After all, to build a profitable and sustainable course business, you need a scalable traffic source – SEO. 

And today, you’ll learn how to use SEO for course creators. 

Read on!

What is SEO for course creators? 

When you use SEO (search engine optimization) to market your courses, you optimize your website to appear in search engines. People search for content related to your course, find your website – and some of them buy your course. 

Basically, you attract new students by bringing in free, organic traffic.

But why is SEO better than other traffic sources, like paid ads? 

Great question. SEO is, just like paid ads, a highly scalable traffic source. 

It’s also profitable because you don’t pay for every visitor. In contrast, paid ad costs go up – and eat up profits. 

And, you build up assets that continue to deliver traffic. You see, once a blog post ranks on search engines, it continues to drive traffic every month.

The best part? You don’t need a ton of traffic to get sales. 

And that’s what we’ll look at next. 

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12 top SEO strategies for course creators 

A few years back, I had successfully scaled my business with paid ads. 

Sure, my business was a seven-figure business…but it felt incredibly stressful to run.

Ad costs kept creeping up so profits were never stable, my business wasn’t predictable, and despite working with an ads manager, I had to constantly think about new ad creatives and angles. 

That’s when I decided to invest in SEO.

Within two years, SEO was a multiple six-figure channel that kept growing.

Today, I’m selling my courses passively (or as passively as it gets – no sales are completely passive!), every day. My sales are much more predictable, not to mention profits. 

And that’s what I teach in the steps below – how to use SEO for course creators.

The steps we’ll cover are…

• Use the right keywords
• Research your competition
• Match search intent
• Get people to stay on your website 
• Increase clicks to your website
• Make your content the most authoritative
• Write the right number of words
• Include keywords (in the right way) 
• Use internal linking
• Make your website work faster 
• Get featured in media 
• Get more email subscribers 

For the full process, take a look at my tutorial here: 

Find the right keywords that attract buyers

First up: 

Finding the right keywords.

You see, when people search for things on search engines like Google, they use different search phrases.

For example: 

“How to play the piano”

“How do I ask for a promotion?”

…And so on.

You want to rank for those search phrases.

And to do so, you need to find relevant keywords.

Typically, you write blog posts and optimize them for these keywords. So the keywords you find are your blog post topics. 

In the examples above, you’d use keywords like “play the piano” or “ask for a promotion.”

How do you figure out what keywords people are searching for, though? 

First of all, you need to know your audience well enough. 

What are their most frequently asked questions? 

What challenges and dreams do they have? 

That’s going to give you a few ideas. 

You can then research those ideas in Google Keyword Planner (GKP), which is Google’s free keyword tool. It’s created for ads but you can use it for researching keywords to target in organic (non-paid) searches. 

Search for the keywords you think your audience might be looking for to see if they get any search traffic. You’ll see if they get search traffic by looking at the column “avg. monthly searches”: 

There are other tools you can use, too, including Ahrefs and Semrush. 

However, GKP is a free tool and a good starting point. 

When you do your research, don’t get stuck in trying to target keywords with the most traffic.

Instead, look at keywords that are relatively easy to rank for. 

How do you figure out which keywords those are, though? 

Google your keyword and look at what websites come up. 

Are the only websites ranking for that keyword big websites like Healthline and Forbes? 

If so, it’s most likely a relatively competitive keyword.

Ideally, you’ll find a keyword that has at least a few smaller websites ranking for it. 

But there are other ways to find keywords than just manually searching for different topic ideas.

You can also use your competitors. And that’s what we’ll look at next. 

Research your competition (to get ideas)

Another way to find keyword ideas is to research your competitors. 

You see, your competitors might already be ranking for a good number of keywords.

And you can get keyword ideas from them and use those keywords for your own blog posts. 

One of the best ways to do competitor research as a beginner is to use Google Keyword Planner.

Choose “Start with website” and insert the domain you want to research.

You’ll get a list of all the keywords they rank for.

Use the same criteria you used above to choose the right keywords. 

Match search intent

Now you know how to find keywords.

But before you start writing your content, you need to be clear on the search intent of your keyword.

Search intent refers to what people are looking for when they search for your keyword.

For example, someone who is searching for “Titanic” might be looking for information about the actual historical event or the movie. 

And you want to ensure that your blog topic matches that search intent. 

So if you teach people how to play the piano and you’re creating a tutorial, you’ll want to make sure that your tutorial matches what people want. 

Are they looking for general information on the topic? 

A specific type of tutorial? 

…And so. 

When I created this article, I checked the search results and saw that most of them include lists of strategies – so I created my own list based on my personal experience. 

Get people to stay longer on your website

Understanding what people want to read about is key to getting your blog post to rank for its target keyword.

But you also need to know how to keep people on your post for as long as possible.

You see, Google wants to offer a good experience to its users – that’s how they keep coming back.

So if your blog post offers the most value to them, they’ll spend longer on your page.

On the other hand, if they hit the back button and go to another search result, that search result will eventually rank higher than yours. 

How do you get people to stick around, though? 

First of all, you need to offer real value.

Offer content based on your experience – like I do here. This isn’t rehashed content, but I’m sharing practical steps I’ve used in my own business. 

But you also need to present your content in an engaging way. 

And that comes down to copywriting. 

One of the key things is to write to YOUR reader. Use a lot of “you” and make your copy conversational by writing as you speak. 

Overall, make your text easy to read. A good tool to use here is Hemingway Editor, which highlights sections you can improve. 

A few things that make your text more readable are: 

• Short sentences
• Headlines 
• Images 

Increase your CTRs 

Your blog posts will appear in search results.

And there, the only things people typically can see are a title and meta description.

Like here…

Now, if people don’t click through to your website, your blog post won’t rank. 

So, how do you improve your click-through rates (CTRs)? 

By improving your titles. 

First, if you use a WordPress website, download the plugin Yoast.

Here, you’ll be able to see how your title appears in search results.

Ideally, you want to create a title that fits in the search results. If it’s longer, people won’t see all the words in the search results.

But your title also needs to be appealing.

Why should people click on your article and not anyone else’s? 

After all, there are often millions of search results you have to compete against… 

Often, “how to” or list posts get the most clicks. 

So if you’re creating a tutorial-style blog post, then use a “how to” headline.

For example: 

“How to find a new job”

“How to improve your posture” 

And if you’re creating a list post (a list of tools, tips, or something else), use that in your headline.

“12 Clothing Items Your Capsule Wardrobe Must Include”

“21 Helpful Tools for New Software Engineers”

Also, try to use “power words” in your title.

Words like “fast,” “simple,” or “great” that convey emotion. 

Other examples are…

Smart

Best

Quick

No-brainer

Free 

Top

Secret

Mistake

Here’s how I use this in one of my own titles:

If you want to check your own headline, use a tool like the CoSchedule headline analyzer to measure how powerful your headline is. 

Show why YOU’re an expert

You’ve created a course on a specific topic – a topic you’re an expert on. 

And that’s what you’ll want to show search engines (and your readers). 

You see, there’s a concept called “EEAT.” This stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

Google uses this concept to assess whether search results are helpful. 

At the same time, Google has said EEAT isn’t a ranking factor, so a factor that would help you rank higher.

That said, EEAT is part of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines – the guidelines Google uses to assess search results. 

So, you do want to show your authoritativeness on a topic. 

There are a few ways to do this…

• Include stories and examples
• Mention results or achievements whenever possible 
• Link to your about page, LinkedIn profile, or other profiles that show your expertise 

You can (should) also include high-authority sources to back up your claims.

Those are sources by reputable websites in your industry.

For example, if you’re in the health industry, that would include websites like Healthline.

If your course is on career development, you might link to Harvard Business Review.

And so on.

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Write the right number of words

How long should your blog posts be? 

The thing is…there’s no such thing as a “perfect” word count.

In fact, Google has confirmed that there’s no perfect word count – and that you should go for what makes sense for the topic.

In other words, your blog post should be as long as it needs to be. 

Some topics just don’t need a very long post (such as answers to questions that don’t require a lot of explanation). 

But sometimes, you should create a lengthier post if you’re creating a more in-depth guide. 

For example, my guide on how to sell online courses is longer because I have to include a bit more text to cover all the most important aspects of the topic. 

In general, 2,000-2,500 is a good range. Most topics can be sufficiently explained in that many words. 

Include keywords in the right places

One way search engines analyze your page is by figuring out its context.

The easiest way to do this is to look at keywords on your page.

If you include enough keywords the search crawler can determine what your page is about – helping it rank your blog post for its target keyword.

So, you need to include your target keyword throughout your page.

A good rule is to include it once in the introduction, twice in the body, and once in the conclusion.

Now, search engines are getting smarter all the time and including keywords in your content is less important today than it was a few years ago.

But it’s still safe to include your keyword at least a few times to help search crawlers figure out what your blog post is about faster. 

Other words to include are related keywords, sometimes called “LSI” keywords.

These are keywords that add even more context to your page.

A great way to find them is to look at the search results for your target keyword.

Look at things like…

“People also ask” sections.

“Related searches” sections.

Use as many of those as you can – but keep your copy natural without trying to stuff in keywords that sound unnatural and make the user experience worse. 

Use internal links (here’s why they’re important)

Next up: 

Internal linking.

You see, search engines need to easily access and understand your website. 

First, you need the right website architecture, meaning that your website pages have a logical structure.

The homepage is the “main” page with links to your menu bar, which links to pages like your About page, blog, and contact page.

Those pages, again, link to other pages. 

This type of website structure helps search engine crawlers access your website and figure out what it’s about much faster than if your structure isn’t as logical. 

As a general rule, every page should be three clicks away from the homepage. 

But you also need to include internal links in your blog posts. 

This is fairly easy: 

Include links to relevant blog posts you’ve written before.

And try to include at least two such internal links in your posts.

Next, let’s take a look at website performance. 

Speed up your website

As we talked about, search engines need to be able to access your website.

And a major factor in how well they’re able to do that (and rank your website) is your website performance. 

Plus, if your website doesn’t work well and pages take a long time to load, people will leave – and your pages won’t bring in much traffic.

What’s more, website performance is important for your conversions, too. 

For example, for every second a page is delayed on mobile devices, conversions fall by up to 20%. 

How do you know how well your website is performing, though? 

GTMetrix and Google Page Speed Insights help you quickly see how you can improve your website. 

If your score is good, you’re good to go.  

But if your score needs improvement, you typically need to bring in a developer to fix those issues. Upwork is a good place to look for WordPress developers. 

Next up:

Backlinks.

Use Connectively and Featured

Historically, backlinks, or links from other websites, have been incredibly important for SEO. 

So whenever another website links to your website, Google sees that as a vote of approval. Your website’s authority increases and it might eventually get higher search rankings and more traffic.

Especially relevant and authoritative websites provide good backlinks. For example, if you’re in the marketing space and a major website like Forbes linked to you, that would be a great backlink. 

Links from smaller websites are valuable, too. (Especially if they’re highly relevant.) 

However, Google says that backlinks aren’t a top-three ranking factor anymore.

But they most likely still play an important role – so you should start promoting your website right away to get backlinks to your site.

And the lowest-hanging fruit are sites like Connectively (previously known as HARO) and Featured.

These are services that connect journalists, writers, and bloggers with experts (like yourself). 

Journalists want to cite authoritative sources to write credible articles. 

But finding those sources isn’t always easy – and that’s why they use Connectively and other platforms.  

The way these services work is that you get a newsletter or skim the platform for new queries.

When you find one that fits your profile (AKA you can authoritatively speak on it), you pitch that query with a short answer.

Pitching doesn’t take more than 20 minutes per day and you can get some high-quality links, like I did here:

Get more email subscribers

Finally, we have a step that few SEO posts talk about.

You see, getting traffic is one thing but converting it is another.

For your course business, the best way to build your audience is to get people to sign up for your newsletter.

You can then build a relationship with them through your emails and direct them to a webinar or sales page. 

Use an opt-in form on your blog to collect emails.

However, few people will sign up unless there’s an incentive to do so. 

And that’s what you do with a lead magnet. 

This is a free offer people get when they sign up – and preferably, it’s a quick win for them.

Your lead magnet could be a PDF, a short video, or an audio file. 

A few examples include…

• A strategy sheet
• A checklist 
• Free resources like free stock photos

Once your blog readers sign up for your lead magnet, you can automatically add them to an email sequence that sells your course.

I talk more about it here: 

What’s next? 

There you have it! That’s how to use SEO for course creators. 

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While it does take time to build up your SEO, making that investment now is going to help you build a sustainable business.

Ultimately, search traffic has helped me build a true Freedom Business – one that offers me the most freedom and flexibility. 

But to build your SEO, you also need the right system. 

That’s what I’ll share in my free PDF on how to build a 4-step system that delivers clients to you…every day. Get it now!

Read more: 

The Ultimate Guide to SEO for Coaches

How Do You Increase Your Organic Traffic?

How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

The post How to Use SEO for Course Creators (Full Guide) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

You’re in the right place. SEO can be an incredibly profitable and scalable marketing strategy.

But how exactly can you use it to grow your business – and is it even worth it for you? 

Read on to learn more.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• Why is SEO important?
• How does SEO work?
• What are the top benefits of SEO?
• What are the most important elements of SEO?

What is SEO and why is it important?

So, what is SEO?

SEO – search engine optimization – means optimizing your website so it ranks on search engines like Google. 

And why is SEO important?

If you can raise your rankings on search engines, you can increase organic traffic and, that way, sales.

‘Organic traffic’ doesn’t refer to the actual ads you see in search results – but the organic results in results rankings.

That’s why marketers place SEO in their top three ways to promote a business.

And because SEO is organic and not paid, the traffic you get can be highly profitable. 

Take my website for example. After working on my SEO for two years, I made it into a multiple six-figure marketing channel. 

But here’s the thing about SEO. The importance of SEO changes depending on where you’re at. 

For example, SEO was very low on my priorities when I just started out. 

Why? Because SEO takes time. So when my business was new, I focused on faster marketing strategies to get those first-paying clients.

But if you’re ready to scale, SEO can have a huge ROI.

How do you get results, though? Let’s take a look. 

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How does SEO work?

To understand how SEO works, you need to understand how search engines work. 

Most search engine algorithms (such as Google’s) work by crawling websites to see which content will answer the user’s query.

And that’s where SEO comes in – it’s the process of optimizing your website with signals that the algorithm understands. 

How does SEO work, though?

With techniques like:

• Content optimization -– Creating really good content
• Link building – Getting mentioned on other, relevant, and high-quality websites
• Technical SEO – Improving the usability of your website, including things like how fast your pages load  

Over time, these signals show Google and other search engines that your website is trustworthy so your content will rank in your niche. 

We’ll talk about each of those techniques in detail later. 

For now, let’s talk about the benefits of SEO.

The top benefits of search engine optimization

So why is SEO important for your business? Here are the main benefits:

1. More website traffic

Google is one of the biggest websites on the internet, with millions of search queries happening every day. 

SEO helps your website climb the rankings on Google search results so more of your ideal customers see your website.

Higher rankings tend to correlate with higher clicks to a website. So some of these people will click through to your site and that’s how you get traffic. And if you drive the right traffic (people who are interested in buying from you), you increase sales.

Getting this traffic through other sources like ads can be a big investment and not as profitable as organic traffic from search engines. 

2. Higher quality leads 

SEO is about building organic (“free”) traffic to your website instead of paid traffic. 

That’s when you pay for traffic using social media or Google ads. 

Typically, paid ads have faster results than search engine optimization because it takes longer to build your SEO. Paid ads can deliver results much faster. 

But there’s a catch to paid traffic – the leads tend to be better with organic traffic. 

Why? If your customer clicks through to your website, they’re more likely to be interested in your work.

Contrast that to an ad that leads to a page that isn’t necessarily as good as the organically ranking page and doesn’t always meet the searcher’s needs. 

3. Trust and credibility 

Take a look at the top search results for a search query in your niche. 

The websites listed are likely trustworthy websites like major publications or credible brands. 

That’s because Google’s algorithm is designed to only show the most authoritative and helpful content from the best sources. 

So if your content ranks high in search rankings, it adds credibility to your business.

For example, a lot of people will say they’ve seen my website in tons of search results and that’s a reason they decided to buy from me – because it ranks for plenty of online business keywords. 

And, by creating helpful content, you build authority and trust with your audience. People will see your expertise and are more likely to buy from you.

4. A better ROI 

Organic traffic is a highly profitable traffic source for one reason:

You don’t pay for the actual traffic.

So once you’ve optimized your website for search engine results, you can continue to benefit from increased traffic and leads for years to come. 

Yes, a few pieces of content can keep driving traffic and bringing in consistent sales.

And, as you continue to publish good content, your rankings improve and your ROI tends to increase over time.

Compare that to paid ads. 

With paid ads, you have to keep spending money to see a return.

5. Improved user experience (UX) 

SEO isn’t just about writing blogs for your audience (although that does help).

Part of it is the technical side of your website. 

Google prefers to rank websites that are easy to navigate and fast to use for the user.

But this doesn’t just impact your rankings – your website’s user experience impacts sales, too. 

For example, did you know that for every extra second it takes for your website to load on mobile, your conversion rate can fall by up to 20%? 

Sounds like a lot but that’s the truth. If your website is too slow, visitors are less likely to stick around. Even if you have the best solution to their problem. 

So when you start focusing on SEO, you also improve the user experience for your visitors overall. Better UX means a more pleasant experience for your potential customers and more sales. 

6. Better PR 

One of the best ways to build SEO is to get backlinks. Backlinks are referral links from other relevant, high-quality websites in your niche. 

They show Google your content is so good others want to link to it. 

But backlinks aren’t just great for improving your search ranking. 

They also boost your profile in your industry. 

