131: Why Blogging Might Be a Waste of Your Time (And What to Do Instead)

In this episode, Jules White tackles one of the most common pieces of advice given to small business owners - that you need to be blogging consistently to grow your website's visibility. Jules makes the case that for many businesses, blogging isn't actually the priority, and that time spent writing articles could be better spent elsewhere.

Jules explains why informational blog content is increasingly being answered directly by AI, and why your core website pages - your homepage, services pages, and booking pages - are likely the real reason you're not getting the enquiries and sales you want.

Key Takeaways:

• Why blogging may not be your first step: If your core pages haven't been optimised yet, creating blog content may not bring the right people into your business - and could actually be wasting your time.
• The problem with thin and outdated pages: Jules covers the most common issues she sees on real business websites, from services pages with too little content to homepages that don't signpost visitors clearly.
• Alternatives to blogging: From frequently asked questions and who-it's-for sections, to testimonials, before and afters, and short client case studies -- there are practical ways to build out your website content without writing a single blog post.
• Building out your services pages: Jules shares how adding explanations of what you do directly to your services pages can increase the authority of those pages and help both visitors and search engines understand what you offer.
• The Pinpoint Blogging Strategy: When blogging does make sense, Jules explains the structured approach she uses with clients -- focusing on three to five core topics, creating cornerstone content first, and always working from a plan rather than just producing content for the sake of it.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Episode 108: The Three Brain Modes and Why Your Website Feels Overwhelming
• Work with Jules on your website and SEO strategy
• Join The Website Growth Club

Transcript

Introduction

[00:00:00] Jules White: Hi, welcome back to the Website Success Show. It is Jules here, and today I wanna talk about a subject that comes up quite a lot when I talk to clients and potential clients and when I'm networking and talking to people about their websites, which is content creation, in particular blogging.

And it's something that I find people are normally in one of two camps, so either they've been writing articles for their website, or they have done nothing in terms of actually creating any content for their website really.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about why blogging matters and also what the alternatives are.

This episode really is more about why you might not need to start blogging straight away and why if you are actually creating blogs and you haven't optimised the core pages of your website, you might actually be wasting your time a little bit.

So let's have a chat about blogging and how it can help your business. So when we're talking about blogs, essentially, when we're talking about creating long form content that lives on your own website or even guest blogs can live on other people's websites primarily.

I'm talking about your own content that you own today.

So they're there on your own website. It's not a Substack, it is not Medium or anything else where you are writing blogs on somebody else's domain.

This is where it's on your own domain and those blogs are helping to raise the authority of your own website.

But for a lot of business owners, if you haven't optimised your core pages of your website, and by your core pages, I mean your homepage, ideally your about page, your most profitable product and service pages, your contact page, even.

If you haven't optimised those pages first, then creating content might not necessarily be bringing the right people into your business.

Why Blogging May Not Be Your Priority

[00:01:59] Jules White: So blogs tend to answer more like informational queries. So things like best of articles, how to, what you need to know and all of those kind of things that are answering questions. And because the world has changed and now we have AI overviews in AI mode.

Often those kind of queries can actually be answered in the AI mode and be answered by the AI bot. So lots of websites are finding that their traffic is actually dropping off a cliff if they were really relying on blog traffic and informational queries to bring people through to their website.

Now, one of the things when Google or AI bots are actually trying to work out what page is the best one to deliver, if somebody's out there and searching for something, whether that's searching for an answer to a question or searching for something to buy, or a service or a local business, whatever people are searching for.

The bots are really clever now at understanding the particular search intent.

So they know whether they're looking for a product or service to buy, or whether they're looking for the answer to a question.

So they can deliver the right kind of page, the right webpage, and the right answer to that question very easily.

And that's not to say that all blogging is now dead and that all blogging articles will be answered by the AI bot. And it doesn't mean to say that you don't need some information on your website.

But many, many businesses, especially service-based businesses, especially local businesses, don't necessarily need a traditional blog to be able to grow and to build your brand authority.

To show up in search results and get your brand mentioned in AI search.

These kind of businesses often already have a lot of other pages on their website, especially if you offer lots of services or if you've got lots of products or if you've got lots of other content already on your website, then writing articles that could be answered by AI and have already been answered by AI.

Might not necessarily be the best path for you.

The goal of all of this, the goal when you are working on your website, when you're trying to improve your visibility and trying to generate more leads using your website, the goal isn't to create more content for the sake of it.

I firmly believe that we should have a very structured and a very strategised approach to creating content.

So we should be creating content that we own first and that content keeps working for our business. We are not just churning out content for the sake of it basically.

But creating content that helps people to actually choose your business, and to go along that buyer's journey and to trust that you are the right business for them.

