The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

blogging

by

What Google Looks for in a Blog Post

Content marketers can quickly find themselves becoming a slave to Google. This is no surprise. In terms of search engines, Google reigns supreme, but with its ever-evolving algorithms and sheer competition among fellow content creators, it can be hard to remain in good graces. 

If you want to keep climbing the SEO ranks while pleasing the Google gods, there is a way – and spoiler alert: it’s not just about keywords. Google prioritizes content that’s valuable, relevant and, of course, optimized for SEO. If you want your blogs to show up on page one (instead of getting lost in the void), here’s what you need to know.

Provide Value-First Content

To perform well in search engines, it’s imperative to balance quality and quantity. You can’t post one killer blog every 6-12 months and expect to see results. You need to remain active on your website by posting fresh content at least weekly – two or three times a week is even better. And when you do publish content, be sure you are serving up the best possible answers to your readers’ inquiries. Not only will this help your search rank, but it will also put you in the best possible position to be featured in Google’s AI-overview section.

Optimize for SEO

In addition to providing compelling content, you should also do some back-end work to ensure you have SEO-friendly titles and meta descriptions. This task, also known as technical SEO makes it easier for Google to index your site. Other things you do to help optimize your site are to ensure you have plenty of internal and external links, well-formatted content that’s easy to read, and naturally incorporated keywords (no stuffing allowed!)

Remain Consistent

As mentioned, a key factor that Google and other search engines evaluate is how active a website is. If you don’t remain consistent with your content, you’re as good as dead to Google. This can be a real challenge for business owners, but that’s where we come in. If you need help with your blog, call us at The Found Gen.

by

Why You Should Blog More Often?

The simple answer is engagement.

We could carry on telling you all about how more indexed pages improves your SEO and allows your business to rank higher on searches. It would all be true. Driving traffic to your site is a good reason, but in order to bring the right traffic for you it’s about more than algorithms.

Give the People Content!

Blogging more often is good but providing great content at the same time is better. Once you’re driving traffic to your site, you want them to find value in what’s there. Engagement goes both ways!

We’ve talked about it before, but this is where it’s so important to know who your customers are and what they’re interested in. Regularly posting blogs on a variety of specific topics within your wheelhouse is the best way to show off your knowledge of your field. Choosing pertinent topics, and getting those blogs published at the right time is key. An active and informative blog page helps to solidify your expertise for first time visitors and reinforces the trust your regular audience has in you.

How Often is Often Enough?

If you’re new to blogging, start with a manageable number of posts – something you can commit to and be consistent with. We always recommend starting with a minimum of one blog posts a week. However, keep in mind that posting 12 or more blogs a month triples your traffic when compared to posting 4 blogs a month or fewer.

If you’re already posting once a month, then now is a great time to stretch that blog power of yours. Step it up and see if you can manage to post two or three times a week. But remember – one quality blog post filled with interesting and accurate information is better than two blogs that don’t really say anything.

Also, you don’t have to do this all on your own. If the time commitment required to post enough blogs to drive the traffic you’re looking for is too much, there’s always the option of outsourcing your content writing. Working with a great marketing team means you’ll have expert advisors developing your content calendar, from topic selection to publication schedules and everything in between. Not to mention, the best marketing agencies (ahem, cough cough) offer top-quality content writing to develop the blogs and manage the publication of them too.

If you’re ready to have an awesome writing team backing you up, give us a call today. Our team of expert content strategists have been managing successful content and blog campaigns for our clients for over 12 years.

If you’re ready – we are too.

by

How Often Should You Be Blogging to Drive Results?

Blogging can sometimes feel tedious or ineffective, but we’re here to tell you that it is so worth the effort. Companies that post more than 16 blogs a month get 3.5 times more traffic than those who post four or fewer – here’s why:

Blogging is Undoubtedly the Best SEO You Can Do for Your Website

If you have an SEO strategy in place but aren’t blogging, you don’t have an SEO strategy. Ideally, your blogs are rife with pertinent information that your potential customers are looking for – or better yet – Googling. Once a month, Google will search the internet and determine if you have added more original content and pages to your website. Google will note that you have an active site that is providing valuable information, which is why blogging consistently is so important.