For example, my website has been featured on sites like Business Insider, Bloomberg, Forbes, and Money. 

Those backlinks are great for showing Google that I’m an expert in my field, but even better for marketing my business to the thousands of people who will read the articles on those websites and see my quotes. 

7. Market research 

A key part of SEO is keyword research (which we’ll talk about later). 

Keyword research is basically finding out what your audience is searching for to find businesses like yours.

What…

• Questions are they asking? 
• Problems are they trying to solve that you can help them with?
• Words do they use to describe your services and products? 
• Trends are there in your industry? 

You use keyword research to create a content strategy. But it also helps you understand your audience better, what products they’re looking for, and so on.

This information helps you improve your marketing strategy overall. 

8. Better marketing strategies 

SEO is a great marketing strategy by itself. But it can also work together with other marketing strategies to maximize your efforts. 

Take pay-per-click ads for example. 

You can retarget those people who have previously visited your website. 

Those people are more likely to buy from you because they’ve already visited your page and are somewhat familiar with your brand.

9. More flexibility 

Organic traffic can help you create a more sustainable and flexible business.

Contrast SEO with ads or social media. 

The thing about those strategies is that you have to put in so much work every day and week to keep them running. 

It’s a constant cycle. 

But with SEO, your efforts stack up.

I built my SEO to a multiple six-figure marketing channel by just posting one high-quality blog post per month. I also use social media, like YouTube – and there I have to post daily shorts every day to be competitive. 

Now, I LOVE creating content that helps people so YouTube Shorts are great. 

But SEO is one of the top sales drivers in my business. So even if I take a month off from social media, I still get traffic and make sales from my blog content.

10. Improved scalability 

SEO is highly scalable.

How?

Well, in every niche, you have a lot of keywords to tap into. 

Sure, some are more competitive than others, but you can target as many as you want and won’t spend and you won’t pay the more traffic you get. 

In fact, it works in the exact opposite way to ads. 

The cost decreases and profitability increases the more traffic you get.

But to make the most of SEO, you need a solid strategy. 

In the next section, we’ll talk about the important elements of SEO so you can design a strategy that works. 

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The most important elements of SEO

Want to build an effective SEO strategy? 

The most important elements of SEO are:

• Keyword research
• Keyword optimization
• Content quality
• Technical SEO
• Website structure
• Link building
• Local SEO

Let’s take a look at each in detail.

1. Keyword research

Keywords are search terms that your audience uses to find content in your niche.

You need to find the keywords your audience is looking for – and that’s what you do with keyword research. Now, as we’ve discussed, there are tons of relevant keywords in your niche. 

But you might be thinking, how do you know which keywords to choose? 

That’s where the competitiveness of a keyword comes in. 

Low-competition keywords are the ones you’re most likely to rank for if you have a newer business. These are search terms that have some traffic but fewer businesses are targeting them.

However, the keyword also needs to target your audience. 

For example, if you sell running shoes, “cheap running shoes” isn’t a great keyword unless that’s what you sell. It’s a low-competition keyword but only people who are looking for cheap shoes will be using this keyword.

So that’s the type of keyword you’re looking for. 

But how do you look for them? 

I recommend using a tool. There are paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush which will show you competition scores for each keyword, as well as related keywords. 

You can also use a free tool like Google Keyword Planner. 

By inserting a keyword like “running shoes,” you find relevant keywords to use. 

For more on keyword research, check out my video:

Now you have a shortlist of keywords, let’s optimize your content.

2. Keyword optimization

Keyword optimization is fairly simple. 

First, write blogs that target each keyword on your shortlist. One keyword for one piece of content.

Now, you should create content for humans, not search engines. 

Just like Google says in its own documentation: 

“People-first content means content that’s created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings.”

That means creating content that has an intended audience and actually helps your readers in some way; otherwise, the content won’t be very helpful and your traffic will suffer.

But let’s be honest. There’s a certain way of creating content that makes it easier for Google to understand. That way, your website is more likely to rank.

To optimize content for the target keyword, you need to mention the keyword in:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Headings
• Body of text

But there are more ways to use keywords to optimize your content. 

To take things to the next level, you can use a tool like SurferSEO.

SurferSEO analyzes your content and gives you suggestions on how you can optimize your content even more.

That said, no one tool will “save” your content. Think first of your reader and next, how to optimize your content. 

3. Content quality 

Now let’s look at the quality of your content. 

You need quality content to rank. 

But quality isn’t just the amount of information you include. 

High-quality content is also: 

• Well-written
• Engaging
• Clear
• Helpful
• Well-designed

For more, Google’s quality rater guidelines show you exactly what Google wants your content to look like.

4. Technical SEO 

SEO isn’t just about content. 

The technical aspects of your website are important too. A well-performing, secure website offers a far better user experience, which means Google serves its audience the best content. 

A few things that will make your website perform better: 

• Page loading speed: Slow websites create a poor user experience – and that’s why slow websites often don’t rank high on Google. For example, image size impacts how fast your website loads. 
• Mobile-friendliness: Test out your web design on mobile so you can see how user-friendly it is. Most templates on WordPress allow you to optimize the mobile version. 
• Security: Make sure you use a secure host with an SSL certificate. 
• Broken links: Again, if your website is full of links that don’t lead to their intended source, that’s a bad user experience. You can use Google Search Console to crawl your website for any broken links. Fix the links or delete them.
• Non-performing contact forms: If you have any contact forms on your website, check them regularly to make sure they work. Want to check if your website has any technical SEO issues? 

Try GTmetrix. It’s a free tool that will show you issues on your website and how to fix them.

5. Website structure

Now for your web design. How easy is it for visitors to find what they are looking for?

To improve your rankings, your website needs to be easy to navigate for users and search engines. 

My advice? Keep it simple. 

Use a clear structure. Start with your homepage and add a menu bar. Then from your menu bar, link to your different pages, such as your About or Blog page. And then, add another level with links to your blog posts or sub-pages. 

Typically, your users should be able to find content with no more than three clicks. 

So that’s internal linking. Let’s talk about external linking next.

6. Link building

By now, you know that having backlinks from high-authority websites in your industry shows Google that you’re a trustworthy source. 

But how do you get those backlinks? 

Two relatively simple strategies for beginners are to guest post on popular blogs or get interviewed on podcasts. 

Reach out to relevant publications in your niche and pitch some guest content you can make. 

You can also build backlinks by answering journalists’ questions on Connectively or Featured.

When you’re further along, SEO tools like Moz can help you see backlink opportunities too by analyzing your competitors.

7. Local SEO 

Local SEO means optimizing for search results specific to a local area.

Now, if you have an online business, this doesn’t really matter. 

But if you have a physical store or a local audience, working on your local SEO helps you tap into that audience.

How do you do it?

Start by creating a Google Business profile, which is similar to a digital storefront. 

Then, add local keywords to your SEO strategy. For example, if you’re a photographer in Los Angeles, target keywords like “LA portrait photographer.” This will help people in the local area find you.

You can also reach out to local businesses and publications to build backlinks within your area, such as local media outlets or other businesses.  

Next steps 

Why is SEO so important? Now you have the answer. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

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SEO can have a huge impact on businesses by creating a steady stream of organic traffic. Your business stops relying on you and instead, you build a more sustainable and profitable business that truly offers you freedom and flexibility.

That’s what I did and how I created a business I can spend a few hours a week working on. And in the process of doing so, I figured out the best way to use SEO to build your business. 

Want to learn how?

Get my 4-step system to get customers to find you – without having to publish on social media every day or rely on ads. 

Read more: 

Top Reasons Why You Should Invest in SEO

How to Hire an SEO Expert or Agency

What is SEO Consulting? (+ How Can It Help You)

The post Why is SEO Important? 10 Benefits in 2024 appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

Search traffic can be massively profitable and scalable. However, it does take time to build. And today, you’ll learn how long your SEO will take to work – and the best steps to speed it up. 

Want to learn more?

Read on. 

We’ll cover…

• How long does SEO take?
• Why does SEO take so long?
• How do you get SEO results faster?
• How do you know your SEO strategy is working?

How long does it take for SEO to work?

SEO takes around 4-12 months to work for most businesses.

However, exact estimates are difficult because SEO depends on a lot of factors. 

If you use low-competition keywords (AKA keywords that are relatively easy to rank for) and create high-quality content, you could see results faster.

For example, the SEO agency I co-own, Zalstrom, works with small businesses new to SEO and we typically see results within 3-6 months.

But, it depends on things like how new your business is, your budget, and your industry. That said, there are ways to improve how fast you see results. 

How? Let’s talk about the factors that can slow down or speed up your SEO progress.

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Why does SEO take so long?

Your SEO results come down to one thing: 

Does Google think that your website is the best one?

It takes time to show Google your website should rank high because it helps Google users find better and faster answers. 

However, there are steps you can take to get your website to rank faster. 

More specifically, here are the factors the Google algorithm takes into account when ranking your content: 

1. Your website authority 

First, your website authority affects your rankings. 

The authority of your website basically means how authoritative you are in your industry. 

Because Google only wants to rank trustworthy sources that have a proven track record of generating valuable content.  

Why?

Well, search results from high-authority websites mean better quality information and a better search experience for the reader. And that’s what helps Google retain its users.  

For example, Forbes, Healthline, and the New York Times are all high-authority websites. 

But you don’t have to be a major publication or brand to rank – you just need to focus on the right things.

Factors that build your authority are: 

• Domain age: An older domain tends to rank better because you have already built a bit of authority in your space. So newer domains may take longer to see SEO results. 
• Backlinks: Google looks at your backlink profile to see which websites refer to you. If other authoritative and relevant websites link back to your pages, it shows your website offers reliable and helpful information.
• Content: High-quality content on your website builds your authority. That means detailed, factual, and clear content (we’ll talk more about that in a later section).

Authority also changes depending on your industry. 

Take the medical industry. Medical websites have an even bigger focus on authority. After all, whenever you search for medical advice, you most probably want to find information from a doctor or researcher rather than someone who is reiterating information from other websites. 

In the same way, my readers can trust that my content is based on 10+ years of business experience. 

So, if you’re in a niche that requires more credibility, your content should be written by accredited experts (doctors, registered nutritionists, and so on) and have backlinks from reputable medical sources. 

Other similar industries (which Google calls “Your Money or Your Life”) are finance, health, and current events.

Another factor that affects your rankings? 

Competition. 

2. Your competition

Some industries are more competitive than others.

For example, business, health, and marketing are fairly competitive industries. In other words, you have a lot of high-authority websites ranking for keywords in these industries.

Whereas industries like interior design or photography are much less competitive.

And it’s far easier to rank in a less competitive industry because you don’t need as many links or as good content to rank. 

Let’s take a concrete example: 

I help people start online businesses that afford them more freedom and flexibility. The “easiest” businesses to start for beginners are businesses based on your skills, such as coaching or consulting businesses. 

So, I create content around starting coaching businesses. And that industry has relatively low competition. 

But my overall industry, online business, is highly competitive. So those articles are slightly harder to rank. 

That’s to say, how competitive your industry is affects how fast your website will rank. 

But your strategy matters, too. And that’s what we’ll talk about next.  

3. Your SEO strategy 

A good SEO strategy will help you rank much faster. 

A few things you need to take into consideration are: 

• The types of keywords you target
• Your backlink-building strategies
• The number of blog posts you publish per month
• How you optimize your posts
• How you write and format your content

…And more. 

Ultimately, the strategy you use determines how fast you build authority. For example, if you only target high-competition keywords, your website won’t rank for months or years because you have to first create a highly competitive website. 

But if you target lower competition keywords, you’re much more likely to rank faster. 

4. Your resources 

The more resources you have, the faster you’ll get results. 

Imagine: If you can scale your website right from the start by posting a lot of content and building a lot of links, you’ll grow your organic traffic faster than businesses that don’t.

But here’s the thing. You don’t need to create a huge amount of content to see a good ROI. 

For example, I started by posting just 1 to 2 blog posts per month and made and made a return on my investment within six months. 

Within two years, SEO became a multi-six-figure marketing channel. 

So even if you can only invest a little in your SEO, you can see great results. And as you build out your SEO, you can reinvest your profits into faster growth. 

But what results are you measuring? Let’s talk about that next.

5. Your metrics

Answer this: What are your goals for SEO?

In theory, you can make improvements on a blog post and see results the next day. 

But what are YOU measuring?

If you just want organic traffic, you’ll probably start seeing some within at least 3 months as long as you’re consistently executing a solid strategy. However, if you want sales, it might take 3 months for a website that has some web presence, or around 6 or more months for a new website. 

Again, it all depends on your strategy and how well your website converts.

Your product has to sell, too – traffic isn’t enough. 

However, if you’re curious to learn more, take a look at this short video where I share the exact steps that go into a successful SEO strategy:

Now you know the factors that impact your SEO. What can you do about your growth? 

Read on. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

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How do you get SEO results faster?

The Google algorithm can feel random, but it’s not. 

These four actionable tips will help you grow your blog faster. 

They are the same strategies we use at my growth agency Zalstrom – where we help our clients get faster results.  

Here’s what you need to know:

Target low-competition keywords 

Start by targeting low-competition keywords. 

These keywords are easier to rank for because bigger, more authoritative websites typically don’t try to rank for these keywords or don’t create content specifically for them.

Low-competition keywords are often niche keywords, like “running shoes for back pain” (versus “running shoes”).

So your content has a better chance of ranking because you create content that focuses on solving a specific problem. 

For example, I started by targeting keywords like “coaching business” and “marketing for coaches.” These are niche keywords that my audience searches for but that aren’t too competitive.

You can use a tool like Google Keyword Planner.

Google Keyword Planner was made for Google ads but it works for organic search too. 

Type in your keyword and see the average cost per click and the average monthly searches.

These two metrics will tell you how competitive the keyword is.

Or you can make this even simpler.

You can just google your keyword and look at what types of websites are ranking for that keyword. 

If big websites like the New York Times, Forbes, or Healthline are the only ones ranking for that keyword, it’ll be difficult to rank your content. 

Create high-quality content

High-quality content is incredibly important for SEO.

And “high-quality” doesn’t necessarily refer to blog posts with a lot of information. Instead, it’s about delivering as helpful content as possible. 

Basically, Google wants the reader to be satisfied they have the right answer from a reputable source when they read your content. 

But helpful content isn’t the only requirement for valuable content. Google also uses the EEAT framework to identify high-quality content.

EEAT stands for:

• Experience: Do you have first-hand experience with the content you’re topic you’re writing about? Including personal stories, customer case studies, and first-hand accounts helps add credibility to your article.
• Expertise: Do you have credentials or skills related to the topic? Show your expertise in your bio under your blog posts. You can also share your professional experiences to add your expert opinion.
• Authority: Are you or your website a go-to source for the topic? Authority takes time to build but by creating more and more high-quality content in your niche, your website can slowly become a trusted source in the space.
• Trust: Is your content trustworthy and factual? Use high-authority sources like scientific journals and studies to back up your claims in your articles. (Trust is the most important part.)

So, yoga content needs to be created by a yoga instructor or similar, while finance content needs to be created by someone with experience.  

Meaning that your content needs to fulfill both the helpful content system and EEAT to be seen as quality content.

Next, let’s talk about building backlinks to get SEO results faster. 

Build backlinks 

As we’ve talked about, backlinks are links from external websites to your web pages.

But backlinks are not as important as they once were.

As Gary Illyes, who works at Google, puts it: 

“I think they are important, but I think people overestimate the importance of links. I don’t agree it’s in the top three. It hasn’t been for some time.” That means any website has the potential to rank even without backlinks. 

And that’s a good thing. Building backlinks as a new website can take time.

BUT if you want faster and better results, it’s still worth getting high-quality links. 

Here are two great ways of building backlinks:

• Connectively / Featured: These websites connect journalists with industry experts. Just sign up as an expert on your niche and answer the questions that reach your inbox. If your answer gets featured, you will get a backlink in the final article.
• Podcast interviews: Reach out to podcasts within your niche and pitch yourself as an expert guest. When the podcast goes live, the host will link your website in the show notes.

These two strategies will get you started. 

Once you have more resources to invest in SEO, you can move on to more scalable strategies, like creating content that attracts links organically.

You can also pitch publications. For example, thanks to pitching, I guest wrote for Business Insider: 

Use SEO tools 

Do you need SEO tools to grow your SEO?

No, but they really help!

SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush help you identify things you can improve with your website. 

For example: 

• Find low-competition keywords in your industry
• See your backlinks and identify backlink opportunities
• Get ideas for keywords from your competitors
• See content gaps in your niche
• Track your SEO progress in one place
• Identify technical SEO issues and learn how to fix them

If you don’t have the resources for a pro SEO tool yet, don’t worry. 

You can also use free tools like GTmetrix, Google Search Console, Google Analytic, and Google Keyword Planner to get you started.

You can also get free content ideas from Answer The Public. This is a platform that shows the top searches within your niche.

Using these tools will make creating and measuring your SEO strategy so much easier.

How do you know if your SEO strategy is working?

The first sign that your SEO strategy is working is obvious: Traffic. 

You’ll start to see a trickle of traffic to your website within the first 1-2 months. Then, from months 3-4, things start to take off. Your traffic will grow and grow. 

By the time you get to month 6, you’ll see your analytics steadily increasing. 

That is, if you build SEO consistently and keep optimizing your content. 

That means figuring out the content that brings you the most traffic and improving your strategy as you go. 

Next steps

So how long does SEO take? The short answer is 4-12 months. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

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But with the right strategy, you can see results within 3-6 months. 

Want to learn an effective SEO strategy that helps you scale your business? 

I used a 4-step method that made SEO a multi-six-figure traffic source in under two years. And that’s with just one profitable blog post per month.

Sign up for my free masterclass to learn how to do it too.