I feel like that's much more important and we don't necessarily need blog pages to do that.

And probably most websites out there don't need more pages. They just need their existing pages to do a much better job.

The Problem with Thin & Outdated Website Pages

[00:05:01] Jules White: The problem I see on lots of websites are services pages that are really thin, so they've got less than 250 words on a page, any page that we want Google to be showing up in the search results.

Ideally we want at least 250 words minimum on that page really.

But a lot of services pages are just not, they just don't have enough information on them for Google and for AI bots and even for people to understand about this thing that you're trying to sell, really.

Lots of homepages are very vague as well, and don't necessarily help people to signpost them to where you want them to go on your website.

Booking pages -- if you are offering services and you've got pages where people can book, they aren't building trust, there are things there that are actually destroying trust and so people aren't taking the action you want them to.

And if they have got blogs, they're often outdated. So you know, they might have been written years ago and they need updating.

The bots can actually see when those articles were last updated. So even just going in and bringing them up to date can make a difference.

Either that or they're really thin content, they're blogs that are very short, and it's not necessarily the length of a blog that makes a difference.

If you are blogging, ideally we want any blog to have at least 500 words on it, but it's more the content of that blog that's important.

Making sure that you are delivering something that's not already been answered, you know, over and over again. So that's where having very generic blogs is another mistake that I see, or blogs that are purely AI written.

And the reason that that doesn't work is because if you are using AI to write your blogs, essentially that blog has already been written by somebody. That's how the AI is able to generate that blog for you.

So if you don't go in and humanise that blog and show your own unique lived human experience within that blog, why would it then be actually delivering any value?

And why would it be something that the bots would want to show up in search results?

So let's talk then about how to increase your authority content without blogging.

When you're first starting to think about a strategy for growing your visibility, for growing your SEO and for actually showing up in search and getting people to convert.

When you're thinking really about improving your website.

The best place to start thinking is often the pages that are already leading to a booking or a sale.

So focusing on those core pages, as I say, first -- these are the pages that people will check before they decide to buy from you.

So I personally feel like these are the pages that need the most attention, really, from you as a business owner.

Now, I talked about this back in episode 108 of why this can all feel quite overwhelming when you're thinking about what content to create on your website. We often try and do everything at once.

So if you haven't listened to that episode, I would strongly recommend listening to that before you start thinking about a strategy for improving the content on your website.

Because as the CEO of our business, we need to be in charge of creating the strategy.

Whether you do that alone or you work with a strategist like myself, this is how I work with clients on their website strategy and their SEO strategy, or join the Growth Club.

A big part of what we do in there is actually working out what you need on your website pages, what you want to show up for, who you are serving and the problems that you're solving for them and the kind of language you need to use around that on your own website, then we need to actually write the content.

So we need to create the copy for our pages, and then we need to actually go in and implement that.

Maybe you'd have someone else go in and do the implementation part. You might even work with a copywriter and have somebody else do the writing part of your website.

But that strategy part is the bit that you as a business owner need to focus on yourself.

That's the bit that really has to come from your brain and whether that is just working on your own through this or working with somebody to help you.

So, coming back to blogging, that was today's tangent, but what's the alternative to blogging?

Alternatives to Blogging

[00:09:07] Jules White: Even adding in things like frequently asked questions can make a big difference. So frequently asked questions are one of the things that often website owners don't add to their website.

But thinking about real questions that you get from clients.

Questions about pricing, questions about, you know, if it was a salon, you're thinking about like downtime after treatments, the results, the suitability, those kind of things.

Frequently asked questions can make a big difference.

So you could pop that into both your homepage and your sales pages. You can have very specific frequently asked questions.

So if we are coming back to thinking of the salon example.

Frequently asked questions like, does this treatment hurt? How long does it last? Is it suitable for my skin type, is what people will be searching for or asking AI about. So it helps people to decide and really matches with what people are actually searching for.

So this is really strong for AI search. A frequently asked questions snippet is something that can literally be taken and then delivered in AI search and delivered there with a link to actually go through to your website as well.

So if somebody is looking for answers to a question about a treatment or a service that you offer in your area, then having those frequently asked questions on your website pages can make a big difference.

Adding in things like who it's for and who it's not for is another section that you could add into your website that can help to build out some content and help to answer some of those questions and just to help to filter the right clients.

It can help to immediately build trust in your brand and in what you do and make a big difference.

It helps to increase conversions and reduces dissatisfied clients, because people know whether this is the right thing for them or not before they buy.

And that could work for any kind of business really, in terms of just having something on your sales pages about whether or not this is the right fit for you as a customer.

Using Testimonials & Case Studies

[00:11:13] Jules White: Talking about the results that you get for your clients is another really important thing that you can add in. So social proof and reviews, before and afters.

