Tag: content marketing

What’s the Point of Having a Business Blog? [2025]

On By AndyIn Business, seoLeave a comment

Last Updated – A few days ago (probably)

Having a high-quality, high-traffic blog in the same niche can significantly enhance the organic rankings of an eCommerce site for commercial terms like “buy football goals.” Here’s how:

  1. Increased Topical Authority

Search engines such as Google prioritise specific knowledge and expertise. A blog that focuses on football-related topics showcases expertise and builds authority within the niche. This can enhance the credibility of the eCommerce site as a reliable source for football equipment.

If you have 30 excellent, well written, detailed posts about football, then for an array of reasons from topical authority to social shares and backlinks, the eCommerce ‘section’ of your site will tend to rank a lot higher for commercial terms.

Top tip – include your own research and data. People love to link back to statistics. A good example with the NOW Foods 3rd party lab testing of creatine gummies – showing half of them had hardly any creatine in them.

  1. Internal Linking Opportunities

A well-organized blog provides the chance to link to your product pages (e.g., “buy football goals”) using keyword-rich anchor text. This not only drives traffic to those pages but also indicates to search engines the relevance of your product pages for specific keywords.

  1. Improved Backlink Profile

Blogs tend to attract more backlinks than product pages because they offer valuable, non-commercial content. These backlinks to your blog can transfer authority to your eCommerce site if you effectively link the blog to your product pages.

  1. Keyword Coverage

Blogs enable you to target informational keywords like “how to set up a football goal” or “best football training drills,” which may not fit well on product pages. Once users visit these blog pages, you can direct them toward related products, creating a smooth transition from information to purchase.

  1. Increased Dwell Time

High-quality content keeps users engaged on your site for longer periods. This increased dwell time signals to search engines that your site offers valuable content, which can positively influence rankings across the board, including for commercial terms.

  1. Capture Users at Different Stages of the Sales Funnel

Blogs can attract users who are in the awareness or consideration stages of their buying journey. For instance:

A post titled “5 Things to Consider When Buying Football Goals” can inform users while subtly promoting your products.

If they choose to buy, they’re already on your site and more likely to make a purchase.

  • Use exit intent pop-ups to build an email list – incentivise sign ups with discounts
  • Have a sticky banner with a special offer
  • Make the brand stand out in images and banners

Brand Awareness!

Anybody can set up a website and sell stuff, and create some ads – but you won’t get direct visitors and people searching for your brand (a HUGE SEO ranking factor) if you haven’t built your brand.

Brand bias is also huge on products – take trainers, football boots and clothes for example. A top quality blog with good content can help build your brand awareness massively.

Establishes Authority & Expertise

Marketing bellends call this “thought leadership” and other contrived BS terms to make it sound impressive. But, at the end of the day, if you read a local PT’s blog about fitness and nutrition and it’s amazing, and references meta-analysis and robust research; you’ll probably be inclined to contact him or her if you are looking for a PT in the future? Especially if they display other EAT – Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness, like a PhD in Exercise Physiology and 20 years experience as a Navy Seal fitness instructor and 10 years as a Premier League Physiotherapy – just to give you a realistic example.

Gives You an Idea of What Your Audience Wants More of

Use search console to see what your blog posts rank for. Take note of any quasi-relevant search terms.

For example, my MMA diet plan, was ranking for Boxing Diet Plan – so I created a new page for this second search term.

In addition to expanding your offerings in terms of content and products, see which are your most popular posts, and if these posts can inspire more content or products. Especially true if the posts related to pain-points of your target audience.

Helpful Core Update – March 2024

On By AndyIn seo1 Comment

Core Update and Helpful Content System:

  • As the name suggests, Google’s March 2024 core update aims to prioritise useful information over content that seems optimized for search engines. In theory, spammy shite should be dropped in the rankings. In theory. Hopefully the twats at hydragun who keep robbing my MMA blogs content will get a spanking.
  • The helpful content system is revamped and integrated into the core ranking algorithm to better identify genuinely helpful content and reduce unoriginal content.
  • The guys in the know, expect the rollout to take a month, with significant ranking fluctuations during this period.
  • Google aims to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%. Not 100%, updates begin at 40.

