‘Yes!’ is the short answer. The qualified answer is: ‘Yes, provided that the topics that you are blogging about are relevant to your business and the wider interests of your customer base.’ In terms of visibility for your organisation on Google search results, blogging is more essential now – in the age of AI overviews – than it has been at any time since the frontier days of Google search at the turn of the century.
Why blog at all?
Back to basics: if you never update your website, the web crawlers that inform the Google algorithm will assume your website is dead and it will slip down the rankings. Regular new fresh webpages are a sign of an active business, and updating a blog with articles relevant to your business activity is the easiest way to be recognised as active by Google.
Extra benefits
Careful inclusion of keyphrases and keywords into blog copy will mean the articles start to show up on Google searches for those terms. A whole industry built up around Search Engine Optimisation, and people tend to roll their eyes when a digital marketer mentions ‘the dreaded SEO’. But, at its core, having pages on your website that answered questions posed by people searching on Google would get you seen. In digital marketing terms this is referred to as ‘organic ranking’.
Sponsored links
One doesn’t become the 4th richest corporation in the world by freely indexing and sharing relevant links. So gradually Google increased the number of sponsored links appearing on its search results page. In recent years, the top 3 or 4 results on most searches have been auctioned off to interested parties - the more interested parties the higher the price for the top slot.
Thus, even a blog article that perfectly answers a person’s search query might be relegated to fifth position, not even visible without scrolling, because rivals have paid Google to occupy the top slots.
Featured snippets
However, if Google believes you to be an authoritative source (more on this below) then it may pull out a chunk of text from your website to appear as a featured snippet - you won’t be in the hallowed top position, but your link may be in a box that makes it stand out from the other sponsored and organic links.
Similarly, if you are judged to be a relevant local business offering services relating to the query, then you may be selected to be one of the three businesses featured on a map that is displayed in the results.
AI overviews
The latest addition to the Google search results page is the AI overview. Ask Google a question and its Artificially Intelligent chatbot will produce an answer right there above the search results. AI is a technology in its infancy. One frequently cited problem is AI's tendency to ‘hallucinate’ – or state confidently an answer that bears no relation to truth.
In order to temper this tendency (or at least shift the blame) answers given in a Google AI overview are linked to authoritative sources – frequently, you guessed it: blog articles.
Becoming an authoritative source
So how does Google choose which sources to cite in these AI overviews? What are the factors that can get your company website linked on these top level Search responses?
Google, as ever, does not publish precise details about this, but we can put together a pretty educated answer based on our observations of how our clients' websites are being used in this manner. Your organisation needs to be official (e.g. company record at Companies House). You need to have positive reviews on Google and other testimonial sites. But most importantly, you need to have website pages that feature topic specific highly detailed answers to the kinds of questions that are being asked on Google.
In other words… you need a blog!
Are you too busy running your business to update your website blog? RWD offers a monthly blogging service. Our talented team of copywriters and designers will research relevant keywords, schedule a plan for your approval then publish monthly on your blog and social media accounts on your behalf. Call 01603 632552 to enquire about website design and digital marketing.
