Search engine optimization can mean many things. For most, the first thing that comes to mind is a series of technical considerations relating to search engines, keywords and indexing. While these are in fact crucial components, there is much more to the art than formal and technical concerns. As the nature of SEO continues to evolve, more and more components have to be considered when building a comprehensive SEO strategy. At the core of any good strategy is a focus on content, and what better place to begin such a strategy than by building a blog? We’ll discuss today how every blog post you publish can help further improve a new or existing SEO strategy.

Blog Posts = Content

In the current world of SEO, content really is king. While in previous years it was possible to game the system through a series of simple link building and keyword exercises, most niches today have something in common: the best-ranked sites have great content. Your blog posts can be individual opportunities for the creation of quality content that will not only ensure you’re pinging users with the right impressions, but that will also please search engines that are looking for high-quality content. Whether you choose to publish on a daily, weekly or monthly basis is entirely up to you, but each piece of content you create will further improve your SEO strategies (assuming the content is good).

Links

Every piece of content you publish in the form of a blog post is capable of earning juicy SEO credit for you in the form of backlinks. Many quality blogs inevitably get circulated within their broader niches by others who find the information they provide helpful. This may start off with an occasional tweet or mention on social media, but sooner or later, people will find what you have to say relevant to their own content and will link to you. This can be a great way to improve SEO, but you want to ensure that it occurs organically. Buying links almost always backfires, so be sure that you are legitimately earning the links you’re receiving. When in doubt, consider using a service such as Google Disavow to contest any potentially harmful links back to your website.

Keyword Building

Keywords are still essential to SEO – not as the primary focus, but an important one – and each blog post you create provides two related but separate opportunities. First, each blog post gives you the ability to target existing keywords in your SEO campaign and can make it easier to rank in various SERPs. The more pages and posts that reference these keywords, the better. The second benefit relates to the brainstorming process: as you organically create new content, you are bound to discover new keyword possibilities that you may wish to begin targeting with future posts. The combination of propagating existing keywords across more content and drumming up new possible keywords and phrases makes blogging a valuable element of SEO.

Blogging provides brands and businesses with the ability to instantly begin pinging users with fresh content and perspectives. This can help your SEO in multiple ways, including but not limited to keyword building, link building and additional content for search engines to index. What other reasons make blogging enjoyable for you or are making you consider taking up the hobby?