Actionable To-Do List:

  1. Review Content Quality: Assess your website’s content for originality and usefulness to real users, not just for SEO.
  2. Write from experience, and in the first person.  Unless you’re a big brand, then do what you like.
  3. Monitor Rankings: Prepare for fluctuations in search rankings as the update rolls out. Use this time to identify areas for improvement.
  4. Update Content Strategy: Focus on creating high-quality, original content that addresses your audience’s needs and questions. Use forums and social media groups to identify your customers pain points and common questions. Your CS and sales teams can also provide insights. Also get chat gpt to put keywords into themes of different queries.
  5. Avoid Spam Tactics: Steer clear of expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, and site reputation abuse to avoid penalties.
  6. Build your brand. Branded searches and search volumes, make a massive difference, in my experience (see what I did there?).

It generally helps, in theory, to write from experience rather than just giving an overview that anyone could scrape and rewrite from the internet. Include your own images, videos etc.

I don’t have any images of Google updates, see here’s a pic of my dog:


Big brands will still probably have a massive advantage regardless of what they do.

Spam Updates:

  • Significant changes to spam handling will start on May 5, 2024, affecting sites through algorithmic adjustments or manual actions.
  • New spam policies target expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse (especially AI-generated content), and site reputation abuse.

General Recommendations:

  • Recognize the shift towards rewarding authoritative and genuinely helpful content.
  • Anticipate a more significant impact from updates targeting spam and low-quality content.
  • Understand that recovery from these updates may require fundamental changes beyond SEO, focusing on building a reputable and sought-after brand for quality content.

Image from BBC

Content Marketing Fundamentals [Updated 2024]

On By AndyIn Business, marketing, seo1 Comment

Nobody gives a f*ck about your behind the scenes bollocks, and nobody is googling to find out about the industry award that you won (and paid about 10k to enter).

Create content that’s relevant and of interest to your target audience

Content marketing and inbound marketing is kind of, the new SEO. Google, as we’ve heard a million times, loves great content and great content attracts genuine links.

Create a blog and social media profiles that you’re customers will want to subscribe to – because they’re interesting!

The process is easy, the execution can be a bit of a b@stard to do though.

  1. Identify your target audience
  2. Find out where they hang out online e.g. which Reddit forums and Facebook groups etc
  3. Identify your target audience’s common questions and pain points
  4. Use a tool like SEMRush to ID low competition search terms regarding the questions & pain points
  5. Create useful, in-depth copy/posts that helps your target audience
  6. If resource available, create videos for YouTube based on posts that get most traction
  7. Create short videos suitable for social – with captions!

For blog content, see if you can match the topics you’ve found, with specific keywords, ideally with the highest volume.

Check the search engine results pages (SERPs) and identify any keywords which have “weak” or somewhat irrelevant results.

It’s a bit beyond the scope of this post, but look to optimise your blogs for “rich snippets”, by using lists and html tables.

To check for keywords, you’ll need Keyword Tool like SEMRush to do this, or search “free keyword tool”.

Keep each blog post specific to one or two keywords.

You can also promote your blog posts with outreach, although some content marketing gurus, say you’re better off investing all your time in creating content, rather than promoting it.

For Reddit, you can use this great Reddit Keyword Tool, to identify the most common topics of discussion, in a given forum/subReddit.

The backbone of good content, is that, well, it’s actually good – well written, easy to read, full of visual assets if possible.

When it comes to blog posts, make the content scannable with lists, bullet points and images. If you have the resource, infographics are always a good addition to a blog post.

Statistics are also a great way to attract links and citations from other websites. For example, if you work out the average price of a [given product or service] in the UK, it’s relatively likely to attract links. If you sell UK holiday homes or used campervans, you might work out the average price of new camper van, or the cost per holiday of an overseas holiday versus a holiday home.

