Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
For the most part, keyphrases and terms play an integral role in the success of your blog. However, not everything you write needs to center around search terms. Sometimes it pays just to write to engage your current audience.
That’s assuming you already have people interested in your website. If your blog is relatively new, then you’ll find it difficult for some posts to get any attention.
But after a while of getting push notification subscribers, social media followers, or other fans of your work, not everything needs to center around what Google does.
From a creator’s perspective, sometimes it just feels good to create something.
Writing for Your Audience
The primary focus of any blog is its audience. Regardless if you’re operating a company website or a personal blog, everyone has a group of people who are interested in the content.
As with any audience, a large portion of them are going to read your material because of your personality and who you are. In fact, it’s not uncommon for readers to follow specific bloggers on company websites.
This is especially true if you are building an author blog. That’s because the vast majority of your audience are those interested in your books and other things you publish.
Blogging Isn’t Always the Same as Copywriting
Most companies nowadays have writers who “blog” about things relevant to the business. For example, I write quite a bit of content for GreenGeeks as a “blogger.” But, it focuses more on copywriting.
In this instance, my goal is to try to convince people to use our web hosting.
However, not all blogs are relevant to copywritten materials. In reality, a lot of bloggers focus on nothing more than their personal lives, experiences, or niches they love.
I follow a few myself.
The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to focus on copywriting in every single post. This is something that is quite difficult to get out of the habit of doing, especially if you’ve been doing it for the past decade.
Still Keep it Relevant
Perhaps one of the most important things to keep in mind, though, is that your blog posts still need to be relevant to the site. You have an audience for a reason.
For example, if you have a blog about writing, the last thing you want to publish is an article about growing pumpkins. Most people follow your blog because of your focus niche.
Does this mean all blogs need a niche to drive an audience? Absolutely not. As I said earlier, I follow a few bloggers who offer nothing more than insights into life in general.
However, if you have focused on a niche, it’s probably better to keep your blog posts within those topics. Otherwise, you might lose some of your audience.
Creating a Community
Just like YouTube, a successful blog can center around building a community of like-minded individuals. But, why is this important?
Because your community is more likely to share, interact, or even possibly buy something. And all of this can affect the overall success of your blog, especially if you’re monetizing it by using affiliates or ad platforms.
It’s not always about the money, though. Personally, I get more of a kick out of someone commenting on a blog post with a “Thank you for this” type of message.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love for the blogs to generate enough money for me to buy a brand new Kia Sorento. But I get far more out of knowing I helped someone accomplish something.
One of my favorite comments on YouTube was from someone who said I helped save their family from eviction because of the advice I gave about Textbroker. That, right there, is why I do what I do.
Return Visitors Drive Your Site Forward
New visitors to the blog are great. But, return visitors demonstrate that you’ve built a site people want to keep coming back to. This feeds the Google algorithm and helps boost your self-confidence.
This isn’t to mention how returning visitors are more likely to click ads, buy something, or even donate to you as a creator.
When you start seeing the same names pop up in the comment section, you know that you’re building an audience of dedicated readers. Even if it’s just a few people, it’ll be enough to inspire you to keep going as a creator.
Most of these people will simply visit the site anytime you create content, as long as they know something is published. Adding things like push notifications, email subscription forms (which I still need to add), or social media posts will remind them you still exist.
It’s All About Sharing and Offering Insights
One of the most popular posts on CrossingColorado.com right now is my article about how I decided to do a six-week experiment with the keto diet. It wasn’t anything special, just how and why I decided to try it.
That’s a prime example of how well an article can do simply by offering personal opinions and insights into any particular topic.
Now, I’m pretty sure that as the month continues, the article will lose a bit of momentum. Still, it’s currently among the top 10 and apparently piqued the interest of my readers and subscribers.
When people follow a blog, usually it’s because they’ve grown to trust the creator. As such, when something is published that shares an experience or offers insight into a subject, it may actually do better than keyword-researched pieces.
Keyphrases Are Still Vastly Important
Although blogging doesn’t always have to center around keyphrases and search terms, it can help drive success if you keep them in mind.
Take that blog post about the six-week keto plan. Not only did I write the post for my general audience who follows the blog, but I kept specific terms and topics in mind when I wrote the article.
With any luck, it’ll help with searchability in Google. But if not, at least I know I entertained a few followers who read it.
You can still write simple blog posts while keeping search traffic in mind. Especially if you’re able to answer a question about the topic with clarity. But you don’t always need to stress yourself out about trying to beat the competition for a specific term on the first page of the search results.
Mix it Up a Bit
Let me be clear, you’ll still need to write a few pieces of content that are focused on things like search intent and keyphrases. Especially if you’re planning on turning blogging into a career.
My point is that not all articles need to be so meticulous.
You will still need a way for people to find your blog in the first place. This means writing content focused on search results. Then, this leads to more people being able to find your website.
How can you expect people to subscribe to notifications or email lists if they don’t even know your site exists? It’s not like someone is plugging in random addresses into his or her browser hoping to land on something to read.
So, yes, keyphrases and search intent are important for growth. But, that doesn’t mean every article needs has to center around SEO.
What About Business Blogs?
When it comes to business blogs, that’s a bit of a different story. You want more SEO content in copywriting because you’re trying to sell a product or service. The goal is to inform or entertain while trying to get the best conversion rate possible.
So, from a business perspective, nearly every piece of content should focus on making money. Let’s face it, you’ll have employees to pay, overhead to cover, and a slew of other expenses to address.
Now, you’ll probably get a few customers who follow specific bloggers on your team. But the overall goal of a business blog is to generate as much income as possible.
Then again, that can also be the purpose of a personal blog. But, there is less pressure to turn a profit from a personal perspective as opposed to a corporate site.
In the instance of a business blog, yes, the vast majority (if not all) of the content should focus on search results.
Sometimes the Simplest Post Gets the Most Attention
In the beginning, yes, you’ll need keyphrases and search intent to go into the majority of your blog posts. But once you reach about 5,000 visitors per month or so, you can relax a bit and still be successful.
You still need to get that ball rolling down the hill, after all.
As time marches on, though, you’ll start to see trends where subscribers and followers come to read your content simply because of who you are. And that’s a good thing.
In the end, it all comes down to how well you engage those readers and how productive you are for keeping them coming back.
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