Are Blog Strategies Effective for Websites?

I get this question a lot: Are blog strategies effective for websites? Many business owners who have paid for search engine marketing and SEO campaigns in the past with little to show for them are wary of paying for monthly content marketing (i.e. blogging). Why? Because they’re unsure if blogging will actually help their search results.

Content marketing is the new SEO, and in my humble opinion, the only SEO. It’s our entire approach. We tell people to fire their SEO specialists and stop wasting money on anything that is not building up their domains with rankable assets, which is exactly what a blogging strategy gives you.

What Are You Paying For?

A lot of site owners are paying $300, $700, $1200, $2000 or more EVERY month for SEO. When I ask those site owners to show me the last six months of SEO production, they stare at me like, “Huh?” They have NOTHING to show.

If you ask my clients the same thing—“Show me $8,000 of content production.”—all they have to do is click on the blog link of their website. THAT content will rank for a VERY long time for them, especially if you know how to put it to work.

What About AdWords?

AdWords is fine, but it is more effective with a solid content plan in place and it can (and should) compliment a content strategy. But here’s the catch: AdWords ONLY works when you pay the bill. The month you stop paying for it, it stops working.

But with a client who focuses on a long-term content strategy, if they fire us or stop their spend, their content continues to rank for years… long after we’ve gone our separate ways.

Quick analogy: AdWords is like renting a home. You pay month-to-month for a space. But once the lease is up—or you decide not to pay your rent—you’re outta there and you can’t take it with you.

Content marketing, however, is like buying that home. It’s an investment in which you build equity over time. Even when you’re done paying on your mortgage, the house is still yours. Your content is and always will be yours…and it continue to work for you long after you’ve stopped producing it. Can you imagine what happens when you produce awesome, unique content on a consistent basis every month?

So the answer is yes: blog strategies are effective for websites

Clients who do NOTHING but blogging alone do very well. Period.

Google loves content, wants more of it, and rewards domains with ranking. But—and this is a big one— a blog strategy is a long-term strategy that pays off over time. The effect is cumulative. Months 1-6 are simply groundwork. From 6-12 months you start seeing the fruits of your efforts with increased website traffic and more leads. 18-24 months later, your domain is unstoppable in search results.