Read more:

Top Reasons Why You Should Invest in SEO

What is SEO Consulting?

How to Hire an SEO Expert

The post How Long Does SEO Take to Work? (And How to Grow) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

Here, you’ll learn what…

• SEO consulting is 
• How to find the best consultants
• How much consultants cost and how to work with them

…And much more.

Want to learn more? Read on!

Quick overview: 

• Expect to pay $5,000-$10,000+ per month for a strong ROI 
• Be prepared to wait 3-12 months for results (depending on your business and budget) 
• Hire an SEO consultant when you have at least a few clients or when you’re ready to scale

What are SEO consultants?

First, let’s define what SEO consulting is.

An SEO consultant is a digital marketing specialist who uses search engine optimization to improve search rankings and increase organic traffic from search engines. 

And having an SEO strategy in place is important. The average internet user makes three to four searches per day on search engines. At the same time, over 50% of consumers say they find new brands using search engines and around half say they research purchases before buying online. 

Ultimately, improving your SEO will lead to…

• Lower marketing costs (you don’t have to invest in paid advertising)
• More leads
• More sales
• Increased brand awareness
• Higher business valuation 

But how do SEOs achieve all of this? 

That’s what we’ll look at next. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

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What does an SEO consultant do?

The most common techniques SEOs use to improve search traffic include: 

• SEO audits: Auditing is the first step to understanding exactly what needs to be done to grow your search traffic. SEO consultants use a variety of on-page, off-page, technical SEO, and link audits to determine your site’s health and create a plan for your SEO going forward. Typically, the consultant will use a range of tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and paid tools like SEMRush to get accurate data. 
• Competitor analysis: Competitor analysis is not the same as copying your competitor’s SEO strategy. Instead, analyzing your competitors is about figuring out what’s working for them and what content gaps there are so that you can use those insights in your business.
• Keyword research: Keywords are search terms that your audience uses to find businesses like yours. They could be commercial keywords like “running shoes” or educational keywords like “how to run a marathon.” An SEO consultant identifies keywords that are relevant to your business and builds them into your content strategy.
• SEO content strategy: An SEO creates a content strategy, from ideation to execution. They also analyze existing content to see if it needs to be updated to improve rankings. 
• On-page optimization: SEO consultants work on optimizing your website so that it gets found by search engines. This includes copywriting, keyword optimization, and more. 
• Site performance optimization: Another task is to improve the usability of your website, including the UX, speed performance, and technical issues. These metrics improve your traffic, but can also improve conversions as your website becomes easier and faster to use. 
• SEO reporting: SEO consultants monitor and report on your SEO performance over time. This is an important step to identifying what’s working and troubleshooting what’s not working.
• Troubleshooting: Traffic plateaus happen and SEOs will work through them to help you grow your traffic.  

SEO work typically follows this roadmap:  

• Audit 
• Strategy and suggestions
• Implementation
• Monitoring results
• Readjusting strategy 

But what type of SEO consultant should you work with? 

That’s what we’ll look at next. 

What are the different types of SEO consulting services?

So now you know what is SEO consulting, let’s dive deeper into the different types of SEO consulting services.

First, you can work with SEO experts in different capacities. 

These are: 

• Freelancer: An SEO freelancer helps you typically on an hourly or package basis. 
• Consultant: An SEO consultant offers advice; often on a one-off basis. 
• Agency: Because they have their own teams, SEO agencies tend to offer done-for-you packages that include a lot more than what a single freelancer or consultant can take on. 

The option that’s right for you depends on things like your budget and needs. For example, if you have a sizable in-house SEO team, a consultant might be the right fit for you. 

Or, if your budget is limited and you’re not looking to scale, freelancers can be the best option. 

Agencies tend to work with businesses that have or don’t have an in-house team. They work with different clients and often have scalable solutions. So if you want faster results, agencies can be a better option than individual freelancers or consultants. 

Ongoing SEO services

Most commonly, clients work with SEO specialists on a monthly basis. 

If you’re looking to incorporate SEO into your broader marketing strategy and don’t have a dedicated SEO team, this is the best option for scaling. 

Potential long-term SEO services include: 

• Day-to-day SEO management
• Regular SEO reporting and monitoring
• Regular website audits
• Consistent keyword research and optimization
• Troubleshooting 
• Conversion optimization 
• Creation and implementation of a backlink or PR strategy 

Fixed-term SEO consulting projects 

Fixed-term SEO consulting is campaign or goal-based. 

You set time parameters (3-6 months of ongoing SEO management) or a specific goal (raising the traffic by 25% with no set time limit). However, few SEOs work in this way.

Specialized SEO consulting services

Finally, you might also choose to work with an SEO specialist who offers specialized SEO consulting services for your business model. 

Here are some examples:

• Ecommerce SEO consulting: Ecommerce websites have slightly different on-page and off-page SEO needs. For example, optimizing product descriptions for SEO is a specific task. 
• Enterprise SEO consulting: Enterprise-level businesses don’t typically need a lot of traffic, but the right traffic. 
• Local SEO consulting: If you have a physical store or you deliver your services in one area, local SEO consulting will help you target customers in your area. 
• Sales-funnel SEO consulting: This service is specifically designed to generate leads for your sales funnel. 

Now you know what SEO services look like. 

But is now the right time to invest in SEO? Let’s find out.

How much does an SEO consultant cost? 

What do SEO consultants cost? Prices range from: 

$500-$1,500 per month: A low-priced consultant charges anywhere between a few hundred to low four figures. Don’t expect too much for this price – mainly monitoring and a bit of content. 

$2,000-$5,000 per month: This price point can help you get started with SEO. However, you won’t get scalable results. You’ll get monitoring, some content, link building, and technical support at this price point. 

$5,000-$9,000 per month: This price range is enough for you to start seeing better results. You’ll likely be able to add on six to multiple six figures in sales. 

$10,000+ per month: When you invest five figures or higher, you can expect significant results. This price point will help SEOs scale your content production and link building. 

So, now you know what an SEO costs. But when should you think about hiring one? Let’s take a look. 

When should you hire an SEO consultant? 

When is the right time to hire an SEO consultant? The top reasons are: 

1. You want to get started with SEO 

If you haven’t done any SEO work but want to get started, hiring an SEO consultant can help you get it right from the start. 

Ultimately, SEO can help you diversify your traffic sources and create a more sustainable business. After all, SEO isn’t like social media where your results depend on how much content you churn out every day or ads that require that you pay for your traffic. 

SEO is also a more profitable marketing strategy than many other strategies. And it can help you sell your business at some point as SEO tends to improve business valuations. 

2. You want to scale your business

Another reason to hire an SEO is to scale your business. Ultimately, SEO is one of the most scalable and profitable traffic sources. 

However, to truly scale, you’re looking at a five-figure monthly investment. A four-figure monthly investment can help you get started, but to scale, your SEO consultant needs to publish a good amount of content every month (at least 10 articles a month). 

3. Your website traffic has stalled 

The next reason for hiring an SEO? 

If you’ve been doing SEO but your traffic has stalled and you don’t know or don’t have time to fix it. 

You see, SEO consultants can help you get results much faster than if you do it on your own, especially if they work with different clients and are constantly learning new strategies. 

4. You’re redesigning or significantly changing your website 

Redesigns, migrations, and changing your domain can impact your SEO. If you don’t have the right support now, getting an SEO consultant to help you through your website update can save you traffic and ensure growth afterwards.

Of course, if you’re a relatively new business owner, you don’t necessarily have the budget to do either of these. In that case, start doing your own SEO. 

I talk more about it in this short video: 

How do you choose an SEO consultant? 

Now, let’s take a look at how you can find the right SEO consultant. You see, there are a few things to look for when hiring an SEO. These are: 

Strategy 

What type of strategy does your SEO consultant promote? 

Have they used that strategy before to get results? 

The strategy should also be tailored to where your business is and your goals.

If you’re just getting started, SEO work starts with building your authority – in other words, publishing a bit of content and starting to build your brand. 

But if you want to scale, you most likely need a scalable content and PR strategy. 

Another question is: 

Do they implement the strategy, too? 

If they just offer consulting, you need people on your team with expertise to implement their strategy. 

Finally, the one thing to look out for are “black hat” strategies. These are spammy strategies that are prohibited in most search engine user guidelines. For example, buying links or using spammy keyword tactics. 

These strategies can sometimes help you get fast results – but your website might get banned and lose all its traffic. Overall, “white hat” strategies (strategies that are allowed by search engines) are a much better option for long-term growth. 

You can read more about Google’s spam policies here. 

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Expectations and goals 

What types of metrics do SEO consultants focus on? 

Traffic and rankings are important – but they can become “vanity metrics” if SEOs focus too much on them. 

Ultimately, you probably want to increase sales so a solid SEO strategy focuses on leads and sales. (Or whatever your end goal is.) 

And to get more sales, SEOs need to build targeted traffic that brings in clients. 

Also, you want to ensure you’re aligned with your expectations. What expectations and goals do they set? 

No SEO consultant can promise a specific number of website visitors within a set time period, but you’ll want high-level metrics based on their experience. 

Which brings us to…

Experience 

Does the SEO specialist have experience with your type of business? If not and they haven’t worked with businesses that are of a similar size or with the same type of business model, they are going to have a learning curve. 

You can check their experience by asking for testimonials and results.  

Reporting 

How does the SEO consultant track results every month? And what types of metrics do they track? 

How closely will they work with you to solve issues, like growth plateaus or sales slowdowns? 

Budget 

What is your budget? 

Most freelancers and consultants charge at least $1,000-$5,000 per month. 

And most agencies typically charge at least $5,000 per month. And if you want to scale, then the minimum investment tends to be closer to $10,000. 

If your budget is closer to $1,000 per month, you won’t get a lot of results, and you’re better off doing SEO on your own. 

For example, my self-study course Clients Come to Me teaches business owners how to do SEO on their own – including how to hire the right people to do the work for them. Learn more about it here. 

How do you hire SEO consultants for your business? 

To hire the best SEO consultant for your business, you need to:

• Clarify goals and expectations
• Decide on a budget 
• Start your search
• Connect with the consultant
• Request a proposal 

Let’s dive into each step in detail.

Clarify goals and expectations

Before you start looking for the right SEO consultant for your business, you need to understand your own goals. 

Think about:

• What is the primary outcome you expect from investing in SEO?
• What do you want to achieve? 
• What role does SEO play in your broader marketing strategy?
• For how long are you willing to invest in SEO consulting? 

A good SEO consultant will help refine your goals. For example, if you want to increase your traffic by 20%, they can help identify a realistic timeframe for achieving that goal.

Decide on a budget 

After figuring out your goals, you need to set a realistic budget. 

SEO consulting services can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000+ per month depending on the size of your business and the services you require. 

For example, if you just want regular SEO auditing but you’ll handle content creation in-house, this will probably cost less than a full SEO content strategy and implementation service.

To start, figure out:

• What’s your budget? 
• How much time are you willing to invest? 

As a ballpark, choose a $5,000 service for new businesses and $10,000 if you’re looking to scale. However, note that most SEO investments take at least six months before you see an ROI on your investment. 

Start your search

Where should you look for SEO consultants? 

There are a few strategies you can use: 

• Online search: Find consultants using search – good SEO consultants know how to make their websites findable in search results. 
• Your network: Ask around in your network to see if someone’s worked with an SEO they can recommend. 
• LinkedIn and other social media: Look for people on your social media feeds. 
• Podcasts: Listen to podcasts and see if you can find the right person that way. 
• Upwork and Indeed: Search for consultants on platforms like Upwork or post a job ad on Indeed. 

Connect with consultants

Next, contact potential partners and figure out how they work with their clients. 

Most importantly, communicate your expectations and ask them what goals they can realistically set for you and what strategies they’ll use. 

If you want to scale, look for a consultant who can implement high-volume content production and PR. But if you just want to get started, then look for someone who can build your authority fast with a few blog posts per month and a bit of PR. 

Request a proposal 

After discussing your goals, timeframes, budget, and expectations, request a proposal from your shortlisted SEO consultants. And once you’ve selected the consultant you’ll work with, you’re good to go. 

Is SEO consulting worth it? 

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of businesses make is to have upfront expectations that don’t match with how SEO works. 

SEO takes time to build up – this is not a strategy similar to paid advertising that you can turn on and off. Instead, building up SEO can take months depending on your strategy, budget, and how new your website is. 

For example, the marketing agency I co-own, Zalstrom, has helped clients get a 4-5X ROI in a few months thanks to having a robust website in place. At the same time, other businesses wait six months or more to get an ROI because their website is brand new. 

If you just want to dip your toes and don’t have strict expectations on ROI, then a budget of $1,000-$1,500 per month can work. In that case, you’d work with a newer freelancer who does a lot of the work themselves. 

But if you want more robust results, you’re looking at an investment of at least $4,000 per month. 

And if you’re looking to scale, expect to invest $10,000 and more per month. 

The best SEO consulting services 

Finally, what are the best SEO consulting services? Here are three of the best options: 

Zalstrom

Full disclosure: I co-own Zalstrom. However, I invested in the agency after I myself had been looking for an SEO consultant. And after just two years, SEO was already bringing in multiple six figures to my business. Our results continue to stack up: 

We work with service-based businesses like coaches and consultants, as well as course creators and software businesses. Our goal is to help you get to 4x ROI and then grow from there. 

Our plans start from $4,000 per month. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

GET THE PDF NOW

WebFX 

(Disclosure: I haven’t worked with this agency and my recommendations are based on online reviews and information.) 

WebFX offers ecommerce SEO, as well as other digital marketing services. WebFX’s services start from $2,500 per month. 

NP Digital 

(Disclosure: I haven’t worked with this agency and my recommendations are based on online reviews and information.) 

NP Digital was founded by Neil Patel, who has been in the SEO industry for years. This agency works mainly with bigger enterprise clients. Pricing on request. 

Next steps 

There you have it! 

Now you know what SEO consulting services are – and how to find the right consultant.

SEO can be an incredibly profitable and scalable strategy…but to get the best results, you need the best support.

If you want to hire an agency, we can help – take a look at Zalstrom’s services here. 

And if you want to do SEO on your own, learn more about how to attract clients to you…every day. 

Read more:

Top Reasons Why You Should Invest in SEO

How to Increase Organic Traffic

What is Organic Traffic? (And How to Grow It)

The post What is SEO Consulting? (+should you hire one?) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• When to hire an SEO expert
• How an SEO expert can help you 
• The best questions to ask before hiring an SEO agency or expert
• How to hire an SEO
• How much it costs to hire an SEO

…And much more. 

Read on to learn more.

Quick takeaways: 

• Hire SEO support when you want to build SEO as a traffic channel and have the budget to do so 
• SEO services cost anywhere between $1,000-$10,000+/month
• Results will come after 3-12 months depending on your business and budget 

What can an SEO expert help you with? 

An SEO expert takes care of your SEO marketing for you by creating an SEO strategy that improves your search engine rankings, drives traffic, and helps you get more clients.

And SEO is worth investing in. 60% of marketers say that SEO is their best marketing channel for high-quality leads.

I should know…A few years back, my business relied on paid advertising. 

The problem? Ad costs kept going up, my profit margins were inconsistent, and I had to constantly come up with new ad creatives (despite working with an ads manager). 

At the same time, the reason I started my business was to have as much freedom and flexibility as possible. 

So I knew I wanted to find a more sustainable way to scale my business – and that was SEO. 

And within two years of investing in SEO, search traffic had grown to a multiple six-figure channel. Today, it’s the biggest growth driver for my business and by far the most scalable one. 

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Should you hire an SEO expert? 

When I rolled out my SEO strategy, it was just the right timing. I had a scalable system and the money to invest in a new channel. 

So, if you’re thinking of hiring an SEO agency or expert, ask yourself where you are in your journey.

You’re ready to hire an SEO expert when…

• You want to scale: SEO is one of the most scalable and profitable traffic sources because it’s about growing your organic traffic. That is traffic you don’t need to pay for (as you do with paid advertising).
• You have a marketing budget: Good SEO takes work. All of the audits, content creation, link building, technical SEO, and so on, take resources and manpower. If you’re ready to invest in SEO, an expert or agency is a great first call.
• You have alternative sales channels: SEO takes time to work. For new businesses, it can take four months to one year to see results. So if you’re just starting out, focus on building faster marketing channels to sustain your business before investing in SEO.

Other reasons why you might need an SEO agency or expert include that you… 

• Have tried SEO and your rankings aren’t growing
• Don’t have SEO knowledge
• Want faster growth than DYI-ing your SEO strategy
• Don’t have a team to implement SEO work
• Don’t have time to keep up with algorithm changes and other SEO updates 

But what does an SEO agency do for you? 

SEO agencies can help you with: 

• Website audits
• Keyword research
• Competitor analysis
• SEO monitoring
• SEO strategy and strategy implementation
• Content creation
• Link building
• On-page optimization
• Technical SEO work
• SEO consulting

If you’re wondering what even goes into building a site’s SEO, take a look at this short video:

However, you don’t hire an SEO to help you implement things – you hire them to get results.

And that’s what we’ll talk about next. 

Benefits of hiring an SEO expert 

The benefits of hiring an SEO expert are:

• Growing your business
• Being supported by specialized consultants 
• Getting a higher ROI 
• Saving time and resources 

Let’s talk about each of these.

You invest in your business growth

When done right, SEO is scalable and highly profitable. 

For example, if you have a 4% lead conversion rate and you get 5,000 more sessions every month than you do currently, that’s 200 more leads a month. 

What’s more, businesses with organic traffic sources tend to be valued higher than businesses without them. 

So investing in SEO doesn’t just increase sales; you also improve how your business is valued. 