How Often You Should Blog

A general rule of thumb is the more you blog, the more traffic your site will get. However, if you can’t put blogs out every week, don’t worry. When it comes to blogging, quality and length > quantity. Longer blogs that provide more in-depth content will essentially lower the bounce rate of readers, meaning they don’t have to continue to search Google for the information they’re looking for. 

One of the best things about blogs is that they continue to serve your business months, even years after you post them, making them worthwhile in the long-term if nothing else. All in all, blogging just a few times a month will absolutely increase traffic to your site and get Google to notice you. 

If blogging is too time-consuming and not something you are able to handle on your own – consider outsourcing to experienced professional content writers (hint, that’s us). 

by

Why Blogging Should Be the Focal Point of Your 2022 Marketing Plan

You’ve heard the saying, “a blog a day keeps the SEO Ninjas away.” Okay, so maybe it’s not quite like that but blogging is the healthiest thing you can do for your business’s marketing strategy.  

Over ten years ago when we formed The Found Gen, it was commonplace to have to explain to businesses why a blog was an important factor in their overall marketing strategy. Most people simply thought of a blog as a daily diary for bored adults who liked to overshare. 

Today, blogs have become more widely accepted and used on most business websites across the globe. And yet… businesses are still not taking the practice seriously as a main driver of potential new clients and revenue.

In fact, many businesses will spend more money (and we mean boat loads more) on social media management and ad buys than they will in original blog content. 

The genuine misinformation campaign on behalf of social platforms as to their effectiveness for businesses, along with the immediacy of a live feed, causes businesses to mis-align their marketing budget and priorities year after year. 

The Skinny on Blogging

When it comes to the digital landscape there are only two things your business can control: your website and your email list. That’s why both are the most valuable parcels you have online. 

Every time you publish a new, original blog post you are essentially adding a new page to your website. Ideally, your blogs are rife with pertinent information that your potential customers are looking for – or better yet – Googling. Every 28 days or so, Google crawls the entire internet. All of it. In that time period, if you have added more original content and pages to your website, Google logs it. They note that you have an active site that is providing valuable information. If you continue to provide answers that people are typing into Google’s search bar – then Google will start to note that it can turn to your site as a place to provide its users with valuable information. The longer readers are on your site, the more blogs they read – Google notices. And Google rewards. 

The Real SEO

Blogging is the best SEO you can do for your website. You control it. You manage it. You own it. You are also not paying some “SEO Ninja” or company thousands of dollars to do something to your site that they can’t explain transparently – and eventually hold your site hostage. 

Editor’s Note: This is really a sad story we hear regularly. If you are paying a company to manage your SEO but they have full control of your site and aren’t being direct in answering what they are up to – give us a call today. Friends don’t let friends spend money for nothing. 

By having a robust blog strategy, you are able to cultivate a strong presence online where you (bonus!) provide great information to potential clients who are more ready to buy or hire you from the start. If you have an SEO strategy in place but aren’t blogging, you don’t have an SEO strategy. 

How to Blog in 2022 

This year, when you’re developing your marketing strategy be sure to add blogging. We always recommend starting with four blogs a month, or one a week. If you’re already blogging that much – great! – now up your game, try six or eight blogs each month.

If blogging is too time-consuming and not something you are able to handle on your own – consider outsourcing to experienced professional content writers. This is key. Don’t just hire someone on Fiver or your best friend’s cousin’s nephew. Content writing is an art form. Content writing for business is a whole different ball of wax. 

Find a team of professional writers and marketers who research your company, your industry, your tone, your audience, your information and more. And honestly, spoiler alert: you’ve just found one. Get in touch with our team today if you’re ready to start blogging for your business. 

by

Blogging and SEO: How they go hand-in-hand

Like Abbot and Costello, pancakes and syrup, and COVID and masks, some things just go together. Now imagine Sinatra singing in your ear, “You can’t have one without the other!”

