Blogging A Vital Part of Web Development

A blog does not make sense for every business, but for most, it is a vital part of the development of their web presence and digital footprint. The more we can encourage them to make this a part of their initial web development, the better their site will prosper. This not only makes them more successful but enhances your reputation as a web developer.

Here are some reasons blogging is an essential part of web development.

Getting Started

From the start, the purpose of web development is to give a company an online home. This is much like building a physical location. The domain name your client chooses is like their sign, it is often the first impression a user has of their site.

The same principles apply to page names and designations, especially those of the home page and any landing pages. The photos and content on the homepage serve as the front door and the lobby of the virtual location, but the blog content often serves as the salesman who shows the customer what they are looking for. 

The quality and quantity of blogs published on a website can make or break an online user’s decision of browsing your website. A website with outdated blogs or no blogs at all will likely shoo them away. Why would online users visit a website when there’s no content to read? Regardless if you’re going to hire professionals, such as Pixelstorm, to develop a website for you, or accomplish the task on your own.

It is important to have the right place and the right content for this from the very start, setting it up early in the web development process.

Gaining Organic Traffic

One of the other keys to web development is to keep in mind that organic traffic is typically the goal. 

Of course, load times, metadata, keywords, and other tactics matter for this as well, but one of the keys to great organic traffic is content. This means the right content in the right place, but it also means more than that.

Blog updates are one thing that keeps a site fresh. Google will visit more often if there is newer content posted regularly. This means that those performing searches will see the site more often in site searches. (More on that in a moment)

Simply put, the blogs on a website can haul in more online users to visit and stay on that website. If your website offers informative content about fashion, for example, it’ll be easy for you to attract online users because you’ll have something to offer to them, and these online users will grasp valuable information through your blog. You can think of blogs as baits for online users to visit a website. 

From a web development standpoint, the theme and setup of the blog, the SEO properties, and default naming conventions all matter to making the blog attractive to search engines and therefore to searchers. To gain organic traffic with a blog, the initial development is vital.

The Ever-Vital Search Engine Rankings

Yes, search engine rankings matter, and as good of a metric as MOZ’s DA is, it doesn’t cover everything, nor is it the definitive determination of what a site’s Google rank will be. There are plenty of lower DA sites that rank high in SERPS for various topics. The key is to answer questions thoroughly, and the questions customers or clients in that niche are asking.

This ties into the market research that is key to good web development. The same research that tells you the persona marketing and web efforts should be aiming for will also inform blog development right from the beginning.

This influence on search engine rankings, including the vital local results to physical businesses, is tied directly to the development of the rest of the website. The more blogging ties into the rest of a robust and well-built site with the right SEO metrics, the better initial and building search rankings will be over time. 

A website’s SEO rank is vital because it affects its brand and credibility in the eyes of online users. When a website ranks high in the SERPs, more often than not, online users will think of this website as a more reliable platform compared to websites that only appear on the second or third page of the SERPs. Having this kind of reputation online will make it easier for the website to create an authority and gain loyal customers.

Aside from making sure that the website adheres to the algorithms set by search engines, blogs can also improve a website’s SEO rank. This works because search engines, such as Google, can identify websites that publish high-quality and accurate blogs, and then reward them with a better SEO rank online. Search engines are looking after the quality of the blogs present on a website, which means that copying a blog from other online platforms won’t do any good to a website’s SEO rank.