You tap into broader expertise 

SEO experts and agencies work with a lot of clients, so they can experiment with the best SEO strategies over multiple different websites and sectors. 

Contrast this with an in-house SEO manager. 

Your SEO manager can only work on one business (yours) so they won’t have the same leverage as an agency. 

SEO agencies can be more cost-effective than an in-house team 

An SEO agency will likely cost more per year than an in-house SEO manager.

The average SEO manager earns $69,740 per year. 

SEO agencies can charge anywhere from low five figures to six figures and beyond. 

However, SEO agencies can have a far better return on investment. 

That’s because SEO agencies have a full team of expert SEO specialists and writers, so they can typically get far more done in less time. 

You save time and resources

More than anything, hiring an SEO agency saves you time. 

Instead of trying to figure out the latest Google algorithm and how technical SEO works, you get to focus on the things you do best. 

Next up: What to ask when you’re ready to hire an SEO agency.

7 questions to ask before hiring an SEO agency 

Ready to hire an SEO expert or agency? These are the questions you should ask to see if they are right for you.

Why are you different from other SEO agencies? 

Every SEO agency will have a different way of working, so you need to find out if their approach works for you. 

How do they help you get the fastest results in the best way?

How do they work with you as a client? 

Do they have a unique insight into your industry?

Those are some of the questions to understand if they’ll be a good fit.

What metrics do you track?

SEO is all about rankings and getting more traffic, right?

No – the real metric an agency should be measuring is sales.

Yes, increased traffic is important to track. But at the end of the day, you’re increasing your traffic to make more sales. 

If your SEO strategy is successful, you should be seeing more leads and sales. That’s what makes the most difference.

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What would you do if my traffic stalls or if I have a lower sales month?

SEO can plateau from time to time, leading to lower sales months or slower growth. 

A good SEO expert or agency will work through the plateaus, testing out different strategies to see what works best for your business.

And that’s the type of answer to look for – an agency that understands plateaus are normal but also knows how to troubleshoot them. 

Can you tell me what results you’ve gotten for other businesses like mine?

Experience is incredibly important for SEO agencies. 

They don’t have to have experience with your industry specifically to be effective. 

But you want an agency that has worked with the same type of business as yours. For example, ecommerce SEO is different from SEO for a service business. 

How long will it take to see results while working with you?

It typically takes 4-12 months for SEO to work. 

If an SEO agency overpromises and says they can help your website rank within one or two months, beware.

SEO takes time. 

Ultra-fast SEO results usually come from “black hat” strategies. These are shady strategies that are not approved by search engines (like spam links or backlink rings). And they most likely will hurt your SEO in the long run.

What types of SEO strategies do you use?

The best SEO strategies aren’t just about traffic. 

A good agency should take a more holistic approach, including: 

• Increasing your conversions from content
• Creating content that builds your brand
• Building high-quality backlinks with reputable websites
• Technical SEO work (but not just relying on that)

How much do your services cost?

You’re looking for SEO services that are within your budget. 

At the same time, an SEO agency shouldn’t be too cheap. If the cost is low, you probably won’t get the results you’re looking for. We’ll look more at the average costs below. 

How do you hire an SEO agency?

Once you have a shortlist of SEO agencies, here’s how you start working with them:

Set realistic goals and a budget 

Most business owners misunderstand SEO. 

No wonder – there’s a lot of conflicting advice online. 

But when you start working with an SEO agency, you need to stay realistic with what’s possible. And your agency should help you identify reasonable goals.

It takes approximately 3-6 months to get results depending on your budget. 

So you need to set your budget to match your goals. 

For example, $500 a month won’t get you anywhere. Good SEO work costs five to six figures per month. 

However, an SEO agency that delivers results will help you get a good return on your investment.

But how much should you expect in return?

A good ROI on an SEO agency is 4X your investment.

That’s the number the growth agency I co-founded, Zalstrom, focuses on. We do need a few months to grow your traffic (how many depend on your industry, business, and so on) but our goal is to get to that 4X mark as soon as possible. 

Look for the right agency 

So how do you find an SEO agency that will get you a good ROI? 

First, search on Google. 

Not only should good SEO agencies be able to make their websites rank, but they’ll also be creating informative content on SEO for businesses like yours. 

It helps if you narrow down your search. For example, instead of searching for “SEO agencies”, try “SEO agency for xx” – “SEO agency for coaches,” “SEO agency for ecommerce businesses,” and so on. 

That way, you get more targeted results. 

You can also reach out to your network for referrals. 

Lastly, look at the reviews for the agency. There might be Google reviews or you can ask the agency for references. What are the results they’ve achieved for other businesses?

Now it’s time to have a consultation.

Hop on a call 

Your relationship with an SEO agency is for the long haul. 

A consultation call helps you understand if they are the right fit for you and your business.

My advice? Come with questions prepared. 

You can use the questions we talked about in the previous section to see if their SEO strategy aligns with your goals. 

But also ask them about how they work. 

For example, do they do check-in calls, or is all communication over email?

How do they report on your SEO progress and how often?

Will you work with writers directly or will you have an account manager that takes care of everything for you?

Work together with them 

Your SEO agency is your partner. 

Like any good partnership, you need to be able to communicate regularly and work toward a measurable goal.

Work with them to improve your business by understanding how you can use your traffic to improve sales. 

Spend time reading their progress reports thoroughly and asking questions. 

And listen to the agency’s suggestions to improve conversions and reach. 

Ultimately, the more open you are to the process, the better your SEO results will be.

How much does it cost to hire an SEO expert or agency? 

SEO expert and agency pricing can range from $500-$10,000+/month. 

That sounds like a huge range but let’s break it down:

$500-$1,500 per month: You probably won’t get a lot for this. You’ll mostly get monitoring and maybe a bit of content. But don’t expect significant results.

$2,000-$5,000 per month: You’ll get better results at this price point but this budget is still too low to get any scalable results. These SEO agencies might help you add on five or six figures per year and will focus on content, monitoring, and maybe some technical SEO. 

$5,000-$9,000 per month: At this price point, you’ll get good results. These SEO agencies might help you add on six or multiple six figures per year. You will most likely get faster results than $2,000-$5,000 agencies because they have a bigger budget to work with. 

$10,000+ per month: For businesses that want to scale – these SEO agencies have strong results. They’ll help you add on seven to eight figures through SEO.

So that’s what you get depending on how much you spend. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

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What’s next?

So that’s everything you need to know about hiring an SEO expert or agency. 

Hiring one can make a huge difference for your business – like it did to me. But you need to have the right expectations and budget to successfully use SEO to help your clients find you.

Want to hire an agency that does everything for you? The marketing agency I co-own, Zalstrom, helps you do just that. 

And if you want to get started on your own, join my free masterclass where I share how you can attract clients to your business…every day. 

Join here!

Read more:

Top Reasons Why You Should Invest in SEO

How to Increase Organic Traffic

What is Organic Traffic?

The post When to Hire an SEO Expert (7 Top Questions to Ask) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

Pinterest is still a relatively untapped traffic source that can bring in website visitors in all types of niches. But how do you build traffic with Pinterest? 

That’s what you’ll learn today. Read on!

Here’s how to get traffic from Pinterest:

• Sign up for a Pinterest Business account
• Create Pinterest boards
• Use keywords in your pin descriptions
• Create pins that stand out
• Pin consistently
• Automate with Pinterest tools
• Use Rich Pins

How to get traffic from Pinterest in 6 steps

In 2022, Pinterest’s global users grew by 5%. Almost 500 million people use Pinterest every month.

So, optimizing your Pinterest traffic can grow your business and brand awareness. 

Now, there are two types of Pinterest traffic: Paid ads and organic traffic. 

Both can be effective, but I’m going to talk about organic traffic today. 

Organic traffic means that you get “free” traffic from Pinterest when people search for things in the search feed or discover content in the discovery feed. Of course, this requires you to create content that gets noticed on Pinterest. 

And there are a few ways you can do this – by using your blog content or content on other platforms, like YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. 

But how do you create noteworthy content? 

In short, you create eye-catching pins (images) and save them to relevant boards with a link to the page you want to drive traffic to.

For example, say you want to drive traffic to a blog post. You can pin an image with a headline that makes people interested in clicking through and reading the post. Other best practices include: 

• Pin 1-3 pins every day
• Create stand-out pins
• Create 3 pins per blog post
• Pin each pin to a board once
• Use a scheduler like Tailwind to automate your pinning

But what are the specific steps to growing your Pinterest traffic? That’s what we’ll look at next. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

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1. Sign up for a Pinterest Business account

To make the most of Pinterest, you need a Pinterest business profile.

Pinterest Business allows you to run ads and see analytics on your account. So, even if you’re not running ads, the analytics will help you learn a lot about your audience. 

To set up your business account, use this link.

First, enter your email address, new password, and date of birth.

Next, click “create account.”

Then put in your profile name (this can be a business or brand name) and link your website.

Next, you’ll be prompted to describe your business.

That includes what type of business you have, your industry, and your goals on Pinterest. 

Click “next” and your account is set up!

But here’s the most important next step: 

Your description.

By default, this part of your profile will be blank. So you need to click the arrow in the corner and go to “setting” to fill in your “About Me” section. 

Write a brief description of who you are and what you do. 

And don’t forget to add the most relevant keyword that you want to rank for. For example, mine has “online coaching business” in it. 

To complete your profile, upload a logo or headshot to personalize your brand profile. 

Now there’s one last important thing to do before you start pinning:

Claim your website. 

Claiming your website helps Pinterest track pins coming from your domain. 

You can follow these instructions to do that.

And that’s it! Your Pinterest profile is ready for business. 

Let’s start creating boards. 

2. Create Pinterest boards

What are Pinterest boards?

Boards are where you save your pins. The idea is to create a virtual moodboard around a certain topic. 

For example, if you’re an interior designer, you could create a board on the “mid-century modern” aesthetic. 

Within that board, you can create sub-boards. Like “kitchen”, “living room”, and so on.

Or you can flip it around and create a board on “Kitchen designs” or “Living room decor.”

So brainstorm some relevant boards for the topics you usually talk about in your business. 

Here’s my account. As you can see, I have boards on starting a coaching business, marketing, and other topics I talk about. Those are the topics I talk about in my business. 

You’ll notice that all of my boards have short titles. These are keywords that I want to rank for with my account.

Now let’s talk about how to find relevant keywords in your niche. (We’ll talk about keywords in the next tip.)

So how many boards should you start with? I say around 10. This is enough to get your Pinterest strategy going without being too overwhelming. 

Next up: Keywords.

3. Use keywords

Some say Pinterest is a social media platform. Others say it’s a search engine. 

The truth is, it’s kind of both. 

Pinterest calls itself a “visual discovery engine.”

What that means for you is if you use the right keywords, you can get your blogs, products, or services discovered on the platform. 

So how do you find the right keywords?

If you’re familiar with SEO for search engines like Google, you probably already know a little about keyword research. 

Luckily, on Pinterest, it’s way easier. 

There are three main methods. 

The first is the simplest: The search bar. 

All you need to do is type in a word or phrase related to your business. 

So for my business, I could type in “business coach.” 

Then Pinterest will automatically generate suggestions based on what people are searching for.

Another way to find keywords is to browse the explore page. 

The explore page shows you the popular pins in your industry and you can find new keywords from the pin titles.

Finally, you can use Pinterest’s ad tools to find keywords.

Go to “create ad” and put in the main keyword for your business. Pinterest will automatically generate a ton of other keyword suggestions.

Once you have a shortlist of keywords, use them in:

• Board titles
• Profile description
• Pin descriptions

This all helps Pinterest understand who you are and what you do! 

4. Create pins

Most pins you create on Pinterest will live on Pinterest for a long time because of how the platform works. 

You pin once and it can circulate for years. 

However, to do so, it needs to be high up on people’s feeds. 

So if you want to get traffic from Pinterest, your pins have to stand out.

This is like the thumbnail of your content. It’s the first thing people see as they are scrolling through their feeds. 

How do you create pins, though? 

I recommend creating them on Canva, which has plenty of beautiful templates for pins. 

For blog posts, use pins with a bold headline and an eye-catching background like this.

Or, use an image that stands out and a headline that grabs the viewer’s attention. 

Some of the best-performing headlines on Pinterest start with…

“How to…”

“X ways to…”

“Best ways to…”

These all have a strong promise to the viewer that entices them to click. 

Just don’t forget to use your target keyword in the headline. 

For instance, if your target keyword is “best kitchen sinks,” your headline might say “12 Best Kitchen Sinks for Your Kitchen.” 

You can upload these pins directly to the platform and link your content.

5. Pin consistently

If you really want to know how to get traffic from Pinterest, this is the key:

Pin consistently.

Now what do I mean by consistently? 

For me, that means pinning at least a few (1-3) times a day. 

Pin some of your own pins to your boards from your blog posts. You can also create pins from your Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok posts, especially if you don’t have enough blog content to pin.

Does that mean you need to create new pins all of the time? 

No. Start by creating three different pin variations for every blog post. 

You can vary the design, headline, description, or all three. 

Then post those pins on Pinterest once each to one board each.

You can also post other people’s pins to help build authority (more on that later).

Now that might sound like a lot of work, but luckily there are tools that can help you. 

Let’s talk about Tailwind.

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

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6. Automate with Tailwind

Tailwind is the holy grail of Pinterest tools. 

It’s a scheduler that automatically pins your pins to your boards. 

You can also schedule pins from other websites and Pinterest users to be added to your board whenever you want. 

This makes staying active on Pinterest so much easier. 

To automate your Pinterest marketing as much as possible, use Tailwind once a month to schedule the pins for that month. 

Making this a monthly practice will save you so much time.

7. Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins are pins that automatically sync information from your website. 

So they have a little extra information than the average pin. 

Why does this matter?

Well, Rich Pins really stand out on Pinterest. 

For example, Rich Pins from a blog post will show the blog’s title, meta description, and author.

And even if you update your blog post, this pin information on Pinterest will automatically be updated too.

To get started with Rich Pins, you’ll need to add rich meta tags to the blog posts you want to pin from. 

The easiest way to do this (if you have a WordPress website) is to add a plugin. 

Once it’s activated, your website should be good to go!

You can check out Pinterest’s guide on Rich Pins here.

So that’s how to get traffic from Pinterest.

But why is Pinterest such a great traffic source for your blog or business? 

That’s what we’ll look at next. 

What are the benefits of Pinterest? 

Here are a few reasons why Pinterest is worth it:

• It’s completely free to build organic traffic on Pinterest. It takes time and effort to create pins and pin them consistently. But once you’ve built up your authority on Pinterest, you get a steady stream of traffic.
• The average Pinterest user is a high earner. 41% of Pinterest users make over $75,000 a year.
• It’s faster to get results than on Google. Google has more competition than Pinterest so if you want search traffic, Pinterest is a faster choice. 

Let’s talk more about how long it takes to see results.

How long does it take to get traffic from Pinterest?

When you’ll start getting traffic from Pinterest depends on:

• How much you pin
• How consistently you pin
• How well your pins perform

On average, you can see results within one month.

But here’s the thing about Pinterest: It takes time to build authority. 

As a search engine, it takes a while for Pinterest to understand what content you offer and show your pins to users. 

So if you want faster results, here’s what to do:

Every day for the first month, pin other people’s pins (relevant to your business) to your boards. About 5 pins per day is a good number. 

That will help Pinterest understand what your profile is about. 

Then you can start adding your own pins to your boards.

If your pins aren’t bringing in traffic, it’s time to review your strategy. 

Try…

…improving your pins

…using better keywords

…using tools like Tailwind 

These small changes can make a difference to your results.

How much traffic can you get from Pinterest? 

So how much traffic can you get from Pinterest? 

It depends. If you pin three times a day, you’ll probably get more traffic than if you pin three times a week.

There’s also no cap on how much traffic you can get. 

Pinterest has over 400 million monthly active users. 

So you can get a few hundred to tens or even hundreds of thousands of visitors from Pinterest. 

Next steps

And that’s how to get traffic from Pinterest! 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

GET THE PDF NOW

Organic traffic is key to building a profitable and sustainable business. Think about it – with traffic that comes in every day without you having to “hustle” for it, your business isn’t reliant on YOU.

Instead, it continues to grow even if you decide to take a break or just don’t feel like posting on social media. And I show you how in my 4-step Automatic Attraction system for making sales with organic traffic. 

Read more:

The Top Benefits of Blogging

How to Increase Your Organic Traffic

Why You Should Invest in SEO

The post How to Get Plenty of Traffic from Pinterest (7 Quick Ways)  appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

If you’re looking for the exact number of blog posts to publish every month to reach your goals, read on! I’ll share exactly how I went from a few blog posts to scaling my content marketing efforts. 

Want to learn more? 

Let’s dive right in!

You’ll learn: 

How often to blog for SEO 

Per month 

Per week 

How to optimize your blog posts 

How fasts blog posts rank

The optimal blog post length 

Key takeaways

• Start with 1-2 high-quality blog posts per month if you have a new blog and don’t have the budget to scale to several blog posts a week. (That’s how I turned my blog into a multiple six-figure traffic channel.)
• Publish 2-4 blog posts or more per week if you have a large blog and you’re ready to scale your blog.

How often should you blog for SEO?

If you want to get traffic from search engines, blogging is important.

In fact, a small business with a public-facing blog will see 126% more lead growth than one without a blog.

So, if you want to see these kinds of results for your business, how many blog posts do you need to publish? 

Should you blog daily or weekly? 

Is more always better?

What’s the optimal blogging frequency? 

Let’s look at the numbers. 

How many blog posts should you publish for the best rankings? 

Publish two to four blog posts per week for higher rankings and traffic. This number of blog posts helps you publish new blog posts while keeping things consistent. However, the “magic” blogging schedule for your business depends on your niche, target audience, goals, and budget. 

