Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do blogs affect seo?
-
Could you help me understand how blogs affect seo and how this works specifically when a blog is located within a site?
Thank you!
-
Autogenerated or inserted by hand makes no difference.
I get LOTS of traffic because I cover some events and some people search for them with a date.
To be certain that Google can read your dates or any other text information, view your page in google's cache.
-
How important is a Date/Time stamp? Does it make a difference if it is auto-generated by the CMS/Platform or by hand?
-
Most people talk about blogs like they are the "Silver Bullets of SEO". However, their content is nearly worthless unless you can do one of two things: 1) write fantastic content that lots of other people want to link, like and tweet, or 2) content that is genuinely valuable to your visitors. If your content doesn't measure up then you will not get a good return on your time.
-
Hi Derrick.
Both James and Ryan offer sound advice. I'll add just a bit.
Let's say you have an online store selling tennis supplies. Your store is a bunch of pages which can change a bit with the addition of a new product, but for the most part remain static. If you add a blog and offer a couple quality articles per week, you have a chance to offer articles such as "Beginner's Guide To Tennis", "How to Choose a Tennis Racket", "How to Avoid Tennis Injuries" along with countless other topics.
You would be sharing your wisdom on a subject where you have expertise. When users seek this knowledge by typing in a search query such as "best tennis racket" they may find your "How to Choose a Tennis Racket" article where you mentioned "the best tennis racket for teenagers is the Wilson 1000". Your article would also contain a link to the Wilson 1000 where an interested reader could buy the item.
You would generate traffic for your site that you otherwise might not see. Also, users have an opportunity to ask you questions. Someone could ask "what is the best racket for a 30 yr old woman with a short reach?". You can then engage potential customers in a manner that your storefront site alone cannot do.
-
Blogs are a well understood format for delivering new content. There isn't anything inherently special about having a blog, you still need to do the basic on page SEO to optimize your posts, and you'll still want to do link building to generate authority.
In very general terms, blogs are recommended for SEO because it encourages site owners to publish fresh content often, and in a format that most web users know how to share with each other. Its up to you to create the killer content that gets the links.
-
Blogs are great for SEO because you have a platform for search engines to provide fresh new content, the problem with static websites is that the content is always the same. This is where blogs always push new content.
Well the best bet is to have your blog located on www.website.com/blog people make a mistake when they have the blog on a sub domain because you don't have the right flow of link juice.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best SEO Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords. For example, my site (All Things Nature) sells a brand of wooden sculptures (Woodsculp) and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the brand by animal, the brand by collection and the brand by release date.
Content Development | | nb2e4fg
Examples of keywords could be: Brand by Animal: Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
Brand by Collection: Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
Brand by Release Date: Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022 I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022 The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience? Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?) Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories? Categories: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants Tags: Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called Elijah Elephant, for example could fall under Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari and Woodsculp Summer 2022. In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site? Thanks in advance for any help and advice.0 -
New blog contributors
For context my website is a content resource portal. In SEO training I have been told that it is a good SEO move to have as many content contributors as possible. As a result we are pushing to recruit new content contributors so they can be listed as new contributors/authors on our site alongside their valuable content. Would this move be good for our SEO rankings and is there anything in particular to consider with this?
Content Development | | Chanice0 -
Is it possible to do guest blogging on moz blog?
Hi, I know it used to be possible but now i don't find any contact to submit an article to the blog. How does that work? Is that still possible to do it? And if yes, what are the conditions to be writer for Moz blog? Thanks. Stephanie
Content Development | | steph_ba0 -
Blog.xyz.com
I have a site that is running its blog on www.blog.xyz.com and I am looking for ways to increase Google traffic. Would it be better to running the blog on something like: www.xyz.com/blog instead?
Content Development | | kevgrand0 -
Recommendations on the URL Structure When Posting Blogs
Sites are adopting different URL structures for posting blogs (examples below). Quicksprout ( www.domain.com/dateposted/blogposttitle) Moz (www.domain.com/blog/blogposttitle) SEO Book (www.domain.com/blogposttitle) What do you recommend?
Content Development | | SEO5Team0 -
Is it okay to delete old blog posts?
Hi All, I'm doing some SEO work on an entertainment (movies/tv/gaming) blog that started in 2011. Their recent articles have gained some popularity due to improved content and marketing, but there is some old stuff from the early days that was poorly written and gets virtually no traffic. These are mostly old news pieces. Out of approximately 10,000 articles, about 1,000 are receiving the lions share of the traffic. I feel like their good content is getting bogged down in a sea of crap. Would there be any harm in deleting some of those old posts? Is there a best practice for culling content? Thanks!
Content Development | | 74andsunny0 -
Should I publish several blog posts at once or stagger?
I have several blog posts that I want to publish (40 or so). For freshness is it better to stagger their publication over several months or is it fine to publish them all at the same time. The comments are closed.
Content Development | | AndreB0 -
Simple question: How many words optimal for blog posts
Hello, We're adding a blog to one of our sites. How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines? If it varies from industry to industry, please give a couple of examples. We were going to do 500 words but that seems a bit long. Thanks!
Content Development | | BobGW0