Too many people nowadays are overlooking the importance of a Blog or News section in favor of keyword-stuffing their main pages with keywords. Even operators are struggling to keep up with their SEO and are adding blurbs at the bottom of their homepage with every keyword they can find crammed in
Now, I’m not saying that keyword-stuffing your main pages won’t work, it generally does as long as the copy doesn’t look like spam, however it is unattractive to your audience and doesn’t exactly sell your website well. What affiliates and even operators are forgetting about is the importance of a Blog or News section on your own website.
Here are just a couple of reasons why your site should have one, rather than just relying on keyword-stuffing.
- Very few people are able to update their main pages everyday as this would take hours to do. With a blog, your site is effectively getting fresh content uploaded each day, something that will appease both Google and your visitors. You should also look to include the feed somewhere on your homepage as this gives your audience something new to come back for.
- Blogs are great ways to engage with your audience. Most affiliates are conveying the same statistics and information as each other, with the only independent part coming from their reviews. Using a blog or news feed allows you to express yourself more freely and at the same time, you are able to gauge what your audience likes by seeing which articles are being frequented more.
- Give your site some direction. Most affiliate sites overlook the flow of traffic when they are running a website. A blog is great as it means you can direct traffic where you want with some simple A-B inbound links, and at the same time you don’t lose any PR (Page Rank).
- Get into Google News! Perhaps every affiliates dream, and one of the hardest to achieve, the infamous Google News allows your article or blog post to get a whole new range of readers and ultimately, increase traffic to your site and sales. Remember however, Google News can take months to approve and will only accept sites that are constantly updating their Blog, are not self-promoting and are delivering worthwhile news.
Perhaps the most substantial benefit that a blog can provide though, is to give your website a ‘human touch.’ Most websites are filled with stagnant content and get boring fast … Blogs and even Forums give your audience a reason to come back to your site and give you the chance to reiterate a sale to them. If you have a new offer on the homepage and it isn’t being picked up, try writing about it and directing the traffic to it. All the big affiliates are already doing this, and why? Because it works!
For those of you who are concerned about the extra time it will take to write your blog or believe that your writing ability is a little short of the mark – there are plenty of companies and even some affiliates out there who would be happy to offer their services in exchange for either a small compensatory amount or a return on SEO. Just check out the CAP forums and you’re sure to find a great bargain or two.
About the Author
Daniel Laming spent over two years working as an affiliate manager for GTech and Red Interactive, but recently decided to pursue a role as a full-time affiliate working on website BigPainsNoGains with a team of five, focusing on Online Casino and Online Bingo offers.