For example, according to HubSpot, a company that publishes 16 posts or more every month will receive 3.5 times more traffic than those that post just four times per month. 

So you’d need to publish four blogs a week.

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

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That’s a lot of content for most businesses without a dedicated in-house content or search engine optimization (SEO) team. 

Even then, you would need several content writers on staff to build that type of content machine.

After all, if you only have one in-house or freelance writer creating that much content for you, you risk posting bad-quality blogs. 

And bad content is hard to come back from.

More than 23% of readers say bad content can ruin the credibility of a blog.

So what’s the perfect blog posting frequency? It’s simple. 

You should blog as often as you can while maintaining the quality.

Can you blog once a month? 

Yes, you can blog once a month. 

It’s way more important to produce high-quality content than churn out bad blog posts. 

Consistency also matters. After all, Google favors active websites that produce consistent content. 

So if you only have the budget to invest in one SEO article a month, start there. 

Because here’s the truth: You can see SEO results with way fewer blogs than you think.

Take my blog for example. 

I started writing just 1-2 blog posts a month. With the traffic those blogs generated, I made multiple six figures in two years. 

That’s all inbound organic traffic – no pitching, hustling, or daily social media grinding. 

But how did I get these results with so little content? 

Simple. By focusing on making those blogs informative, engaging, and incredibly valuable to my ideal client.

To summarize: Producing 16+ blog posts seems to get the biggest benefits, but hold off on a tight blog post frequency unless you can produce quality content. 

If you publish bad content, your SEO and your brand will suffer. 

Instead, start with 1-2 blog posts per month. 

Want to learn more about building your SEO traffic with your blog posts? 

Check out this video:

How many blog posts should you publish per week?

According to HubSpot, you should publish four blog posts per week to see results with SEO. 

However, you can create a great blog with high authority by publishing fewer blog posts than that. I used to publish one blog post every two weeks.

How many blog posts should you publish per month?

As we saw, around 16 blog posts per month seem to be the sweet spot for reliable SEO growth and increased leads.

But is it OK to blog once a month? 

Yes. Here’s why: 

The quality of your blog posts matters the most. 

Your content needs to be shareable, detailed, and informative for your reader. 

That also builds your brand’s reputation as an expert in your field. 

So if you’re just starting out and you don’t have a big budget to produce 16 articles, start small with one post per month. 

This will start building your website’s authority and still help your SEO growth. 

You can always increase the amount of content you publish as your business grows. 

THIS is what really matters for your blog’s success

So now you know how often you should blog. 

Here’s the truth: It doesn’t matter as much as you think. 

Sure, more content can make your business grow faster. But more content won’t help your growth if your content is low quality, outdated, or not strategically planned.

These are the things that matter. Let’s take a look:

The right keywords 

Keywords in your content make it possible for people to find your content on search engines. Search engines use them to identify the content that should rank the highest for different search queries.

So if you’re a graphic designer, you might use phrases like these in your content:

“Graphic designer”

“Freelance graphic designer”

“LA graphic designer” 

How do you find and use these keywords, though? 

First, start with this free tool: Google Keyword Planner.

Google Keyword Planner is a tool for finding keywords for ads. But you can also use it to find keywords for your blog. 

Go to Google Keyword Planner and search for a term related to your niche. For example: “graphic designer.”

Now, you’ll get several keyword ideas and information about the keywords.

The factors to pay attention to are the:

• Average number of monthly searches: This shows you how much traffic a keyword gets. Of course, high volume is great because it means more opportunities to reach customers. But these keywords tend to be higher competition, so go for smaller keywords in the beginning. If the keyword is highly targeted, you’ll be far better off with 100 people to your website than 1,000 people who aren’t as interested in your products or services.  
• Level of competition: Targeting low-competition keywords is the fastest way to grow. Does that mean you should avoid high-competition keywords completely? Not necessarily. If you can create a unique piece of content, go for it. But generally, it’s better to focus on low-competition keywords to build up your website’s authority (more on authority later).
• Top of the page bid: The page bid shows you how much people are willing to pay to rank in the ads results for this keyword. A valuable keyword can be more competitive but also be more profitable if your content ranks. 

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

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With the right keywords, you target the right people. 

For example, someone searching for “running” is less likely to be ready to buy compared to someone who searches for “running shoes for marathon.” So the latter is the better keyword to target even though “running” is, most likely, a keyword with more traffic.

Now here’s a key part of keyword research that many people miss: 

You should create one blog post for one keyword. 

Sure, your content will naturally include other related keywords just by covering the topic. But you should avoid targeting more than one keyword in your blog posts. 

Why? Search intent. 

People are looking for specific advice when they look for keywords – they have what’s called “search intent.” If you try to optimize a blog for several types of search intent at the same time, your content won’t rank. 

So focus on one main keyword per post and your strategy will be more successful.

Next up – content updates. 

Content updates 

Did you know it’s not just new content that affects your SEO?

One of the easiest ways to keep your blog fresh is to update old blog posts.

Google has over 200 ranking factors. One of the key ones is a domain or URL’s age. 

So the older your blog post, the more authoritative it could be for Google. 

What does this mean for your content strategy?

Well, if you update old content, you keep it competitive and maintain its search rankings. 

You can update your content by adding: 

• Relevant sections: Making your blog post more comprehensive adds value to the reader. What could you add to your post to make it even more valuable? Has anything changed that requires new or updated text? 
• Photos and video: Photos and videos make your post more engaging. You can also refresh your content by adding newer videos that are more relevant to the topic. 
• Statistics and quotes: Quotes and stats from reputable sources add credibility to your blog posts. The key here is a reputable source. Cite studies or trustworthy websites like WebMD, Psychology Today, and other major publications in your niche to back up your content. 

Taking the time to refresh and breathe new life into an older blog post will pay off. 

That simple action could increase website traffic by as much as 106%.

Tip: Avoid removing any keywords that could be helping your content rank. If you want to edit the writing, focus on making sentences shorter and cutting out unnecessary words.

Create the best content

About 70 million blog posts are published on WordPress each month – so you need to stand out. 

Here are a few tips on how to make your content the best it can be:

Answer the searcher’s question

Your readers are looking for specific answers to specific questions. Good content answers those questions. The best content addresses the question so well that the reader doesn’t need to keep searching.

You can make your blog posts more comprehensive by looking at the “People also ask” section on Google.

By adding these questions to your blog post (if relevant) you can add more details to your post. The more complete your article is, the more likely the reader is going to stay on the page and enjoy your content.

Make your posts engaging

Photos and videos make your blog more visually engaging to read. They also make blog posts more entertaining. You can create your own visuals using platforms like Canva.

You can also make your posts engaging through your writing. Use personal stories and short sentences to keep the reader hooked. 

Add value

Blogs are a great way to show your expertise to your ideal customers. Add your unique insights from your experience to make your content stand out.

Practical steps and detailed tutorials also work well for SEO. Always think back to what the reader is searching for and how you can add value. 

Edit your writing

Even if you’re not a writer, you can improve your writing with some simple edits. You can use grammar checkers like Grammarly to avoid any spelling or grammar mistakes.

The Hemingway Editor App is a free tool that helps you rewrite complicated sentences.
Keep your writing concise. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and short sections work better for online content.

By following these simple steps, you’ll write better blog posts and see faster results. 

How fast can you expect to see results from blogging? 

Do blogs automatically appear on Google search right after publishing? 

Read on to learn more.

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How fast do blog posts rank?

The speed at which your blog posts can rank depends on a few key factors:

Your domain’s age

Domain age refers to the length of time a domain has been registered and active.

And Google sees older websites as more trustworthy and authoritative. 

Especially if they have been consistently creating content around a niche topic since launching. 

So if you have a new website, you can expect blogs to take longer to rank. 

This is just while Google learns what your business is about and the type of content you create. 

Slowly, it will categorize your content and send more traffic to you.

Your website’s authority 

Google measures your website’s authority to quantify your expertise on a topic. 

The higher your authority, the higher your content will rank. 

Authority is kind of related to age but they’re not the same thing. 

New websites tend to have lower authority. But so do websites with high bounce rates or poor-quality content.

To build up authority, you need to consistently create high-quality content around industry topics. 

But even your industry can impact how fast or slow your blog posts rank. Let’s talk about it.

Your industry 

Some industries are naturally more saturated when it comes to content.

Let’s say you’re a business coach for new entrepreneurs. 

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there posting about entrepreneurship. Some of them come from the biggest websites on the internet – Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Shopify, and so on.

So it might take time for your blog posts to rank. 

Compare this to a niche blog about creating a bakery business. . 

Because there is less content on the internet about bakery businesses, that content is more likely to rank. 

Does that mean you should only post about niche topics? Not if they’re not relevant to your business. 

If your business is in a popular niche, you can get around that popularity by choosing the right keywords to target. Let’s talk more about that next.

Your keyword

The keyword you’re optimizing for plays a big role in how fast your website can rank.

By targeting low-competition keywords within your niche, you can get a blog post to rank quickly. Even if your blog is on a popular topic. 

By providing a unique angle or perspective on popular topics, you’re also more likely to drive traffic to your content. 

Go back to the keywords section to learn more about how keyword research can work for you.

Bottom line: If you have a new article, it can take a few months for it to rank. If you have an established website and publish on a topic you’re an expert on, your post might rank right away.  

How long should a blog post be?

There’s no perfect length for blog posts. But there are a few guiding rules. You will.. 

• Need as many words as necessary for the topic: Word count will be different from topic to topic. For example, a step-by-step tutorial on how to use a tool could be shorter than an in-depth blog post on how to nail job interviews. Or vice versa. 
• Need to answer the question fully: Every reader is looking for answers when they click on your blog post. It’s called “search intent”. Your post should be detailed enough to answer the search intent without too many extra details. 
• Blog posts should be concise: That means no unnecessary fluff that distracts from the main topic. But concise doesn’t necessarily mean short. Your blog can be over 5,000 words, but still be concise. 

Want a ballpark guide?

1,500 words tend to be the minimum you need to thoroughly explain most blog topics. 

1,300-1,700 works well with readers. 

But again, if you’re creating an “ultimate guide” and it needs to be 5,000 words long to be comprehensive, that’s the right word count. 

Tip: Look at the other ranking blog posts around the topic and see how many words they write. You want to write around the same number of words or more as the average blog post ranking for that query. 

Next steps 

Now you know how often you should blog! 

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But there’s more to improving your SEO than just your blog posting schedule. 

And ultimately, organic traffic can become an incredibly profitable traffic channel that helps you scale your business.

Want to learn more? 

Get my free PDF on how to get clients on demand. 

Read more:

What is a Business Blog?

How to Grow Your Blog

The Top Blogging Courses

The Benefits of Blogging

The post How Often Should You Blog in 2024? (For all blog sizes) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

This is the place for you. Here is the ultimate list of blog post ideas for businesses to get more sales and build a brand that stands out. 

Want to learn more? Read on!

1. Write an ultimate guide

Write a guide that covers an entire topic and is the most comprehensive resource on that topic. You can break down your guide into chapters and include videos, images, and interactive elements. Make your guide long-form (aka write at least 2,000 words) for it to truly be an ultimate guide. 

Ultimately, these guides can build your brand and authority fast because you show that you’re an expert on the topic. 

Example title: “The Ultimate Guide to ___” 

2. Feature a customer success story

Share a success story of one of your customers. Potential customers will connect to a success story more because it shows how people like them have their life transformed by your product or service. Show where your customer was before working with you or using your product and where they are now.

Example title: “How [Client] Went from ___ to ___”

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3. Share a strategy or method you used successfully 

Strategy or step-by-step articles are fantastic for personal brands and service businesses. You can educate your audience on your real-life experience going from A to B. That entices people to work with you to help them go through that same process.

Example title: “How I Achieved ___ By ___ in Less Than ___”

4. Create a case study

Case studies are another excellent way to showcase the effectiveness of your product or service. Are case studies the same as success stories? Not exactly – a case study includes more data and graphs to demonstrate how your product or service works. 

Example title: “How [Client] Used [Product/Service] to ___”

5. Interview experts

No matter what industry you’re in, there are always experts who have insights to share with your audience. One of the best ways to feature experts is to work with people who are experts in a related field, but who aren’t experts on your exact topic. For example, if you’re a copywriter, you might interview a web designer so your audience learns how to convert their web traffic. 

Example title: “Expert Guide To ____ ft [Interviewee Business Name]”

6. Highlight industry trends 

Got your finger on the pulse of your industry? Write blog posts about the latest industry trends and your opinion of them. You can even advise customers on how they can hop on the industry trend before it passes or predict what the upcoming industry trends will be.

Example title: “Top [Number] [Industry] Trends You Need To Know”

7. Do a roundup of your most popular content

One of the easiest ways of creating new content is by aggregating your old content. Make a round-up of your most popular blog content with a short description and link back to each article. For example, these could be end-of-year round-ups.

Example title: “Best of [Business Name]

8. Publish a post with your own research

Want to add value to your industry? Conduct your own research!  Send out a survey to your mailing list and publish the results. If you create an article breaking down the data, you could get shared by other publications. 

Example title: “[Number]% of People Say _____: Here’s Why”

9. Publish a post with other people’s research

If you don’t have the capacity or audience to conduct your own research, you can always create blogs based on new research in your industry. Give your expert analysis to build that trust factor with future customers. 

Example title: “Here’s The Truth About [New Research Finding]”

10. Interview and feature employees

A GREAT way to connect with customers is to share stories about your employees/team. It adds a human face to your product and services. Feature your employees on your blog showing off their expertise and life stories. 

Example title: “Meet [Name]: The [Job Title] at [Business] Tells All”

11. Tell your story 

Have you ever told the story of how and why you started your business? Or a deeply impactful experience that’s related to the product or service you offer today? By telling your story, people feel more connected to your business.  

Example title: “Why I Started [Business Name] and Achieved [Result]”

12. Create a list post

A list post is a list of tips, tools, products, or strategies. They work really well for both social media and search engines – and could end up driving a good chunk of traffic to your website.

Example title: “The [Number] Best Ways to __”

13. Give your opinion on a controversial topic

Many of us in business steer clear of controversial topics. But it makes great blog content.  No, you shouldn’t share inflammatory views but take a stand on a topic that’s debated in your industry. 

Example title: “Is [Controversial Thing] Good/Bad? A Quick Analysis” 

14. Create a comparison post

Comparison posts let you give your expert opinion on products or services. You can even add your own product or service as part of the post

Example title: “The Best [Product] Reviewed”

15. Publish company news

Announce company news on your blog. Talk about awards, growth, new employees, conference appearances, and more positive behind-the-scenes updates.

Example title: “[Business Name] Grows By [Number]%”

16. Write a review

Share reviews about products and services in your industry. Don’t write reviews of your own products – but do ask customers to do so for you.

Example title: “Everything You Need to Know About The [Product Name]: Honest Review”

17. Talk about a recent event

If your company hosts events or awards, talk about them on your blog. For example, company retreats are awesome stories to share with your audience.

Example title: “The [Business Name] Awards”  

18. Do an expert roundup 

Interview several experts and put together their answers into a roundup. For example, ask them to ask a short prompt or question and then create a post with all of those answers.  

Example title: “[Number] Experts Give Their Tips On ___”

19. Write a yearly review

Write a yearly review of things you’ve learned, things your team has learned, or updates. For example, you could share the things you’ve learned about creating your product or service.

Example title: “The [Number] Things We Learned About [Topic] in [Year]”

20. Publish reports of your results

Another, similar topic idea are reports about your results. These could be income reports or skills you’re developing as a team to show where you’re heading. 

Example title: “How We Made [Number] in [Timeframe]”

21. Talk about the future of your industry

Talk about where your industry is heading and recent trends. This type of post shares your expertise and can build engagement on social media platforms.  

Example title: “Here’s What [Industry] Industry Could Look Like In The Next 5 Years”

22. Create a post with the top resources in your industry

Create a resource library around an industry topic to make it easier to interact with that topic. Your resource list could include podcasts, books, youtube channels, blogs, and industry publications. 

Example title: “Everything You Need To Know About [Topic]”

23. Rank the top people or businesses in a related industry 

The aim of this blog is to help people looking for businesses or service providers in your industry. You could focus on businesses in your location or aggregate service providers with specialized skills.

Example title: “Top [Profession/Business] In [Location] To Help You With Your [Problem]”

24. Explain your Corporate Social Responsibility policy

A Corporate Social Responsibility Policy is your company’s commitment to work ethically in line with your values. Do your customers know what those values are? Here’s your chance to talk about them!

Example title: “Our Social Responsibility and Why It Matters”

25. Rank the best tools in your industry

Show your expertise by ranking and/or reviewing the top tools and resources in your field. These could be real tools, such as the best toothbrushes for kids. Or they could be resources, such as the top online teaching platforms.

Example title: “Best [Category] Tools For [Ideal Client]”

26. Offer a free tool

Creating a free tracker or calculator works well for driving traffic to your blog. A great example is Shopify’s free business name generator. 

Example title: “Free [Tool] For [Ideal Client]”

27. Share a tutorial on how to use your product

Tutorials on how to use your product help your existing customers use your product. For example, tutorials on features or ways to use a product are great business blog ideas. 

Example title: “How To Use [Product]”

28. Notify of your new product features

If you sell products that are regularly updated or iterated (such as software), you’ll need to communicate to your clients about these updates. Use your blog – and educate them on how to use the updates and why they make your product the best product out there.  

Example title: “New Feature Alert: Here’s How To Use [Feature]”

29. Share “behind-the-scenes” with your team

A behind-the-scenes blog could be a glimpse into your manufacturing process or as simple as a day in the life of your team. 