Testimonials, client case studies, even just short client case studies, can be a stronger way to start creating some content for your website as an alternative to blogs.

Even something about the problem that somebody had when they first came to you, how you approached it, especially if you can talk about how your unique process of approaching this helped them to get to the result and then talk about that result that they got as well.

And this is something where you can actually weave your keywords through this as well, so you can make sure that this case study can actually be mentioning the words that people would be searching for.

So once you've decided on what you are wanting to show up for, you might be thinking, how can I actually weave that search term through a particular page or through my website? And a case study page, especially for local businesses where you can mention that you helped this person in this location, shows that you've helped real people.

So this is another way to show that you're not just somebody who knows how to use AI to generate content, that you've actually helped those people.

And this is a really great way to link your content together as well.

So if you imagine on your homepage you could have a snippet of a testimonial from a client who's talked about the results that they got. And I always recommend rather than having a great big long testimonial, even if somebody's left you a great wall of text, ideally we don't wanna use that.

People will just skim read it or they won't read it at all.

Whereas actually if you know you want to rank for a certain keyword, and that person has talked about it in the testimonial from that client, then taking that out and using that as a heading on your homepage.

So you know, you might have your H2 heading on your homepage of how whatever keyword it is you are wanting to show up for has helped my clients.

So for my business, I could have SEO client reviews or SEO client testimonials as an H2 heading on my page. And then within that heading, I have an H3 heading, which is the actual testimonials underneath it where it says, increase in local visibility for a particular type of business.

And that is a heading that then takes you through to the case study page about the client who I've helped increase their local visibility.

So all that to say, by using that structure and adding testimonials and case studies, I would probably have a much better result from using that testimonial and building out a case study around it than just creating a general blog about how to increase local visibility for this type of business, because it shows that I've got that real lived experience there.

Building Out Your Services Pages

[00:14:06] Jules White: The next thing you can do to increase the content and to improve the content on your services pages is add in explanations of what you do.

So like if we come back to a salon example of what is microneedling, what to expect after your first microneedling treatment, what to expect after your first facial treatment or something like that, how does this treatment work?

Those kind of things. Rather than creating a blog about that, you would put that directly on the services page. So that would just be a section within that services page.

And what that can then do is really increase the authority of that particular page.

And then once you've built out those core pages of your website and you've really optimised them and you've got content on them that's working, you've linked them together so they actually lead to each other.

Your homepage leads to your services page, and people are actually taking the action that you want to, then you can start thinking about, okay, what content do I need to create? Do I need to create any blogs to actually improve this content? But if you've got lots of products and services, by the time you've been through and optimised those pages, and you've got plenty of content on your.

Talking about all these services that you offer, you might actually find that you don't need to create any blogs to then keep your website actually showing up in Google. So my encouragement to you would be to really think about whether you actually need to blog.

If you're creating articles already, before you create another article, check that you've optimised your core pages of your website.

The Pinpoint Blogging Strategy

[00:15:40] Jules White: When I'm working with clients, I always suggest once we get to the point of blogging that we approach it with a pinpoint blogging strategy. So you just build out what you need to increase your authority, but it always comes after those core pages and you're not just blogging for the sake of it.

We are taking the topics that we want to be known for. Those core three to five topics that are the main things that you want to be seen as an authority on, and creating some cornerstone pieces of content first.

So you create some really good articles that show your real lived experience in what you do with that particular thing.

And then you build on that if you need to. If you then need to go deeper on some different angles and create some more articles from that point onwards, then great, we do that. But everything is done with a strategy, with a plan, rather than just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

This Week's Action Step

[00:16:34] Jules White: So this week, one thing to do is just improve one core page of your website. So that could be add in five frequently asked questions to your most profitable product or service page. Add three before and afters to that page.

Add a who it's for section.

Add a three steps to your success section. I've talked about this lots on the podcast in the past, but essentially that's one of the things you can do that can really help with conversions.

So step one is them taking that first step that they need to, to buy the thing or to book an appointment.

Step two is them having the appointment, and step three is them getting to their transformed status.

So them getting to the point where they're living their best life. They've enjoyed what they've had and they've got the results that they wanted basically.

And when you're thinking about which page to actually focus on, it's important, as I say, to always focus on the one that already leads to a booking or a sale.

So those sales pages, especially for your most profitable product or service, is really the place to start.

The businesses that are growing right now aren't the ones that are just churning out more and more and more content. They're the ones that are creating the most helpful content in the right places.

And this is the way that we get some time back.

We get to a point where we are not having to constantly churn out content for social media because our website is working for us.

Even when we are asleep or on the beach, wherever we are, our website is doing its job. It's our hardest working team member.

So that's all for today. So take care and remember, social media is optional.