First, let’s talk about why.

Because Google says so.

If Google tells me to jump off a bridge because it’ll help with search rankings, you best believe that I’ll consider it. Luckily, taking a dive isn’t necessary. All you have to do is provide fresh content on your site.

[When Google hands you a cheat-sheet answer like that, you better listen.]

Moz, taking their own advice, updated their post about how fresh content ranks on Google. It really is worth taking 11 minutes to read the whole thing, but it can generally be summed up like this:

…your goal should be to update your site in a timely manner that benefits users, with an aim of increasing clicks, user engagement, and fresh links. These are the clearest signals you can pass to Google to show that your site is fresh and deserving of high rankings.

Updated, helpful content that gets engagement is good in Google’s eyes. I think we beat that dead horse sufficiently. Moving on.

Blogging is an easy way to update content on your website.

A blog is a great way to add new stuff to your site. It covers the bases that Google is looking for. In one neat little package, you have 1) a long enough format to write something of value that users will engage with (click on links in your post, comment on, etc), 2) core content that has a lot of body copy, and 3) something to share on social media to direct people back to your site.

Why care about social shares?

Part of the reason why you want social profiles set up for your business or blog is to share links that drive traffic back to your site. Of course, you want to mix up the content, but linking back to your site is part of a good mix. Hopefully, people will also click the links, like the links, share the links, do all the internet actions with the links.

You following me so far?

Google takes social shares of that particular page into consideration when it’s crawling and ranking your content. And that could help bump it up the search list.

We’re starting to come full-circle here.

So, when your content is fresh, helpful, and engaging, Google is like, “I wanna be on you,” and rewards you with a big search ranking.

And that is why you need a blog.

Bonus points! I’d highly suggest some further reading about fresh content and search ranking. Kissmetrics has two great articles that break this down wonderfully. One shows the top 5 things you need to know about the top ranked pages and 5 things you need to know about social & SEO (ooh that rhymes). And also this article about why fresh content is critical for SEO by SEO Site Checkup.

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Do you have a blog on your site? What’s your “why”?

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