Does Blogging Help with Google Rankings?
By Josh Moore
Some people think that blogging is the best way to improve your rank in Google search results. And they are right – to a point.
The fact is, you can waste hours writing blogs and never see any improvement. Or sometimes, it can work great!
So, what works and what doesn’t? How can you get the result you’re looking for?
We write content for our clients all the time, and there are few tricks that can help super-charge each blog post or article. Sometimes our clients write content themselves too, and there is one key step we always recommend: Answer questions that people are asking.
For example, one of our electrician clients recently wrote a post about the risks involved in charging your electric vehicle from a standard household power socket, and what to do instead.
It was a brilliant article, because it answered a question that every EV owner has asked – “Should I charge my EV using a standard household power socket?”
Now, how do we know that people are asking that question? Simple. Google tells us what questions people are asking. It’s not hidden away. It’s actually easy to find and it provides a goldmine of value that can help you ensure that your content always matches what searchers are looking for.
Because here’s the newsflash: Google is not interested in you or your business. Horrifying I know!
Google is primarily concerned with the people using their search engine to find answers. They are absolutely committed to giving searchers the best answer they possibly can.
Google uses complex algorithms and artificial intelligence to understand exactly what searchers are really asking. Then, it searches the internet for the best answer to the question. So, to rank higher, we need to write the best answers to the questions that are already being asked.
Fortunately, Google is so interested in clarifying search intent, that they offer a few suggestions to the searcher, so that they can provide a more accurate answer.
This is where the magic begins.
If you Google “charge my EV at home,” you will begin to see the results that Google believes you want. You will also see a heading “People also ask.”
Under that heading you will see several more specific questions about charging EVs.
- Can you charge an electric car with a regular outlet?
- What is needed to charge an electric car at home?
- How fast can you charge an EV at home??
In this section on the search results page, Google is showing you what questions people are asking that are related to your search.
You can easily try this for your business. What question do you get asked all the time? Pop that question in Google and see what comes up under “People also ask.”
And as an extra tip, when you click on one of the questions, Google then immediately expands the number of questions it listed. It generally starts by showing three to four questions. If you click on a question, it will add another four questions to the list. By doing this you can build up a large list of questions that people are asking.
Then, to when it comes to creating your content, all we have to do is write content that addresses one or more of these questions. In fact, you can put together a long article answering a lot of these questions all on one post.
By starting with the questions people are already asking you’ll be writing relevant content and will find that Google is a lot more likely to rank your website more strongly for searches related to the questions your site answers.
Easy right? Well, yes and no. Content takes work, but this approach is certainly a good place to start.