Everything you need to know about blogging

Blogs were one of the first forms of expression born on the web. Everyone could start their own blog and talk about everything and. The most popular were travel, life and cooking blogs, but the topics were, and still are, incredibly broad. The Internet collects everything.

What's the point in writing a blog?

Search engines have one purpose: to give the best answers in the shortest time possible to any question asked by users. To do this, a complex system has been built that scans online content, evaluates it and decides how high it should be placed in search results. Having a site built well, with the right contents and a series of precise parameters, leads search engines to value it.

Having an active blog means having an edge in positioning on search pages. In fact, not only will the search engine place the company site to which the blog belongs higher, but every single blog article also represents an extra door to get the user to the site.

If the contents are inherent to the sector in which the company works, if they are well written and with interesting topics, users' interest is captured. Users will visit the site for longer and take it as an authoritative and useful source of information.

A blog keeps the site up and running

Search engines value sites that are renewed, because it is an indication of attention to content. Up-to-date content means, in digital logic, valuable, fresh, useful content. Having a blog on which articles are periodically uploaded means keeping the site active, enhancing it. Of course, positioning depends on many other factors, but updating content is one of them. Relying on an agency specialized in content creation is often the best solution to obtain constant and concrete results.

1. Define a target

The first thing to do is to define the target you want to intercept, which is the same one the company addresses. Who might be interested in the business advertising itself on the site? Is there a specific language to use? Can industry specific terms be used or is it better to use simpler formulas? The questions are many and they all serve to give guidelines to follow in writing. In this way, the articles not only adapt to the target, but will maintain a coherence between them and with the site to which they belong. They will adapt to what is the identity of the brand even in communicating information.

2. Definition of a PED

After defining the target to address, it is good to plan the PED. The acronym stands for "Digital Editorial Plan" and is a document used to plan the contents that will be published online, with the aim of achieving a certain goal. Through the PED, you can plan the days in which to publish and the related topics to be covered. Eventually, we can reconnect to anniversaries and holidays, dedicating the articles also according to these, if they are consistent with the brand and the topics it may deal with. A time scan also helps you get organized with your writing work.

1. Keywords

The first thing to do for effective writing in terms of positioning is to find the keyword on which to position the article. The Keyword is the word that is used by users to search for what they need. It is necessary to identify, using the right tools, the keyword that best suits the article you want to write and that has the most search traffic. There are two categories:

Short-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords

Short-tail keywords are short keywords, containing between one and three words. Being so short, they are generic. This means that they attract more traffic but have more competition because they are used more.

Long- tail keywords contain more than three words, which makes them more specific. They bring less traffic but allow for less competition. This way, it is easier for the article to appear higher in the search results.

2. Titles and subtitles

The chosen keyword must appear in the title. It is even better if it is placed at the beginning, but it is not a necessary condition. You can also write titles that do not contain the keyword, but of course they will be disadvantaged. In any case, the title can also be written once the article is finished.

The blog article must be divided into paragraphs, which usually must not exceed three hundred words, preceded by subtitles. These must recall the content of the article, i.e., at least two of them must contain the keyword. It is good that there is a title, only two subtitles and several sub-subtitles, but without going overboard.

3. Content

As far as the actual text is concerned, there are various indications. The length must be at least three hundred words. Shorter texts may seem easier to read, but search engines do not consider them long enough to really contain the answer to the needs of the user who performed the search.

Search engines favor hypertext, which are texts linked to other texts. For this, links must be present within the text. These links must be:

Interior
Exterior

Internal links are links that refer to pages inside the blog itself. External links refer to blogs, sites, platforms external to the website. It is important that these pages are authoritative sources, or the article will be disadvantaged. However, you shouldn't go overboard with the number of links either. A good number may be two internal and two externals. As internal links, calls to action can be inserted in the article, which refer to the contact page and favor contact between the user and the brand.

To facilitate the reading of the text, you can use bulleted lists and words in bold. It's not recommended to use underlined words, because they look too much like the words with a link and would lead the reader to confuse them.

A detail not to be forgotten are the images. A cover image consistent with the content and with those of the other articles must be inserted. In this way, browsing the site and landing on the blog page, it will be possible to find a concordance between the various articles. It is good to insert images or videos even within the text, without however exceeding, or the written content will take a back seat. The images must be renamed with the title of the article and the name of the site to which they belong. In some cases, it is also necessary to reduce its weight, so as not to slow down the loading of the page.

Finally, you also need to take care of the meta description. This is the short description that appears below the main title in search results. It must briefly summarize the article, enticing users to read it, and must contain the keyword.

4. Promotion on social media

To complete the work and sponsor the contents created, communication can be integrated with the re-sharing of articles on social networks. Some social networks do not allow you to see the preview, such as Instagram, but others allow it. We mainly talk about Facebook and LinkedIn, the main social networks on which to communicate your brand. Together with the reshare link, it is good to briefly describe the content of the article, inserting a final call to action.