For those of you who understand SEO, of course you also know that Google has an assessment of the latest content. Up-to-date content is an important factor influencing ratings.
The logic is that the more and often you update your site, the more often Googlebot will visit your site. Then it will give you a chance to achieve a better rating.
While you can update your site in different ways (by not means different types of content) writing and posting new articles on a blog is the simplest way to produce fresh content. So, there are some questions that really need to be answered:
Why do you have to keep writing blog content? Why a blog? Should you stop? Are there other ways to do marketing, get traffic and grow conversions? More precisely, how much impact does blogging have on SEO?
251 Days No Blog Update
Robert Ryan, a WordPress Developer / Social Media Manager / SEO Expert, conducted a simple experiment. In 2015, he didn’t update the blog for 251 days. And here are some of the things he found:
- Overall website traffic seems to have decreased significantly, falling by 32%
- Organic traffic fell by 42%
- Traffic on contact pages decreased by 15%
- Overall site conversions fell by 28%
Then, what can we conclude from these experiments?
Blogs Can Have an Impact on Overall Traffic
When Ryan stopped updating his blog, his traffic fell by 32%. This decline indicates that there is a relationship between blog output and overall traffic volume. So that it can be used as a warning from the consequences of stopping updating the blog.
Ryan stopped updating blogs for 8 months and 7 days, of course if you don’t update your blog for one or a month, maybe the consequences you will get won’t be as extreme as Ryan.
Still, it’s a good idea to regularly update your blog. For a number of reasons such as your business which is facing a problem, your health is being compromised, or something else that happens that doesn’t allow you to create a blog, you can schedule an article posting for some time to come. At least if there are times when you are busy taking care of other things, you know that your articles will stay posted on schedule.
Organic Traffic Has Significantly Decreased
The decrease in organic traffic obtained by Ryan, namely 42% is an extraordinary thing. For some businesses, that sort makes a clear distinction between generating and eliminating income. Harmful organic traffic is the same as receiving an algorithm penalty.
Organic traffic is obtained from content, more precisely from blogs. Organic traffic is the flow of your business. That is your audience. It’s hard to deny that Google does show a preference for sites with consistently updated content. However, no one knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works. But we can’t argue with the fact that quitting blogging will lead to decreased organic traffic.
By having a dynamic site (content publication) as opposed to a static one, it means that you are providing Google with a new search and index. Then, it will keep you on Google’s “radar”.
You should also consider the fact that each new blog post will give you the opportunity to generate more backlinks and increase your keyword rankings.
More Blog Writing, More Leads
Stopping blogging means the overall organic traffic will go down which results in fewer visitors seeing your website, and that means fewer leads. And this is what happened to Ryan, where the traffic on his website visits decreased 15%.
Stopping Blogging Equals Killing Conversions
Perhaps the most recent and worrying warning is Ryan’s finding of a 28% drop in conversions from websites. Writing a blog is the same as building conversions, but how does that happen? How is blogging related to conversions?
Writing a blog is quite an effective way to get good feedback from internet users. A good relationship with internet users can start with one blog post.
Basically, writing a blog is an attempt to gain the trust of website visitors. Customers will certainly see your business in terms of growth and how you can maintain the positive side of your brand.
Blogs can influence purchases. When considering a purchase decision, for a consumer, blogs are the third element that can influence consumer buying behavior, the others are brand sites and social media (Facebook).
When they stop blogging, your customers may wonder if you are still in business or not. Because no one wants to do business in a place that looks quiet and serene. You may still be in business, but if there is no up-to-date content that signals your activity, consumers may think you aren’t there to serve them.
And of course, that will kill your conversions.
As was said at the beginning, blogs build credibility, and credibility influences your business. Of course, you don’t want your business to be wasted because you never update your blog, right?