesses both large and small. For more information, please contact us today.

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Blog Writing – Why We Write the Way We Do

Blog Writing – Why We Write the Way We Do

As a professional writer I’m often asked why I blog the way I do. While many clients believe that their blog should read like a giant advertisement, that’s not actually the purpose of a blog. A blog directs customers and potential customers to your website in the hopes that they will keep coming back. The more they visit your website, the more likely they are to remember your business when they need what you provide. Below, I’ll explain the basics of blog writing.

Keywords

While keyword density used to be an extremely important part of optimizing a blog, Google now penalizes companies for keyword stuffing. Google recognizes core keywords when placed in the title, the title of an image and in the first paragraph of an article. Google’s robots search each and every webpage for repeated words and phrases. If keywords are used at more than a 1-3% ratio, a penalty can be applied. These penalties include loss of ranking status or being removed from the search engine entirely. If words or phrases either related or unrelated to the keywords are repeated throughout the article, your blog might be deemed as irrelevant.

Google strives to provide relevant, readable content to people searching the web. Because of the gross misuse of keywords and poorly written articles that are simply “copied and pasted” several times over, Google has updated their algorithms to scan and find what they consider irrelevant content.

Why Google Matters

You might be wondering why you should care how Google ranks you. While there are other search engines available, Google is the most popular entry point to the online world. Successful businesses understand how important it is to rank well on Google. The more successful a business’s online presence is, the higher they are ranked.

Why your website shouldn’t read like a commercial

Most people switch off the television when a commercial is playing. Similarly, the second a blog starts sounding like a commercial, your audience will start to tune you out.

Studies have shown that the number one reason people don’t read a blog is because it’s too promotional. However, when you post informative blogs you invite people to share your content through social media and other outlets. This is because people actually enjoy reading your articles.

No one wants to share an advertisement, but they WILL share usable content. The goal of your blog should be to delight and help your customers.

People will keep coming back to and share a blog that is interesting to them. Targeted keywords attract the right audience and content that is relevant and useful will keep them coming back to your website. This is proven to be the best way to gain clients from a blog.

For more information about our content writing services, please contact us today.

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How Bad Grammar Affects the Success of your Website

How Bad Grammar Affects the Success of your WebsiteBad grammar

When it comes to the success of your website, nothing is more important than content. Spelling and grammatical errors on the pages of your website and in your blog not only look bad, but they cost you credibility with potential customers as well as the search engines.

Visitors to your website or blog will decide whether they will stay tuned in within five seconds. That’s not a lot of time to make a first impression. If your webpages are filled with spelling and grammatical errors, visitors will quickly move on to your competitor’s websites. This can easily cost you hundreds of potential customers every single day.

Search engines such as Google and Bing are also looking at the content of your website. If the search engines notice poorly written content with multiple spelling and grammatical errors they will begin to drop you from their listings. Another way to quickly lose credibility with the search engines is to simply copy and paste someone else’s article or description of their products and/or services to your website. In order to get the highest rankings, your web content must be fresh, original, high quality and free from any grammatical and spelling errors. Remember, the search engines are always looking to improve user experience. Web pages that do not provide a great experience for the user are not going to rank well with the search engines.

One exception to this rule is comments to your blog. Even though the search engine robots will crawl through the entire page of your blog, including the reader comments, you don’t have to worry as long as the article that readers are commenting on is well-written with correct grammar, punctuation and spelling.

If you would like assistance cleaning up your own website, Alter Impact’s content writers can help! We create original, high quality articles and webpage content that is properly optimized to improve your rankings with the search engines. For more information, please contact us today.