SEO and blogs are like PB&J, try to separate them and you just end up with two sticky pieces of bread.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about augmenting your content so you show up on the first page of the search engine’s results. The higher you are on that first page result list, the more traffic you can drive to your site. The more traffic, the more likely you are to convert your potential customers.

On paper, it seems like a foolproof plan. But what happens if people make it to your site and it’s just a bunch of bland, robotic SEO drivel that doesn’t offer anything of substance? Click. They’re gone! We’ll skip over the fact that search engines are not likely to put you on page one if you don’t have great content, just to harp on a key point here. Businesses cannot subsist on SEO alone. You need great content to complement great SEO.

On the other hand, if you have genius content – blogs and website copy so lyrical and eloquent that they’re just awaiting their Pulitzers – but no SEO to drive people to your site to actually read your content… Well, you’ve just written the content of the century for an audience that doesn’t exist.

Write it, optimize it, and they will come

Remember Field of Dreams? “If you build it, they will come,” the ethereal voice whispers to a young Kevin Costner. Yeah, maybe that works for baseball fields in the Midwest, but it takes more than simply building something to make the customers come these days. Blogs and SEO must work together to produce results.

What does this look like in practice? Good question.

It basically boils down to harmonizing the art of persuasive blogging and the science of SEO in a seamless union of content marketing.

Think of it like this. You want to take all the best bits from blogs – that is, relevant, authoritative, compelling, captivating content that drives readership and calls readers to action. Then you utilize the best researched and highest performing SEO models in combination with the content.

The resulting combo is a blog, or other form of content, that speaks to exactly what readers are searching for, answers their questions satisfactorily and gets them to trust your brand.

Teamwork is the dream work

So, now that you know the secret to driving traffic, it’s time to get to work. Make sure your content and SEO teams are working together, communicating and collaborating on all marketing campaigns and content creation.  

The SEO team will focus on what they do best, with their finger on the pulse of the questions and needs of the consumers that will drive traffic to the site. The content team will use these keywords and information to create trustworthy and noteworthy content to attract readers.

Hand in hand, your two teams will walk off into the sunset and your business and your customers will all mutually benefit from this beautiful coordination. It’s such a perfect picture, isn’t it? Sorry, we always get choked up thinking about harmonious marketing plans.

We’ll leave you to dry your eyes as you envision this wonderful relationship. And if, once you have managed your overwhelming emotions, you need some counseling with your new SEO and content marriage, we are here to listen.

by

Our Summer Reading List (Okay – What We Read This Summer and Loved)

Summer is a great time for catching up on books (unless you have kids, that is. Then you’re just busy all the time). But whether at the park or beach, on a road trip, or in the comfort of your own living room, nothing beats relaxing with a good book. We took to that activity this summer and came away with some great reads. Here are a few of our faves, in no particular order:

Homegoingby Yaa Gyasi– Gyasi’s debut novel tells a powerful tale of love, loss, fear, strength, courage, despair, and every emotion in between. It traces the story of two half-sisters from the Gold Coast of Africa – one who is sold into slavery and the other who remains in Africa.

Floridaby Lauren Groff– We’re fans of short stories and we’re fans of Florida, so naturally we had to be fans of this new collection of stories. Dark and moody, yet captivating all the same – worth a read.

Born a Crimeby Trevor Noah– We’re a little late to the game on this one, but if you haven’t read it yet, definitely do. Not only is this book a wonderful tribute to his mother, it offers an important, first-hand lesson in history as well. Noah details what it was like growing up in South Africa during apartheid and demonstrates how being born to a white Swiss father and black Xhosa mother shaped his life during a period of extreme tyranny.

There Thereby Tommy Orange– Another powerful novel about identity, isolation, belonging, pain and devastation. Orange questions what it means to be Native American in America today. To say it’s complex would be an understatement.

What good books have you read lately? Let us know!