Part 1 of the Blogging Webinar Series: Do I have to blog for SEO?

Blogging.

There are some strong feelings associated with blogging. For some, it’s the bane of their existence. For others, they seize the opportunity to spew all of their wisdom into a digital format. Blogging can be done in many different ways. And, as of late, we’ve seen folks get pretty creative with blogs. Some people have started incorporating video in their blogging, often referred to as “vlogging.” In addition, others have started blog post series about a topic that’s relevant to their work.

Aside from the style of blogging, blogging looks different for each discipline. In the land of mental health services, we often focus on incorporating content that’s relevant and helpful to our ideal clients. Sometimes our blogs offer tips about navigating anxiety. Other times, our blogs help instill courage in our clients to fully embrace their identity. And, to live fearlessly.

Now that all of the fun and feel-good stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to business. You’re here for a reason. I know the burning question that’s been keeping you awake at night.

Do I have to blog for SEO?

Ah, the million-dollar question. You can get a variety of different answers depending on who you ask. The short answer? Yes. The longer answer? Still yes. In terms of building SEO, “blog posts are a quintessential component of maintaining the longevity of results.”

So, what does that mean in human (non-SEO) language?

For the folks that aren’t engulfed in the underworld of SEO land, this means that blog posts help your website rank towards the top of Google. This is good. This means that more people are seeing your website because you’re on the first page. As a search engine, Google strives to provide the user with relevant, reputable, and fresh content. When ranking websites, Google takes this into consideration, along with over 200 other factors. A way to show Google that your website is relevant, reputable, and fresh is by posting new content on it fairly often. This “new content” can be original blog posts that you create for your ideal clients.

How Often Do I Need To Blog?

The second million-dollar question! The short answer? Consistently. The long answer? Consistently and it depends. Blogging consistently helps to show Google that you’re staying ‘hip’ with the times. And, Google loves that. Consistently blogging looks different for each person. For some people, this means they post an original and stellar blog every Monday. For others, the second and the fourth week of the month are when they create original blogs.

The longer answer, how often you blog depends on the SEO goals for your practice. There’s no magic number for how many blogs you should create. And, for each practice, it will be different.

New Practices

Let’s say your practice is brand new. It’s so new that it doesn’t show up when you search the name. In this case, heavily focusing on blogging might not be the best use of time. Yes, you should still be consistent. But, you should focus your efforts on optimizing services pages. Service pages are important because they lay the groundwork for SEO.

Established Practices

What if your practice is established, but you want to boost your SEO so you’re on the first page? With this goal, you can expect to blog on a weekly basis. In addition to optimizing the service pages, too. How often you create original blogs depends on how competitive your specialty is. If you’re an anxiety therapist on the coast, you probably should be blogging about twice a week. But, if you’re a sex therapist in the midwest, blogging once a week will likely boost your rankings. Again, a large factor that contributes to this is how competitive your area is.

Maintenance Mode

What if you’re satisfied with your rankings and just want to maintain your SEO? In this case, your SEO is likely established and relatively consistent. To maintain your rankings, blogging twice a month can be the “sweet spot” for your practice. Again, your specialty and geographic area decides if blogging once or twice a month is a better fit. A suggestion for practices in the maintenance stage is to create original blog series. Original blog post series typically have blogs that build off of each other. In a blog post series, you can use suspense and curiosity to your benefit. Use phrases like, “next week, we’ll take a closer look at (super cool topic that you wrote an entire blog post about).”

But is it possible to rank without blogging?

Absolutely it’s possible. It’s just harder. If you want to rank well on Google as part of the marketing strategy for your health and wellness business and absolutely 110% are committed to NOT blogging you still can. It just might be a harder path.

Blogging is the “easier” path to great ranking so to speak. So, we recommend blogging to all of our clients. Whether that’s you writing blog posts, encouraging other professionals in your group practice to write a blog post, having an intern do a little writing or even outsourcing your blog posts. We truly do think it’s worth it.

But if you REALLY aren’t going to blog, please make sure you’re focusing your energy on other factors. For example, make sure you have some superbly optimized service pages. Then, work heavily on backlink building.

Some Burning Questions

So, we covered quite a bit this week! We all know that blogging is very important for SEO. We also know that consistency is key in terms of creating original blog posts. In addition, we know that how many original blogs you should post depends on your SEO goals. However, you might be curious about a few other things. I frequently specify “original blog posts.” I also reference that these blog posts should be “relevant” to your practice or your ideal client. Why is it important that blog posts are original? Does relevance actually play an important role in blog posts? Stick around, because next week we’ll dive into these questions in part 2 of our blogging webinar posts!

Curious to Learn More About All Things Blogging? Sign Up For Our Upcoming Webinar!

We’re excited to announce that we’re hosting a two-part webinar on December 4th and December 11th! In this two-part webinar series, we’ll discuss all things blogging and SEO. In addition, we’ll give you some practical tips to kickstart your blog. I will be the cohost, along with Jessica Tappana. We look forward to seeing you there!

Other Services With Simplified SEO Consulting

At Simplified SEO Consulting, we’re pretty smart cookies. We can help you with all things SEO! We offer Done For You Services where do the optimization. Or, we can teach you how to do the optimization in our 12-Week Intensive Program. In addition, we offer a variety of helpful courses and ala carte services. When you’re ready to begin services with us, follow these steps:

Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with us.
Get to know our team of highly skilled SEO specialists.
Reach your SEO goals!

About the Author

Alyssa has been a member of the Simplified family for the past few months and is now stepping into a role providing training and additional support for folks learning SEO. As a current graduate student in the Advanced Placement MSW Program at Mizzou, Alyssa loves the intersect of mental health and technology. In addition, Alyssa has a growing interest in using social media to grow a practice, the importance of live feed, and building backlinks. Alyssa will be cohosting the blogging webinar and would love to see you there!