Example title: “How We Make ___”

30. Explain your company culture 

Want to build your employer brand and not just your consumer brand? Talk about what it’s like to work at your company. It’s even better if you can get current employees’ perspectives on why they like the company culture.

Example title: “What It’s Like To Work At [Business Name]”

31. Share a toolkit 

Similar to an article ranking the best tools, you can create a toolkit for future clients. This could include virtual resources or a checklist of steps to take.

Example title: “The Best Toolkit For [Ideal Client]”

32. Do a monthly or weekly roundup 

A weekly or monthly round-up is a curation of content from the previous week or month. You can feature your own content or content from other sources. This is an easy blog to write and provides a ton of value to the reader. 

Example title: “Weekly Review: Top Stories In The [Industry] World”

33. Share a thought leadership piece on one recent trend

Want to position yourself as an expert in your industry? Create an article on a trend, what it means for your business, and how to apply it in your industry. 

Example title: “What the New [Trend] Means for The [Industry] Industry”

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34. Explain your brand and logo 

Your business blog is the perfect place to explain your brand story. This builds connection with future customers and future employees who resonate with your journey.  

Example title: “The Story Behind the Name [Business Name]”

35. Showcase new work

If you’re a service provider, show your most recent work. You can walk through recent projects you’ve worked on and the results. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, you could publish highlights from your most recent wedding.

Example title: “Creating [descriptive Title for Project]”

36. Give a tour of your offices 

Another way to build your employer brand (and attract employees/team members) is to  tour of your offices. It allows employees to imagine themselves working for you. 

Example title: “Office Tour: Inside [Company Name]”

37. Do a challenge

Hold a challenge that offers an easy win for your customers. For example, if you’re a social media software company, you could create a one-week challenge to post on Instagram every day with specific prompts to help people grow their audience.

Example title: “The [Description] Challenge”

38. Give a behind-the-scenes of your products or services

One of the best ways to stand out among other (similar) products is to show your customers how your products are produced.  This could be a tour of your storage facility or a closer look at your ideation process. 

Example title: “How We Create ___”

39. Ask your readers’ opinion

Send out a survey asking for your readers’ opinions on your products, services, or other industry topics, and create an article on the key findings. 

Example title: “[Product or Service Name]: What Our Customers Say”

40. Do a roundup of your most frequently asked questions

Got some questions that customers ask again and again? Answer them in a blog post. You can use this post in different ways – link to it from other pages, refer to it as your FAQ, include it in customer emails, and so on.

Example title: “Your Questions About [Product/Service] Answered”

41. Share an update on your business

Talk about something that’s happening in your business. You can talk about a challenge you had to recently overcome, the success of a recent launch, or what’s next for your business. 

Example title: “We Launched The [Product/Service]: Here’s What We Learned”

42. Create a checklist

Make a checklist on a popular topic in your industry, such as a checklist on how to learn a new skill. These types of posts are incredibly valuable because people get the steps to achieve a goal.

Example title: “How To ___: Checklist”

43. Create a glossary

Is your industry full of jargon? Help future clients by creating a detailed glossary on all of the terms that people tend to not understand.

Example title: “The Ultimate List of [Industry] Terms: Glossary”

44. Highlight a timeline of a product or business

What’s the history of your product or service? This could be your own business history – or it could be more generally, the history of lamps or the history of Apple. 

Example title: “From ___ to ____: The Timeline of [Product]”

45. Do a summary

Write a blog summarizing a piece of popular content in your industry like a book or TED talk. Ultimately, you want to give your own take on the topic, too.

Example title: “In-Depth Analysis and Summary of ___”

46. Compile statistics in your industry

Write an article combining data points that are interesting for your audience. This could be data that shows the benefits of your service/business or more general industry analytics. 

Example title: “[Industry] Statistics You Need To Know!”

47. Create a tutorial on how to use a tool in your industry

Tutorials and how-to content help you get found by prospective clients. For example, write a step-by-step tutorial on how to use software in your industry.  

Example title: “How To Use [Tool]: Step By Step Guide”

48. Create a weekly, actionable plan

So many people struggle with consistently working towards their biggest goals. With an actionable plan, you help them get small wins. Examples would be a meal plan or steps to build a habit.

Example title: “The Perfect ___ Plan For [Ideal Client]”

49. Write troubleshooting guides for common issues

Troubleshooting guides do two things. First, they create searchable content for your blog. Second, they save on your customer service costs! Make them easy to find on your website to improve customer experience. 

Example title: “Troubleshooting: Common Questions About The [Product]”

50. Share your “secret sauce”

Your secret sauce is what makes your business stand out from the rest. You can write a blog about the approach, mindset, or methodology that makes your business unique. For example, one of my students helps people invest in real estate. He could write a blog about a proprietary equation he has developed for his investment strategy. 

Example title: “Our Unique Approach To ___”

51. Talk about a cause

If your business supports a cause, your blog is the perfect place to talk about it. Highlight the ways your company contributes to fighting that cause.

Example title: “What You Need to Know About [Cause]”

53. Share a proprietary strategy

Do you have a strategy that sets you apart from your competition? Give it a name and promote it to your audience. For example, “Inbox Zero” that teaches people how to manage their emails is a proprietary strategy.

Example title: “The [Name] Method: How To [Benefits of Method]”

54. Share data points from your own business

Collating data points from the wider industry is great. What about sharing data points from your company? For example, If you have data on eCommerce shoppers in a specific area, you could create visuals and show that data.  

Example title: “What [Type of Consumers] Think About ___”

55. Create a list of “secret” strategies

The most underrated strategies in your industry make the best blog content. Dig deep and reveal methods that you don’t commonly see recommended by your competitors. 

Example title: “The Best Ways To [Result] You’ve Never Heard Of”

56. Share how your team works 

Show a typical day at the office. You can write about the types of problems your team works on day to day to make your business run smoothly. This is a great way to show your culture and attract top talent.

Example title: “Behind-the-scenes at [Company Name]”

57. Repurpose other content

Repurposing content is the most underrated way to make new content. It’s easier than you think! For example, create an interview blog post based on a YouTube interview.

Example title: “[Whatever the Repurposed Content Topic Is]”

58. Create a “best of” list 

The aim of this type of article is to curate the best of your blog, social media, or video content. This could be your favorite content or the content with the most comments, likes, and shares. 

Example title: “The Best [Content] in [Year]”

59. Define key terms in your industry

Articles that explain key industry terms do well on Google. Keep it simple and direct, focusing on terms that people often ask you about. For example, “What is eLearning?”

Example title: “What is [Industry Term]?”

60. Write a post that explains the price 

Customers often don’t realize the cost of the products and services you offer. So why not create some informative content giving industry averages? For example, “What does a management consultant cost?”

Example title: “What Does [Product/Service] Cost?”

61. Create lists of pros and cons

Pros and cons lists work well for all kinds of articles. You can weigh up a popular strategy or product in your industry. Or you can review the pros and cons of your own products and services.

Example title: “Pros and Cons of [Product/Service]”

62. Use a frequently asked question

This type of blog focuses on one specific frequently asked question and gives a detailed answer. For example, “What is the best chair for back pain?”

Example title: “What Is ___”

63. Write a list of the biggest myths in your industry 

All industries have a ton of myths. So help your readers to debunk them by explaining what those myths are and what the actual truth is. 

Example title: “Top Myths About [Topic] Debunked”

64. Share the top tools your team uses 

Show your audience what your team uses. You could also compile lists of other things, like your team’s top tips or the best books they’ve read.

Example title: “Our Team Reveals Their Favorite Tools For [Action/Result]”

65. Create a “content hub” 

A content hub is an ultimate hub on a topic with subtopics that cover the entire topic. For example, a content hub on how to lift weights would include sections on choosing weights, mindset, training goals, training plans, nutrition, and so on.

Example title: “How To [Broad Topic]”

66. Highlight user-generated content

If your business has user-generated content, such as listings, you could compile the top UGC. An example would be Airbnb doing a list of top rentals in a specific area. 

Example title: “Top [Number] [UGC]” 

67. Celebrate an event

If your company celebrates an event or holiday, like Christmas or Black History Month, create a series of themed articles around that event. 

Example title: “How To Celebrate [Event] With [Your Product]”

68. Create a “consulting” article

Consulting articles help the reader discern the best option for them. For example, you could write about the top things to look for in the product/service you offer.

Example title: “How To Find The Right [Product/Service] For You”

69. Provide free templates or cheat sheets

Create free templates or cheat sheets to help readers achieve something. A few ideas: social media templates, email scripts, or grocery store lists. 

Example title: “How To [Method] with Template”

70. Offer a really valuable resource

Finally, valuable reference resource blogs are easy, quick, and highly valuable to your audience. For example, content ideas, headline formulas, or workouts.

Example title: “Best [Category] Ideas To [Result/Benefit]”

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How do you start a successful business blog? 

So now you have all the best business blog ideas. But how do you get started creating great content for your business blog?

First, you’ve got to understand your audience. 

Sure, many of the blog ideas on the list will work for many industries. But not all of them will work for YOUR audience. 

Think about who your ideal client or customer is and what they want to know about your industry. 

The more you focus on what your audience likely wants to know, the more successful your blog will be. Next, create a plan to improve your SEO (search engine optimization). SEO doesn’t need to be complicated! 

Once you understand the basics of how Google works, you’ll find it easier to write and optimize your content to get search results. 

Here’s a video breaking down the basics to get you started: 

Finally, promote your blog everywhere! The easiest way to market your business blog is on social media: 

• Post links in your Instagram stories.
• Create Twitter posts with snippets of your blog post.
• Shout out your blog articles on podcasts you guest host. 
• Send your latest blog to your mailing list. 

These are all easy, quick ways to get your articles seen by potential customers and drive traffic to your site.

Business blog examples  

Want to know how it’s done? Here are three of my favorite business blogs that provide some of the best content out there. 

HubSpot

HubSpot is an industry leader and data aggregator on marketing. Now, they’re one of the leading blogs on marketing for businesses. 

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is an SEO expert who built the ultimate personal brand through blogging. He would create blog posts on how to get seen on Google and used his own SEO techniques to drive traffic. Over time, he became a thought leader in SEO and marketing for small businesses. 

Nerd Fitness

Nerd Fitness is a blog turned online community all about fitness for newbies. Their secret? Focusing on one specific audience and branding themselves to cater to that audience better than anyone else. The blog offers ultimate guides, free template content, and tutorials. 

Over to you!

There you have it! I hope this list gave you some great business blog ideas. 

Blogging is one of THE most underrated strategies to grow your business, especially through search engine optimization. When you’ve done the heavy lifting with your blog and get search traffic coming to your website, people find your business without any other work on your part.

But, how do you build that traffic – even if you don’t have a huge team? 

Sign up for my masterclass on how to automatically attract clients and grow your business. 

Read more: 

The Biggest Benefits of Blogging for Businesses

The Best Blogging Courses 

What is Organic Traffic?

The post 70 Business Blog Ideas That Attract Clients in 2024 appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

You’re in the right place. 

In this article, you’ll get: 

• The BEST blogging platform for your business
• Othere platforms to consider
• And much more 

Want to learn more? Read on!

The best blogging platforms in 2024

My absolute favorite blogging platform for businesses is WordPress with Elementor.

• WordPress: The best overall business blogging platform 
• Webflow: Runner-up
• Ghost: Third place
• Squarespace: Best website drag-and-drop builder 

#1: WordPress (My top pick)

WordPress is the largest and most popular blogging platform out there. 

Media brands like TechCrunch and Time Magazine use WordPress, and so do several businesses – it’s the home to 60 million blogs. 43% of websites are powered by WordPress. 

Now, you can either use WordPress.com, which is a drag-and-drop tool, or WordPress.org, which requires you to build your own website with hosting, a theme, and plugins, but with much more flexibility. 

Personally, I prefer WordPress.org. There are several reasons and one of the most important ones is the flexibility of the platform. 

In fact, WordPress is known for being the most flexible in terms of what you can create. 

First, you choose a template to build your website and design. You can either choose a free template or a paid-for template. The paid options tend to be far better than the free ones, so invest in one of those. 

My recommendation is Elementor.

Elementor is a drag-and-drop theme. You don’t need to code anything, but can build your website by adding and removing features with Elementor’s interface. 

Another reason WordPress is so flexible and customizable are the plugins. 

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With plugins, you add on features instead of coding them. For example, if you need to add on security features, there are plugins for those. Or SEO, newsletter builders, and so on. Some plugins are free with premium versions, while others have a one-time or monthly fee. 

(You’ll find all plugins in the plugin directory, www.domain.com/wp-admin/plugins.php). 

To set up your WordPress website, you’ll also need a domain and hosting. 

Your domain is your website address. Buy your domain at Hover ($14.99/year). Here’s Hover’s guide on how to set up a domain.

And in terms of hosting, go for WPEngine, which is the most effective and customer-friendly hosting service I’ve tried ($25/month, paid yearly).

Or, if you want a more affordable option, Bluehost ($7.99/month) is a good option, too. 

Now you know how flexible WordPress can be. 

But there’s one more reason WordPress is THE top tool for business blogs – the blog editor.

WordPress has a really powerful blogging interface that’s extremely easy to use. The features will differ a bit depending on the theme you use, but WordPress’ Gutenberg editor is all-in-all a blog editor that makes it easy to upload, edit, and publish your blog posts. 

You can either work on your blog posts in HTML or edit them visually. 

However, one drawback of WordPress is that it’s relatively slow, which can impact your SEO. You need to do a lot of customization to speed up your website. 

However, for me, the downsides of WordPress are far fewer than the benefits. You can also use plugins (like WP Rocket) to optimize your page speed. 

Want to learn how to use WordPress? Read my tutorial here.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: Free, but you’ll need to pay for hosting, a domain, and a theme – the theme and domain are typically less than $500 as a one-time fee and hosting starts at $9-$25 per month.

Pros: 

• Highly customizable with plugins, extensions, and third-party integrations.
• Allows you to scale your business blog easily without too many extra costs. 

Cons:  

• WordPress sites can be slow which can impact your SEO. But you can use plugins to improve the page load speed. 
• Updating and managing plugins can be a drag.

Webflow (Second place)

Another powerful blogging platform for business owners is Webflow. Built with non-tech business owners and freelancers in mind, Webflow aims to give you a seamless experience with high levels of customization – but without the code. 

Unlike WordPress, Webflow includes a hosting plan and a custom domain.

The drag-and-drop editor allows you to style your blog exactly the way you want it. 

Although, if you do have some coding knowledge, you don’t have a lot of flexibility. 

For most business owners, however, the customizations included with Webflow’s editor will be more than enough. 

Webflow also has an impressive suite of SEO tools, with automated meta titles and descriptions. You can also alt tag your images easily. 

But you want to know what sets Webflow apart? The immersive interactions. 

Interactions are animations that are triggered by the visitor to your site. So if a photo zooms in when you hover the cursor over it, that’s an interaction. If a graph moves as you scroll down the page, that’s an interaction. 

Now, while you can achieve these features with other blogging platforms, no platform makes it as simple as Webflow. 

So if you want a beautifully designed blog with great SEO tools, Webflow could be perfect for you.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $23 per month (billed annually).

Pros: 

• There are no plugins to update or maintain.
• Pricing is highly flexible depending on your content needs.

Cons:  

• Webflow has no mobile app so you can only upload blogs and edit your site from a desktop computer.
• There’s a cap on how much CMS content you can upload before you need to upgrade plans.

Ghost (Third place)

Ghost is a blogging platform with a lot of functionality. It rivals WordPress.org because it is similarly an open-source free platform that you can customize to your specifications. 

That said, self-hosting can be annoying to set up with Ghost, so most go for the pro plans.

Beyond that, Ghost is popular with content creators, because it can host multiple media types fast. 

You can grow and nurture your audience easily with in-built paid subscriptions, newsletter integrations, and detailed native analytics to track it all.

That’s all without the plugins and themes you need to build a WordPress site. Everything is built in for you.

That said, you do need to have your own SEO for blogging knowledge to get the most out of your Ghost site. This is because, unlike WordPress’ easy-guided SEO plugins, Ghost gives you the tools to boost your SEO but is not quite as hands-on about it. 

Another thing is that Ghost’s editor is more limited than WordPress. Yes, you have a lot of flexible options but if you want to go off-script, it’s pretty tricky to do. 

If you want a platform that gives you the freedom to build membership communities and monetize your content easily, Ghost is a good choice. 

Difficulty: Medium 

Pricing: From $9 per month.

Pros: 

• Provides a secure hosting platform included in the price.
• Intuitive and simple to navigate blog publishing tools. 

Cons:  

• The free open-source version gives you very limited memory. That’s not ideal if you want to incorporate video and images into your blogs. 
• Self-hosting is a pain to set up.

Squarespace (Best website builder)

I usually recommend that my clients get a blogging platform like WordPress to get full functionality out of their website. But if you want to get started quickly and easily, a website builder may be simpler to navigate. 

The best website builder for businesses – in my experience – is Squarespace.

To start, Squarespace has great SEO features. It has a guided flow that prompts you to optimize your pages. You can also add image alt tags and meta descriptions to boost your website. 

Even though most website builders are easy to use, Squarespace is one of the easiest. It’s evolved from the rigid templates it used to have and now allows you to drag and drop content blocks to make your blog look beautiful. 

Posting a blog post is like building a new page. So you have total flexibility on how the page looks. 

Squarespace offers audience-building tools like an in-built newsletter that you can manage from your dashboard. You also have e-commerce tools for selling products.

That said, Squarespace is more limited in terms of customization and features. 

The templates are gorgeous but they have a very similar look. You can normally tell if a site is hosted on Squarespace because the templates are so distinctive. 

But if you don’t mind the “Squarespace” look and want a platform that integrates many valuable features, this is a solid option to get your business blog started.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $16 per month.