Help, Help, Help, Sell

Gary V’s book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a bit old now, but the adage of setting up a sale several times, before trying to promote your service or product is still valid, in my opinion.

The “jab” in the book title, is the useful or entertaining content aimed at your target audience

The “right hook” is a blog and/or social media post that aims to sell a product or service.

jab jab jab right hook book cover
Image Source

Consider:

  • Would you follow a social account or blog that’s just trying to sell you a service or product?

  • For example, if an accounting software company has a Facebook account that just promotrs its software directly in every single post, not many people will be interested. However, if the Facebook page posts about tax saving tips, digital marketing for small businesses etc it’s likely to get more engagement.

I’d also avoid lots of

  • Behind the scenes posts.unless you’re an established brand, nobody gives a shit
  • Virtue signalling posts

You might follow a brand or company on social media etc, that just promotes itself, if you already know the brand, or if you’re interested in working at the company.

However, unless you’re an established brand, or you create content just for recruitment purposes, then it’s generally best to create blog and social media posts that help, entertain, and/or interest your target audience.

Establish yourself as an authority in your niche, with helpful & insightful content

Drew Griffiths (2022)

It can definitely help to promote discounts and offers on social platforms and blogs, but that’s generally the that’s the “right hook”, whereas the “jab, jab, jab” relates to the helpful, insightful content that should take up about 75% of all your posts.

If you’re in the business to business sector for example, you can gain brand awareness and an online following by providing posts that provide helpful advise on SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, Digital Marketing Tools etc. If you’re just trying to directly sell your office chairs, or accounting software in every single blog and social media post, you’re probably not going to get a large, engaged, following.

Don’t Post Links all the Time on Social Media

Social media platforms, from Facebook to LinkedIn, all want to keep users, on their platform. Links will tend to take people onto different websites, and as a result, posting links to your blog etc, will tend to kill your organic reach (the amount of people who see your social media post).

Keto Diet Products Example

If you were running a business selling Keto supplements and foods. You can study the Keto subreddits and Facebook groups, and you’d probably find that there are lots of questions regarding keto desserts.

Jump onto SEMRush, or another SEO Tool and find search terms, and potential headings for blog posts – that have a low level of competition – i.e. it’s relatively easy to rank for.

Image Source

Create in-depth keto dessert blog content that’s better than what already exists.

Optimise the content for the search terms that you’ve identified on SEMRush.

Reformat the content for social media. Captioned videos tend to do well, as these are the least popular form of content – social media is full of images and text posts, so it’s a bit easier to stand out with a video.

Consider creating a free eBook about keto desserts. Promote the eBook on social media to “warm up” your target audience to your brand* Remarket your products to those that download the eBook.

Create a serious of posts & videos regarding the best keto desserts, the best sweeteners and the best supplements to help with sugar cravings.

*It’s difficult to sell products, particularly high value products to people on Facebook, Instagram etc, as they’re not actively searching for something to buy. Best practice is said to be, create an offer e.g. an eBook, Webinar etc that’s directly of interest (and NOT necessarily directly about your product) and advertise it to your target market on social media – Then remarket to those that engage with your advert.

Hope this blog post helps!

I know the irony about in-depth, long format content that I’m touting in this post, but please bear in mind, I’m writing this on my lunch and I’m not trying to sell anything. Well, unless you want to buy an MMA T-shirt.

Examples of Great Content Marketing

HubSpot YouTube Channel

The channel covers how to put together powerpoints, how to create videos for your small business and lots of marketing fundamentals for business owners

Daniel Foley Carter Linkedin

Daniel posts about tips on how to optimise your SEO, SEO mistakes to avoid and some very high level, useful SEO techniques and strategies to adopt.

Net World Sports

Net World Sports have a great range of highly visual buyers’ guides, size guides and a regularly updated blog.