Why Consistent Blogging Matters – The Importance of Continuity and Quality

Listen to any marketer, and they’ll give you a million and one reasons why consistent blogging matters.

Blogging is a cost-effective and powerful marketing tool that can help you to establish a commanding online presence. This is vital for smaller businesses to level up the playing field.

The more you blog, the more visible your business becomes as your efforts gain traction over time.

As with most things in life, though, blogging regularly with quality content is easier said than done, particularly in the early days.

It can be soul-destroying, especially when you’ve invested massive amounts of time and effort to deliver a quality and informative post, only to realise that nobody is reading it.

Not only that, it takes several months or more for blogging to gain traction, so you need to repeat the process over and over again.

Moreover, it will only happen if you’re consistently producing content of a high standard.

When all is said and done, that’s a tough gig in anyone’s language!

So is blogging worth it?

Definitely!

Regular blogging with high-quality and informative content will give your business multiple advantages.  That’s why consistent blogging matters!

Let’s take a closer look.

Benefits of consistent blogging

Blogging benefit #1 – Evening up the marketing odds 

Let’s face it; it can be hard to compete with well-established, more prominent businesses. Multi-chain dental groups, for example, have more cash to plough into SEO and marketing and, as a result, could probably out-market you with a click of a finger.

Consistent blogging, however, evens up the marketing odds.   Regularly publishing quality blogs gives businesses – even those with a limited marketing budget – a way to gain prominence in online search results and convert traffic into customers.

It allows you to make the most effective use of search engine optimisation (SEO). This will ensure as many people as possible see your business on search results pages.

Blogging benefit #2 – Blogging entices web crawlers to return

Search engines use algorithm-based web crawlers to index website pages, including those in the blog section of your site. If you regularly post new, relevant content, it entices web crawlers back to your site.

So why is this important?

Because, believe it or not, there is no central database or registry of all web pages. Instead, search engines rely on frequent crawling to search for new pages to add them to existing pages.

Every time you post a blog, it creates an additional page with its URL. That URL is then crawled and catalogued/ranked in the search engine. The more pages (read blogs) you have, the more your site gets crawled and the better your SEO ranking – well, that’s the theory anyway!

Blogging benefit #3 – Focus, focus, focus

Continued blogging allows you to develop a range of informative posts in your given field.  Being focused on your industry or field enables you to devote posts to a range of keywords and their related topics. Eventually, you become a trusted authority in your given niche.

In dentistry, as you probably know – trust is everything!

Blogging benefit #4 – Getting some Google love

There’s one thing about Google that you should know. ‘The Big G’ loves quality content.  Moreover, Google loves a website that’s frequently updated.  Therefore, if you continue to bang out quality content, month after month, year after year, you should be rewarded with higher rankings and, ultimately, more patients, customers or visitors.

Of course, there are other search engines, but we use Google as a vital reference because:

• Google is responsible for over 40 per cent of the internet.
• More than 90 per cent of online journeys begin with a Google search.
• 75 per cent of internet searchers don’t look any further than the first page of search results.
• 51 per cent of businesses say updating content is their most efficient SEO strategy.
• 89 per cent of digital content marketers use blog posts.

Post regularly, gain some Google love, and you’re well on your way to getting more customers, buyers or patients. That there is why consistent blogging matters!

But wait, there’s more…

Blogging benefit #5 – Obtaining link love

Aside from the great Google love-in, there’s another type of recognition that your website needs, and that’s link love.

Here’s how it works…

Consistent blogging allows you to get more quality inbound links – in effect, a vote of confidence from authoritative sources.

When another website links back to yours, Google sees inbound links to indicate that your blog has content of value. This makes these links a crucial element in search engine optimisation.

Produce high-quality content that people want to read, gain some links and hey presto! You’re up and running.

Why consistent blogging matters – The key takeaway

Did you know that your blog posts can generate traffic and leads for many years?

Here’s a fact!

Ninety per cent of leads generated through blogging come via older posts that have been around for 6, 12 or 18 months – particularly evergreen content that’s not time-sensitive and retains its relevance.

It’s true!

Frequent blogging strengthens your unique digital footprint, leaving a trail of information leading directly back to your website.

That’s why you need to do it and why you need to do it regularly!

So this brings us to the million-dollar question

How often should you blog?

There are no hard and fast rules about blogging frequency, and opinion varies. However, research suggests that:

• 11 or more posts a month result in a noticeable increase in traffic.
• Businesses that publish 16 or more monthly blog posts get 3.5 times more traffic than those that blog less than four times a month.

We recommend blogging as often as you can without sacrificing quality and, of course, burnout! That may be one or two times a week or one or two times a month. Either way, it’s all about continuity.

You won’t get any benefit from creating a new post every week if the content is substandard.

Likewise, there’s little, if anything, to be gained by publishing one decent post a week for three weeks and then stopping altogether. Consistency is key.

So, to the final point…

You now know why consistent blogging matters, but how do you churn out great content, week after week, month after month?

How to blog consistently

The first step towards consistent blogging is to draw up a content calendar – a schedule of sustainable topics in the long term so you’re able to stick to it.

To help come up with topics, you can:

• Check out what your competitors are writing.
• Jot down ideas as soon as they come to mind.
• Do keyword research so you understand what interests your target audience.

When it comes to writing itself, you need to commit to blogging as a priority. The more you write, the better you’ll get. Eventually, you may even be able to produce the type of long-form content that Google favours.

However, planning, researching and writing blogs on an ongoing basis is a tall order for small businesses like dental practices with limited time and resources to devote to blogging.

So what’s the solution?

Outsourcing!

Taking the stress out of consistent blogging

Listen. I get it. Consistent blogging takes serious time and effort – time you probably don’t have.

So why not consider outsourcing the task?

If you hire a team of professional dental blog writers like us, you can look forward to well-researched, polished articles that your practice will be proud of.

Dental Writers are experienced specialists in dental blog content. We understand the best digital content marketing strategies to grow your business with unique, compelling and engaging content that speaks directly to your prospective patients.

We also know how to optimise dental content for search engines to ensure your practice enjoys a robust online presence to make you stand out.

If you understand why consistent blogging matters, isn’t it about time you got in touch?