Pros: 

• Beautiful selection of customizable templates to choose from.
• Highly responsive websites that work across screen sizes.

Cons:  

• Customization is limited. 
• Brand-building can be limited. 

Wix

Wix and Squarespace are the two leading website builders on the market. 

Wix is a fun and easy platform to build a blog because of its drag-and-drop functionalities. You can resize any element, move things around, and design from the ground up with no coding experience at all.

Unlike WordPress, there are no plugins to install. However, Wix does have a new feature marketplace that is similar to plugins. These get updated periodically to boost the functionality of your site. 

With over 800 templates available, compared to Squarespace’s 100+, Wix prides itself on helping your brand stand out visually. 

However, it’s still limited compared to WordPress in terms of customization features and SEO features. Like Squarespace, Wix has a guided flow to improve SEO but it’s not as intuitive or detailed as Squarespace or any WordPress plugins.

Wix can also be glitchy at times. It’s not uncommon for parts of the website to struggle to load or change structure. This is because the drag-and-drop editor gives you a ton of freedom. That includes the freedom to make elements too big for the page. 

If you want an easy-to-use interface with great design flexibility, Wix could be the one for you.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $16 per month.

Pros: 

• Over 800+ templates but you can also start from scratch for ultimate control over the design.
• Blogging interface is simple to use.

Cons:

• Can be glitchy.
• SEO features are limited.  

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HubSpot CMS

HubSpot is unique as a blogging platform. It’s built with small businesses in mind. As an all-rounder, it includes digital marketing software, sales and conversion tracking, customer service, and content management tools.

The website management system is easy to use. It has a drag-and-drop editor to customize pages. Although you have more limitations than Squarespace and Wix in terms of design and detailed personalization. 

HubSpot is only worth exploring if you’re going to use all five hubs to their full potential. The five hubs are:

• Sales hub including lead generation and tracking
• Marketing hub including automated social media campaigns
• Service hub including ticket automation and team delegation
• Operations hub including detailed reporting and data sync with third-party apps
• Content management hub including advanced blogging features

The blogging and website capabilities on their own are fine, but there are better options out there if that is all you’re looking for. 

If you want a platform that can handle your business operations and marketing completely, HubSpot is worth considering.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $23 per month for content management system only.

Pros: 

• Access to powerful business tools. 
• Ability to plan a campaign with blogging and social media from one platform.

Cons:  

• Doesn’t allow much customization. 
• Only worth it if you want the full suite of hubs available.

Weebly

With 50+ responsive website themes, Weebly is one of the best website builders on the market for business owners. It has a simple interface with flexible (though limited) options for customization. 

Weebly is primarily a web host so you don’t have to purchase hosting separately. As a host, it delivers impressive site speed too which improves the user experience and SEO. 

If your website needs are relatively basic and you just want the blog to look good, Weebly will do the trick. Advanced coders can adapt the code, but you’re still limited in customization overall. 

The blogging interface is a little strange if you’re used to blogging on any other platform. You use the same drag-and-drop editor to write your blogs. It’s not as immersive or user-friendly as other platforms on this list. 

You even have a restriction on how your blogs can be titled. The SEO tools are a little lightweight if you want your web traffic to soar. 

If the blogging interface doesn’t bother you, I recommend Weebly if you want to keep things simple and prioritize fast, reliable web performance.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $26 per month

Pros: 

• Easy to export your website if you outgrow it. 
• Website speeds are lightning-fast.

Cons:  

• Blogging interface is difficult to get used to. 
• SEO tools aren’t great for business blogs.

Medium

Medium is a publishing platform – sort of like an online magazine that anyone can upload content to. 

This platform offers a lotbecause it has a thriving community of bloggers and experts creating content on what they know. So Medium has a reputation for being the home of authoritative content. You can build a reliable following that can serve to boost your brand awareness.

Medium also does a profit-sharing scheme similar to YouTube. So after gaining 1K followers, you can earn money on your popular articles based on the views.

The blogging interface on Medium is extremely easy to use. After all, the only thing you can do on Medium is read and write. So writing is fast and simple. 

You have no customization options at all. You can only add links and images to your articles. But you can’t add an email newsletter sign-up form or even specify the size of the images. 

Because technically you don’t own the blog or traffic that your Medium presence receives, you don’t really have full control of your business blog. If Medium disappears so too does your article and your following.

You can link back to your business website but few people go from Medium articles to off-platform websites. So this impacts direct traffic to your products and services. 

I only recommend Medium if you want to build your authority in your industry and provide educational content.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: Free

Pros: 

• Medium has a thriving community of readers ready to consume your content. 
• You can build authority and position yourself as an expert in your field.

Cons:  

• You do not own your blog so the content is vulnerable if the platform shuts down. 
• Difficult to drive conversions because the blogs are not hosted on a site you own.

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is THE social media platform for corporate employees, consultants, and entrepreneurs. It’s branded as the best place online to network. But how does it stack up as a blogging platform for businesses? 

Well, most people never use the LinkedIn article feature, but it’s completely free to use. You don’t even need a LinkedIn premium account to upload original content. 

The blogging interface is easy to use, although more event limited than Medium. You can just about customize the heading structure and add images. But all LinkedIn articles look the same.

From an SEO perspective, LinkedIn articles do well in search. That can raise your brand awareness as the author of the article, especially if you create highly valuable, expert content. 

But there’s a catch. The same catch as Medium – you don’t own your LinkedIn blog. 

While LinkedIn has a thriving audience of 930 million users, blogging on LinkedIn will only likely increase your LinkedIn following. It won’t drive that much traffic back to your website or lead to meaningful conversions. 

So I caveat this recommendation with the same thoughts as Medium. Use it if you want to build a platform on LinkedIn, but don’t expect it to drive traffic and sales to your business.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: Free

Pros: 

• LinkedIn has great SEO so it’s likely your articles will appear in search. 
• Publishing on LinkedIn can boost your profile among influential people and potential customers.

Cons:  

• You do not own your blog so the content is vulnerable if the platform shuts down. 
• Difficult to drive conversions because the blogs are not hosted on a site you own.

Blogger 

Blogger is one of the oldest blogging platforms around. It’s completely free and a good choice for beginners to blogging – however, not necessarily business blogs that want to convert customers. 

There’s a variety of themes and templates to customize the look of your blog. But unlike the drag-and-drop editors, Blogger’s editor only allows you to fill your information into the parameters of the template you choose. 

Colors are equally limited so you can’t fully customize the reader experience – unless you know how to code. 

The themes and templates can look a little dated considering Squarespace’s and Wix’s updated responsive designs. 

The biggest con of all with Blogger is that you’re limited to 100 blogs per account and you don’t really have any SEO features. 

So if you want an extremely simple blogging platform with no other capabilities, Blogger is worth exploring. But to build a fully flexible business blog that can drive conversions, Blogger may be a little too limiting.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: Free

Pros: 

• Extremely simple interface to build a blog. 
• Integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics.

Cons:  

• The themes and templates are a little dated. 
• You’re limited to 100 blogs per account.

Substack

Substack is an interesting choice for building a business blog. Known as primarily a newsletter platform, Substack allows businesses and creators to monetize their content with a subscription model. 

There are free subscriptions too. But Substack has that unique ability to hide some of your blog content behind a paywall. 

Substack automatically emails your followers with your newest blog posts. That keeps you close and engaged with your audience. 

However, Substack is not the best place to grow a following. It’s great if you already have a thriving business brand and followers who want to hear more from you. 

But the search capabilities of the platform and the relatively poor SEO (compared to LinkedIn and Medium) means it’s tough for your content to get found outside of your true fans. 

The blogging platform is simple and beautiful, with one template to keep the style consistent. You can add videos and photos to make your posts more engaging. 

But again, you don’t own your Substack audience. I recommend Substack as an extra income stream if your business has a thriving audience that wants more content from you. 

Otherwise, a more flexible and functional independent blogging platform is better for most businesses.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: Free – they take a percentage of your paid subscriptions.

Pros: 

• Allows you to monetize your content. 
• Followers get an automatic email every time you post.

Cons:  

• Not easy to grow a following. 
• You do not own your blog so the content is vulnerable if the platform shuts down. 

WordPress.com

Now for WordPress.com. This is the website builder version of WordPress complete with hosting, templates, and a custom domain. 

And in honesty, it’s not the best option for businesses. Why? Because the functionality is lacking when compared to competitors in the space like Squarespace and Wix.

Even though it IS easier to customize than Squarespace and Wix with plugins and integrations, you might as well get a free WordPress.org website if you’re going to do that level of customization anyway. 

My advice? Don’t bother with WordPress.com and learn the ropes of building a powerful WordPress.org website. It’s better to have a site that you can customize and scale easily as your business grows.

Difficulty: Easy

Pricing: From $4 per month.

Pros: 

• Customizable the same way WordPress.org is.

Cons:  

• Basic functionality is lacking.
• WordPress.org is superior.

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Joomla

Joomla is an open-source CMS platform that allows you to build a blog from scratch.

It’s highly SEO-friendly. So you can trust that if you create good, valuable content, you can optimize it easily for search.

Joomla is also highly user-friendly. So if you have a lot of content, Joomla’s impressive site search feature allows visitors to narrow down the exact content they are looking for.

When it comes to customization and design, the possibilities are endless. You can achieve any design and create any feature you want.

But this is not for the non-techies out there. There’s a steep learning curve that is NOT beginner friendly at all. 

If you have the coding capabilities and don’t mind a lack of customer service channels, Joomla is a powerful blogging platform worth considering. But if you want to keep things simple, WordPress.org is easier to use for the same functionality.

Difficulty: Difficult

Pricing: Free but plugins and hosting are required to get started.

Pros: 

• Highly customizable for all your website needs. 
• SEO friendly.

Cons:  

• Steep learning curve if you don’t know how to code.
• Not as many plugins or templates as WordPress.

Drupal

Drupal is another open-source blogging platform aimed at developers and professional website designers to create impactful websites. 

The capabilities are all there. It’s a highly reliable CMS that rarely crashes or glitches. 

The security features are tightly controlled so your website is way less vulnerable than most websites. 

And when it comes to customization, Drupal is capable enough to create more than just a blog. From complex fintech apps to intuitive e-commerce sites, this platform is high-tech and specialized. 

The catch? It’s so difficult to use if you don’t have a coding background. 

You don’t only need to code to set up the website, but to maintain it. If that sounds like a headache, WordPress.org is a better option for you. 

But if your business has a tech team and a need for more complex web capabilities, Drupal is a reliable option.

Difficulty: Difficult

Pricing: Free but plugins and hosting are required to get started.

Pros: 

• Capable of building complex websites and apps.
• High-tech security included.

Cons:  

• Steep learning curve if you don’t know how to code.
• Not as many plugins or templates as WordPress.

How I chose these blogging platforms

The list above is a combination of all three types of blogging platforms out there:

• Open-source and customizable blogging platforms (WordPress.org, Ghost, Webflow)
• Drag-and-drop website builders (Squarespace, Wix)
• Social media-like publishing platforms (LinkedIn, Medium)

To create this list, I compared the features of all of these different platforms. I wanted to be as fair as possible. So I reviewed the good and the bad of each platform (so that you can find a platform that works for YOUR business). 

Bottom line: I recommend WordPress. It gives you everything you need to create a successful, sustainable business blog.

How to choose a blogging platform for YOUR business

So those are my thoughts, but how do you decide which platform is right for you? 

Here are the top features to look out for when you decide on a blogging platform. 

Flexibility and functionality 

It sounds obvious, but your blog needs to work. 

And by work I mean:

• Load fast
• Support images and text
• Allow easy navigation
• Reliably show up on Google 
• Make conversions easy

The easiest or cheapest option isn’t always the best. Because sometimes the cheaper options cut corners when it comes to functionality. 

Nothing tanks traffic more than an unusable site. 

This is why I like WordPress so much. Sure, it can take a learning curve to get used to it. But it’s one of the most functional platforms on the internet. 

Customization

If you’re building a business brand blog, you probably want to tailor the look and feel of it. 

This goes beyond just the color scheme and fonts.

You may even want to add custom forms, ads, and links to your blog to drive conversions. 

Some blogging platforms are more restrictive in that domain. For example, Medium only has one look and you can only add images. 

You can’t add videos, forms, or custom HTML code. 

Website builders are a little more flexible with what you can do, but the design capabilities only take you so far. 

For instance, Squarespace has beautiful templates but you can’t go too far outside of the template bounds to customize your website.

Blogging platforms like WordPress give you complete control. With the right plugins, you can reinvent the design, flow, and capabilities of your website. 

Now, customization doesn’t matter to everyone. If you just want to start a blog with minimal fuss and don’t mind that all the blogs look the same as other people’s, a website builder or publishing platform may be ideal for you. 

But if you want your business blog to be highly customized to your brand, you’re better off with a flexible blogging platform like WordPress that can do it all.

Tools to grow your audience 

This point is often overlooked when it comes to blogging. But think about it. Your blog is meant to drive traffic and convert your audience into fans, right? 

So it helps to have a blogging platform that gives you tools to grow and nurture your audience.

How easy is it to convert people to email subscribers or encourage them to sign up for a trial? 

Many website builders have some basic form templates included in the platform. 

But unless you know how to code, it’s tricky to fully customize them if you need a specific functionality. 

Publishing platforms, like Medium, have their own built-in audiences. 

You can grow a following through the platform quite easily, but the audience won’t necessarily convert to sales. 

Why? Because you don’t own the website or your content. 

Your followers will be part of your audience on that platform but not always drive traffic to your own brand’s domain.

Blogging platforms like WordPress have a plugin for everything. That means you can add whatever growth tool you want from custom sign-up forms and mailing list integrations to membership areas and community forums.

Ease of use

Ease of use is a huge factor. I get it. If you’re not tech-minded, blogging platforms like WordPress may seem daunting. 

And ten years ago, I would have agreed with you! WordPress was unusable if you didn’t have some coding knowledge and a lot of patience. 

But even WordPress has progressed a lot in recent years to make the experience way easier for new users to understand. 

You have drag-and-drop theme builders and a simple blogging interface. Because WordPress is so popular, it’s also super easy to hire help if you need it.

That said, if you want to do it alone but want a low learning curve, website builders like Squarespace and Wix are a happy medium. 

You won’t have the same level of flexibility and customization, but they are simple to get started.

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SEO benefits 

Finally, let’s talk about the main event – search engine optimization. 

SEO is the top reason why businesses blog. It drives traffic to websites like no other medium right now. 

And here’s the thing:

The platform you choose has a big impact on your SEO. 

• Performance: If the platform you choose is slow, readers and potential customers are less likely to return. Google will also downgrade your rankings. 
• Site architecture: If the platform you choose is disorganized with a confusing sitemap, Google might not index your blog pages. That means your pages won’t appear in search.

Some blogging platforms have more SEO features than others. WordPress is an industry leader here, with hundreds of plugins and extensions available to improve your website’s quality and boost SEO rankings. 

The SEO techniques you can use on WordPress are incredibly advanced which is what you need to get to the top of Google.

Website builders like Squarespace and Wix are slowly catching up with in-built analytics. 

They also have guided SEO flows for each page or blog post. This is great for those who are new to SEO. But these techniques aren’t as advanced. 

Website builders tend to be slower too, because they host thousands of websites on the same servers. 

As for the publishing platforms, they are both excellent and awful for SEO. 

Because websites like Medium and LinkedIn are so established, any articles on there appear high on Google search. This can be great because it gets a lot of eyeballs on your articles. 

Not to mention the internal marketing push you get from these platforms sharing your articles with the community native to the platform.

But, because your content is only hosted on these publishing platforms, you don’t get the benefits of that great SEO. Sure, you might get more readers, but it won’t build your brand’s authority on Google at all. 

So think about your goals for SEO: 

• Powerful source of high-quality content: go for WordPress. 
• Simple platform with light SEO features: try a website builder like Squarespace.
• A platform that shares good information (without driving traffic): try a publishing platform like Medium.

Want to learn more? Check out this video:

Frequently asked questions about blogging platforms 

What is the best blogging platform?

The best blogging platform for most bloggers and small businesses is WordPress.org. It’s highly customizable, has beautiful blog themes, and has great SEO features.  

What blog platform is best for SEO? 

The best blog platforms for SEO are WordPress, Webflow, and Ghost. As for website builders, Squarespace has the best SEO features but it’s still not as powerful as the other three I just mentioned. 

How do you start a small business blog?

To start a small business blog you need to understand your ideal audience. Think about what they are searching for and the answers you have. Then, create content around the topics you are an authority in and optimize your content for search engines to build your audience. You can do this by incorporating targeted keywords into your blog articles and creating high-quality content. Share your articles with your existing audience to drive traffic and you’re on your way to building a successful blog!

What are the benefits of blogging? 

The main benefits of blogging for business are:

• Blogs drive organic traffic to your website (and that traffic tends to be highly qualified) 
• They position your brand as an expert in your industry
• They help generate leads and sales for your product or services
• Blogs are the shareable, educational content that will serve your target audience
• They can help you grow and interact with your community leading to brand loyalty 

Next steps! 

That’s it – those are the best business blogging platforms. 

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The #1 blogging platform is WordPress, hands down. But there are other platforms too – and depending on your needs, they might be a better fit for your unique needs. 

However, choosing your platform is just one step of the process. 

You also need to build traffic and create a high-converting blog.

After all, if you don’t have those two things in place, your blog won’t do anything for your business. 

But how do you create a high-traffic, high-converting blog?

Sign up for my masterclass on how to automatically attract clients and grow your business.

Learn more:

• What is a Business Blog?
• How to Start a Business Blog
• How to Grow Your Blog

The post The Best Business Blogging Platforms (+The TOP Platform) appeared first on Luisa Zhou.

