What is blogging? And does writing a blog make sense?

“Does investing time into writing blog posts make sense?” You may be asking yourself this question for the umpteenth time, while pondering a fascinating text for your website. The answer is: it depends. Regularly publishing blog posts can be very valuable to your organisation, but only if you do it the right way. In this article, we’ll answer the question of “what is blogging?” and explain how you can do it in a way that grows the number of visitors coming to your website.

What exactly is blogging?

When you blog, you regularly post an article on your website. This is not just any article, but informative and inspiring content relevant to your business or organisation. In a blog post, you highlight a topic that is interesting for your target group with the goal of attracting followers and interacting with them. 

What makes a good blog?

To get straight to the point: if you want to have an impact with your blog, it makes no sense to scrape together a superficial text of two or three hundred words. Or to write a nonsense blog post every time you want to publish something. No, if you want to be successful with your blog, you have to pay serious attention to it.

If you want to be successful with your blog, you have to pay serious attention to it.

Long-form content

If you want to achieve your blogging goals (for example, become more popular with your target audience, be ranked higher in the search results, or raise your profile within your industry), then quality is more important than quantity. Research by serpIQ shows that Google prefers long-form content. Depending on your competitors, you easily need a thousand words (and often even two or three thousand) to stand out in Google searches. In order to convince the search engines of your authority, you must provide the most complete answer to the search query.

An eye for layout

However, publishing an endless, rambling wall of text is not the way to go, no matter how interesting you believe the content to be. Hardly anyone will read your article in full if it isn’t formatted correctly. How do you make a good post that is long but also quickly scannable? You can achieve this by not losing sight of the layout:

• Add images and give them a good alt description;
• Include a featured quote in multiple spots throughout the text;
• Use titles and subheadings;
• Link to internal pages that are relevant;
• Link to external websites with high authority;
• And yes, bullet points are also nice for variety.
  
  

Regularly inserting a break (a blank line) in your text also increases readability. In fact, this is essential for reading on a mobile phone (the device used by most people today). Place a blank line after every three to four sentences and you’ll instantly create well-arranged paragraphs.

Turn your blog into a multimedia spectacle and Google will see that your text is complete and all-encompassing.

Turn your blog into a multimedia spectacle and Google will see that your text is complete and all-encompassing. In addition to legibility, this also improves your findability. The visitor quickly finds the information he/she needs and Google appreciates your post. Win-win!

Do thorough keyword research

A long and well-formatted blog post is not sufficient. At least as important is the research you do before you write. Do thorough keyword research (Dutch) to find out what terms your target group is looking for when searching for information online.

Also, check out your competitors in respect of these search terms. Is it realistic for your article to get a spot on the first page of the search results? Or are the first twenty positions already taken by large websites that you will never beat?

And, speaking of your target group: make sure you understand them, too. Investigate what questions they have and strive to formulate the best answers to them. By implementing this approach, you will have a solid foundation for a successful blog, whether you write them yourself or have quality articles written for you.

Keep it up!

You’re publishing interesting articles to your blog on a regular basis. After a month, you look at your Google Analytics, convinced that you will now see strong results. But unfortunately… not much has changed in the numbers yet.

Seeing measurable results from a blog requires a lot of patience.

Seeing measurable results from a blog requires a lot of patience. Don’t expect miracles in just a few months. With a bit of luck, the numbers will begin to climb after about six months. But it can also take a year or more for your visitor numbers to increase.

A CopyRobin customer managed to grow their website from 1,000 to 15,000 visitors per month in just a year by blogging. You can read their story here. (Dutch)

The disadvantages of writing a blog

If you take blogging seriously, you will see the impact it has on your findability, authority and number of followers over time. You can create a feeling of trust with your target group and build a relationship with them.

Are there any drawbacks to blogging? Only if you do it wrong. In fact, if you’re trying to take it easy, you shouldn’t do it at all. Your efforts—and your time—will be completely wasted. 

Don’t blend in—stand out!

A huge amount of new content is published online every single day. So it’s important to publish something truly excellent that stands out from the crowd and engages your target group. If you don’t, your blog will blend in with the masses and you won’t get any results. So, it’s far better to publish one excellent piece of content a month than a lower quality blog post every week.

So, it’s far better to publish an excellent piece of content once a month than a lower quality blog post every week.

And, of course, it is also important that when you choose to publish blog posts, you ensure this form of communication is suited to your target group. Are you targeting teenagers who play games or watch TikTok and YouTube all day? In that case, opt for videos and ignore long-form content.

Could you use some help with your blog posts?

In summary, we can say that blogging certainly makes sense for those looking to grow their online presence, but only if you do it right. Write high-quality posts that suit your target group in terms of both content and form. Then, just persist. You will definitely see the results of your efforts in the long run!

Worried about how difficult and time-consuming writing great blog posts can be? Maybe you could use some help with regularly publishing great content that engages your target audience? We are happy to share the knowledge and skills of our experienced copywriters with you!

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