Whether you want to drive traffic to your business website with a blog or turn a blog into a business, you’re in the right place.

Ready to increase your income with a thriving blog? Read on.

How to start a business blog in 2024

1. Find a niche
2. Choose a blog name and hosting platform
3. Understand your audience
4. Make money blogging
5. Write blog posts
6. Grow your blog

What is a blog? 

A blog is a website that contains content on a specific topic. 

Blogs can be about anything, such as… 

• Business and entrepreneurship
• Beauty
• Career
• Health

…And so on.

Blogs tend to be more conversational and less objective than news articles. 

Businesses typically start blogs to increase leads and sales, improve brand awareness, and position themselves as “go-to” businesses in their industry.

Ultimately, blogging is a long-term marketing strategy. It takes time to build a blog – often several months.

That said, blogging has plenty of benefits. For example, if you optimize your blog to rank in search engines, you get “free” organic traffic to your website. That’s why blogging is so profitable and scalable. 

But how do you start a blog? Let’s take a look. 

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How to start a blog

What’s the best strategy for building a blog? 

In terms of blogging and SEO, the path to growth is straightforward. You need to create blogs and you need to promote them.

Let’s start from the very beginning…If you don’t have a niche yet, here’s how to find yours: 

1. Find your niche

To find your blog (and business) niche, you can look at a few places for clues: 

• What skills have you learned?
• What questions do people frequently ask you?

Make a list of all the skills you’ve ever learned. 

For example, when I started my first online business, I looked at skills like career coaching, Excel consulting, and, finally, digital advertising as potential business niches.

All of these were skills I had learned in my day jobs. 

But your skills could also be things you’ve learned outside of your job. 

Once you have a list of skills, narrow it down to the topics that people ask you about. 

Now, you don’t have to find a skill you’re extremely “passionate” about. Passion doesn’t help you build a successful business or blog.

But you should pick one that you think is somewhat interesting.

For example, when I was finding my niche, I first tested Excel consulting. However, I quickly realized I wasn’t motivated enough to work on it every day.

So go for a topic you think is interesting enough – you can work on it long-term even if it’s not your biggest passion. That’s what I did with digital advertising when I started helping small businesses advertise online.

Now, think about the audience that might want blog content about this topic. 

AKA your target audience. 

Figuring out who you want to serve will help you write better blogs for that audience.

Put all of these elements together and you’ll get a simple tagline: 

• “Executive coaching for new managers”
• “Health advice for new moms”
• “Digital marketing tips for small business owners”

That’s how you find your niche.

Want an even simpler approach?

Here’s a video to help you figure out your niche in one sentence: 

However, if you already have a business, then use your business niche for your blog.

Your blog should sell your products and services so the topics you write about should be closely related to those. 

Once you’ve defined your niche, you can set up your blog. 

We’ll talk about how in the next step.

2. Buy a domain name and choose a blogging platform

To build a blog, you need both a domain name and a blogging platform.

We’ll look at both below.

Blog name 

To start, let’s talk about naming your blog. 

If you’re adding a blog to your existing business then you can skip this part. 

But if this is a new blog or business website, you need a blog name. 

I don’t recommend you worry about this too much. 

If you’re in doubt, use your own name and build it as a personal brand. Just like I use “LuisaZhou.com” as my business name.

However, if you don’t want to use your own name or you want a more creative name, check out Spotify’s business name generator. 

Then, the name you choose needs to be available on a domain service. 

You need a domain name (www.domain.com) to build your blog. If your name is taken, you can add a word to it. For example: www.yournameconsulting.com. 

To find and buy domain names, I recommend Hover. You typically find .com domains for $14.99/year.

Blog platform

The next step is to choose the right blogging platform. 

There are self-hosted and hosted platforms. 

Self-hosted means you need a hosting provider to support your blog. You build it on a content management system and then connect a hosting provider to it. 

Hosted blogs are drag-and-drop platforms where you get access to a full blogging platform and don’t have to build your own blog.

While hosted platforms might be easier for someone who hasn’t built a blog before, there’s a huge drawback.

These platforms aren’t as flexible as self-hosted platforms. They can hurt things like your website performance, which, in turn, can affect how well your website ranks in search engines. 

That’s why I recommend building your blog on a self-hosted platform.

The best self-hosted platform is WordPress.org, which is used by 40% of the websites on the internet. WordPress isn’t a perfect platform, but it gets the job done.

In terms of hosting platform, go for WPEngine. 

You also need a theme to design your blog. There are plenty of pre-built themes (that are pretty much drag-and-drop options). Elementor is a great option. 

I share the steps of building a WordPress website here. 

A few drag-and-drop content management systems are: 

• Squarespace: This website builder is, in most cases, the best option if you’re looking to build a blog with a drag-and-drop tool. Squarespace focuses quite a bit on improving their users’ searchability in search engines. 
• Medium: You build your blog on a separate platform. You can’t really design your own blog but need to use Medium’s format. Typically, Medium isn’t the best option for a business blog. 
• Substack: Substack is a newsletter service, so it’s technically not a blog platform. I don’t really recommend that you build your blog on Substack; you don’t own your audience and have little control over it. 

Next, let’s take a look at your blog audience. 

3. Understand your audience

Understanding your audience comes down to one simple thing: 

Market research.

My first online business failed because of a lack of market research. Because I didn’t spend time getting to know my audience, I didn’t know what to offer them or how to speak to them.

So how do you do market research for your blog and business? 

First, you need to focus on the right questions. 

Figure out: 

• What are their goals and aspirations? 
• What are their pain points or greatest challenges?
• How does your audience speak about your topic?
• What questions are they asking?
• What blogs are they already reading?

Then you need to ask your audience these questions. 

The best way? Get them on the phone and interview them. 

You can do this by offering coaching or consulting services within your niche. 

This will give you access to your ideal readers so you can ask them about their pain points directly.

Or you can put a callout on Reddit or Facebook groups to interview people in return for a free download or service from you. 

Interviewing potential readers of your blog will validate that

1. Your blog will truly help people
2. Your blog has earning potential

Knowing your audience will help you create content, understand what resonates with them, and sell products or services they want. 

Let’s talk about monetization next.

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4. Make money blogging

Is it possible to make money blogging? 

Yes, but you need the right monetization strategy.

If you already have a business, you can use your blog as the first step of your sales funnel. 

So, when people find your blog, some of them will be interested in  learning more.

They take the next step, whether it’s buying your product or joining your audience. 

If you have a high-ticket offer like an online course or one-to-one service, encourage your readers to sign up to your email list. 

From there, you can nurture your audience and build trust over time to sell them your services.

We’ll talk more about email sales funnels later in this blog post. 

But if you have a lower end product that costs around $50-$200, then you can pitch it directly to get people to buy. 

However, if you don’t already have a business, here are some monetization strategies for blogs: 

Coaching or consulting

Coaching and consulting are the most profitable ways to monetize your audience. 

Especially if your blog is based on your existing skills. 

But what do coaches and consultants do? 

Coaches guide and motivate a client to help them achieve a specific goal. Coaching is more of a partnership that allows the client space to answer some of their own questions.

Consulting is similar. However, consultants provide clients with an exact expert roadmap for a fee. They also tend to work with businesses more than individuals. 

So why do these two services work for bloggers?

Simple: Your blog positions you as an expert in your field. 

As an expert, you can help people reach their goals by designing a coaching package. 

Online courses 

An online course is a self-study or live study digital product teaching people a specific topic. 

Online courses are great for blogs because they apply to almost any niche. 

Whether you teach people to play guitar or provide a step-by-step process to getting a promotion. 

Like coaching/consulting, you can teach the knowledge you already have and use your blog to advertise your expertise. 

Online courses are highly profitable but you need an engaged audience to make it work. 

That said, coaching or consulting are a faster way to profitability – even with a small audience. 

You also learn a lot about your audience through coaching. 

But online courses help you scale. 

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you recommend products and get a commission when your readers purchase using your link. 

This is how many blogs monetize their audiences. But there are some caveats. 

For one, income is inconsistent depending on the products you recommend.

You also need to be careful about the products and services you recommend otherwise, you might lose your audience’s trust.

While affiliate marketing is a great way to substitute your income (I do it too if I really love a product), but choose coaching or courses as your main offer for a more profitable business. 

Digital products

Digital products are downloadable assets that you can sell using a one-to-many model.

Examples include: 

• Planners
• eBooks
• Stock photos/video/audio
• Recorded workshops

These are good as side offers for blogs as they are easy to set up and sell straight from your website. 

But most digital products sell for a low cost – typically under $5.

So they aren’t the most profitable income stream for blogs unless you have a huge audience.

Physical products 

You can also start an ecommerce shop and sell physical products. Unless you have experience selling physical products, this isn’t typically the way to go. 

Why? Because you need a product and inventory. Both of those require funding, which makes this business model so much riskier. 

Next, let’s take a look at one of the key steps in building your blog – how to write content for your blog.

5. Write blog posts

When I write content, I focus on one thing:

Writing content that’s better than the content already out there. 

How do I do this? These are my guiding principles: 

• Create clickable titles: The title is the first thing your readers will see on Google before they click. To create a clickable title, try adding a benefit or a number of tips.
  
• Make it easy to read: Using simple language and short sentences makes your blog easier to read. You can also add videos and photos to break up the text.
  
• Write in a conversational tone: Overly professional blog posts are not engaging. Using a conversational tone makes your blog posts more fun to read.
  
• Show personality: Showing your personality helps build trust with the reader. How you do this depends on your audience. For example, I mention my goofy German Shepherd from time to time or tell stories about how I grew my businesses.
  
• Add value: The “best” content is valuable content. By that, I mean comprehensive enough to answer your reader’s questions. So all of my blogs are a minimum of 1,500 words. Some are as long as 5,000 words if the topic needs more detail. Great blog posts are thorough and dive deep into the topic. 

There are no set rules for creating engaging blogs. Write in a way that works for you and your audience. 

Next, how do you get people to read your blog? 

6. Grow your blog

To grow your blog, you need traffic. 

And the best way to drive traffic to your blog is through search engine optimization or SEO. 

SEO comes down to this: 

Search engines like Google have intelligent algorithms that crawl web pages for information. 

This is how they answer searches. 

And you can make small changes to your blog posts to help Google’s algorithm find and promote your content.

So why is SEO better than social media? Because it’s sustainable and long-term. You don’t need to post every day or week to get traction. You just have to make sure that your blog post is one of the best around a specific topic and Google will encourage people to read it.

But SEO takes time to build up. 

So, if you’re betting on growing a business, start with a less resource-intensive and faster marketing strategy. I talk about different ways to get clients here. 

Get traffic from Google

Want to get your blogs seen on Google? It all starts with keywords.

Keywords are phrases that help Google understand what your blog is about. 

Every blog post should focus on one target keyword. 

How do you find the right keywords?

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that helps you discover keywords in your niche. 

Type in a phrase related to your niche. For example: “Foods to boost your brain.” 

You’ll now get a bunch of related keywords to choose from, along with information about those keywords (traffic, competition, ad spend, and more).

Now, you don’t necessarily want to go for a keyword that has the most traffic.

Instead, look at low-competition keywords. 

Your new blog doesn’t have any authority yet (AKA Google doesn’t really see it as a credible source in your industry), so you’ll struggle to compete for high-competition keywords. 

To find keywords that are less competitive, go to Google and type in one of the keywords you found in Google Keyword Planner.

Look at the search results.

If there are a ton of large websites like Forbes, New York Times, and Mayo Clinic ranking for the keyword, go back to GKP and find another alternative. You can tackle more competitive keywords when your website traffic is growing. 

Instead, try other keywords that have fewer large websites in the search results. 

To find even more keyword ideas, use the “Start with a website” tool in Google Keyword Planner to see what keywords your competitors are ranking for. 

Then look at their blogs to see how you can make yours better.

And to learn more about keyword research, check out this video:

Use your target keyword for each blog post in these strategic places:

• The title
• At least one heading
• The intro
• At least once in the main blog text
• The conclusion

Now, you don’t need to blog every week to see results. 

I grew my blog into a multi-six-figure income stream by posting just one blog post per month.

But you need to make every blog post highly valuable so that you stand out. 

The more people like your content, the higher Google will rank your posts.

How do you make your blog posts more valuable, though? 

One of the best ways to know what Google already sees as valuable content is to look at your competitors. 

For each of the keywords you’re targeting, look at the top search results. 

• How long are the top blog posts?
• What kind of information do they include?
• How do they use related keywords? 

Review these questions to figure out the areas where your blog can be better. 

That is more engaging, more detailed, and more fun to read. 

Build your authority

At the same time, you need better authority. 

Google sees your blog as more authoritative with more high-quality content. 

But you also build authority by earning backlinks.

Backlinks are links from other websites to your website.

Some backlinks are earned “organically” by creating high-quality content that gets linked in blogs. But you can be more strategic to get higher-quality backlinks. 

Here are three quick strategies: 

Connectively

Connectively (previously HARO) is a free newsletter that sends media requests from journalists and bloggers. Publications like Business Insider or Forbes use Connectively to find sources for their articles.

The way it works is that you pitch requests with a short text. 

However, HARO is highly competitive so you’ll need to be patient. But the links you get add up. 

Guest posting

Seek out high-authority websites in your niche to submit a guest blog. Focus on making the guest post as valuable as possible and add a link back to your own website.

Here’s a simple script you can send to blog editors:

“Hi NAME OF EDITOR,

My name is (your name) and I am (include something relevant about yourself). 

I’d love to submit a guest post to (name of publication). I researched topics that would do great on your site:

• Topic suggestion 1
• Topic suggestion 2
• Topic suggestion 3

I’ve previously written guest posts for (include a few sites if you’ve previously written guest posts): 

• Link to example 1
• Link to example 2
• Link to example 3

Let me know if these look interesting to (name of publication). 

Best,

YOUR NAME”

Podcasting

Approach podcasts in your niche to appear as a guest host. Then ask the podcast host to link back to your website in the show notes. Podcasting is a great strategy for building brand awareness and positioning yourself as an expert in your field.

Try this script:

“Hi NAME OF PODCASTER,

My name is (your name) and I am (include something relevant about yourself so the podcaster understands why YOU are the right person to feature on their show). 

I’d love to set up an interview for (name of the podcast). Here are a few topics that I think your audience would love:

• Podcast topic suggestion 1
• Podcast topic suggestion 2
• Podcast topic suggestion 3

Let me know if these would be interesting to (name of the podcast) listeners. 

Best,

YOUR NAME”

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Do blogs still make money? 

You might think that blogs are “outdated” and social media is the best place to be.

But blogs are still highly profitable…and scalable!

But here’s the thing: 

Blogs don’t necessarily make a lot of money on their own. 

You can make some money from Adsense and banner ads on your blog website, but it’s not much. 

To monetize your blog effectively, you need to:

• Grow an audience
• Build an income stream  

For example, by optimizing my SEO and creating blogs consistently, I grew my blog into a multi-six-figure marketing channel for my business in just two years. 

That money doesn’t come from banner ads or affiliate marketing. I use my blog to drive traffic to my products and services.

Want to achieve that too? Read on to learn more.

How to monetize your blog 

Monetizing your blog comes down to this: 

How do you get people to come to your website, trust you, and then buy your products or services? 

A social media following is great but you don’t own it – if Instagram shuts down tomorrow, your followers go with it. 

Instead, I recommend building an email list. 

THIS is what is truly valuable. An audience you own and actively wants to hear from YOU.

Here’s the funnel you’ll need: 

Step 1: Build a lead magnet

A lead magnet is an incentive to sign up for your email list. 

Your lead magnet will depend on your audience.

Ideas include: 

• PDF guide or eBook
• Free webinar access
• Mini email course
• Resource library access
• Downloadable template or checklist
• Exclusive audio

The best lead magnets give away a free piece of valuable content.

For example, if you’re a career coach, you could create a short PDF on how to improve your resume. 

Or like my lead magnet here…

Next, you need an opt-in form so that people can download your lead magnet and join your email list.

Step 2: Set up an opt-in form

You need an email platform to host your list and create an opt-in form. 

I recommend MailChimp if you don’t want to deal with too much tech. ActiveCampaign is great too but requires more setup. 

Whatever email platform you choose, you need to create an opt-in form. 

My advice? Keep it simple.

Just include the tagline for your lead magnet, a name box, and an email box.

After all, too many questions will turn people away. 

Most email platforms have a simple embed process that will show your opt-in form on your website. 

And you can use a service like OptinMonster to create pop-ups and header opt-ins.

Like I use here…

Let’s move on to step 3.

Step 3: Nurture your email list

The first email you send your new subscribers is the link to your lead magnet. 

But then what? 

I recommend creating a welcome sequence to introduce them to you and your services. 

You want your emails to be:

• Short
• Engaging
• Valuable

For example, here’s an email I’ve shared with my subscribers that gives the reader insight into who I am as their business big sister:

Choose how often you’re going to send emails. Aim for at least once a week to keep up their engagement. 

With your email list, you have an active audience that you own. And you can start pitching your products and services to people who trust you and have signed up to hear more from you. 

What’s next? 

There you have it – now you know how to start a business blog.

The 4-Step Automatic Attraction System

for attracting more clients daily... without paid ads, social media, or "hustle"!

GET THE PDF NOW

Blogging is a very clear and straightforward path to growth. 

And in my hard-earned opinion after a decade of testing different strategies, online lead generation is one of the areas where you can keep it simple and use what’s been proven to work. 

So if you’d like to simplify your lead generation while also growing faster, here’s what I’ve got for you… 

A 4-step system that teaches you exactly how to get clients every day – automatically.

Read more

What is Business Blogging?

How to Grow Your Blog

The Best Blogging Courses to Master Blogging

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