Quick results in search marketing are only possible with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, right? Wrong. The advent of blogging, as well as recent advances to search engine algorithms, has narrowed the gap between PPC and search engine optimization (SEO) to mere hours. With PPC, there is instant gratification as your advertisement will appear in search results almost immediately after your campaign is activated. However, this same advantage can now be seen in SEO. First, let's take a look at some common reasons why SEO projects have not been carried out in the past.
Companies don't want to abandon tech investments (e.g. content management systems and Web publishing tools)
Lack of budget dedicated to SEO
May take a while to demonstrate ROI
Blogging addresses each of these problems.
SEO best practices are already in place. Blogging software by default includes a few basic but important SEO practices by using proper Titles, headlines, URLs, and internal linking structure. Search engines also like sites that have fresh content, which can give blogs great influence over search results.
Recent search engine algorithm changes boost the visibility of blogs. An experiment by Ryan Durk took advantage of temporary changes in Google's logo linking to the search results page for "January 1 TCP/IP". It shows two things: the speed by which a new blog is indexed and the short time between your blog getting indexed and it appearing high in search results.
Blogs are inexpensive and easy to setup. A new blog can be created in a matter of minutes with little technical knowledge. Blog creation is free in many cases, often with a nominal monthly fee for additional features.
Blogging is great for companies that are not ready to make the larger SEO investment or are worried about abandoning a CMS in which they have already invested. Blogging can be used as a proof of concept that shows that SEO can deliver results. Use of blogging software delays the larger discussion of SEO projects that are potentially more time-consuming and require a larger investment that reap longer term benefits. Setting up a blog is inexpensive and doesn't force you to abandon or modify your existing IT investments.
Then get people to notice your blog.
Conduct keyword research Creating a blog is just the first step. Keyword research can be the difference between a highly popular, authoritative blog and a blog that no one knows exists.
Since everyone competes on the most popular words, try blogging about slightly less-competitive topics, so your site has the ability to rank for those terms. There are some great tools out there that help facilitate this process of identifying writing topics that other sites aren't necessarily targeting, yet will drive traffic.
If you're just getting started with blogging, write about a subject where you have expertise that you feel will interest your audience. Once you reach a critical mass of blog posts, take a step back and analyze how people are finding your blog and use that information to guide your editorial calendar.
Utilize social media and pinging. In addition to keyword research, it is important to promote the blog using social media tools that increase the visibility of your blog and generate inbound links to your domain. Be sure to utilize pinging services to notify aggregation services of new content on your blog.
Customize the blog template. It is also important to link to your new blog from the Homepage of your main Web site to make it easier for search engine spiders to discover it. Often times, the default template needs to be tweaked slightly for maximum SEO benefit. For instance, make sure your blog Permalink uses meaningful anchor text and not "www.yourdomain.com/blog/?p=456"
Blogging may not be the long-term solution for fixing a broken site, but it will get your foot in the door for SEO, deliver results in the short term, and facilitate the process of getting buy-in for full-scale, long-term SEO projects for the rest of your Web site.
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But also agree with some of the posters -- it has to be a blog that has something to say, and focuses on good content, not immediate gratification. This is good advise:
"If you're just getting started with blogging, write about a subject where you have expertise that you feel will interest your audience. Once you reach a critical mass of blog posts, take a step back and analyze how people are finding your blog and use that information to guide your editorial calendar."
For just those reasons, I decided to start blogging about more than just work! You need to actually play with these tools if you're going to counsel others.
Chris Parente http://cparente.wordpress.com
I'm troubled by the philosophy of blogging for the foremost objective of SEO. I would never recommend it. This is a gray area, to be sure, but far too many executions simply are blackhat. A company should pursue blogging -- or any expression for that matter -- foremost because the company (or blogger) has something meaningful to say. SEO should be a positive byproduct of a company's authentic voice. Intentions or priorities otherwise risk cheapening or significantly damaging brand reputation.
By the way, you're right: blogging platforms are instant and cheap. Little investment is required to get started. However, you forgot to mention the very real and significant lifecycle costs of company blogging, such as educating management, inspiring authentic voices within the company to actually engage, monitoring, balancing personal versus company brand prominence, integrating with company operations like PR or customer service, etc. Payoff can be big, but there are real costs.
Your technical SEO benefits are accurate, but I would urge companies to first dig deeper.
One important aspect you missed are inbound links. Google PR (which is a joke, but for argument's sake here) is calculated off of your content and inbound links to your website or blog and the anchor text of those links, and finally the relevancy of the sites where those links are at.
Another important part is a game plan and execution. I always tell my clients that SEO and blogging is like a fitness plan. Sadly many are used with aggressive force at first then end up in the basement folded up next to the treadmill. Sound familiar?
Lastly, any SEO and blogging program needs a staff and monies allocated towards it. It is a series of tasks that require thought and time for execution.
I also agree with Abby, MediaPost needs to learn SEO as well and your ranking will become stronger. Otherwise you'll just need to rely off of inbound links because of your external/internal/web footprint and visibility to the public and professionals.
-MeridianCrest.com
What's broken in most SEO is the disparity between targeting between one or a few keywords vs. the avearage PPC program which typically targets > 1,000 keyword phrases.
Everything is this post is correct except the thought that this is a 'one blog" strategy. Corporations need to think much bigger.
Chris Baggott CEO/Co-founder Compendium Blogware www.compendiumblogware.com
the time is 3:47pm on a thursday afternoon
i google the term and it's #12 (2nd page, 2nd result)
So i make my website modifications and then blog something from the website and anchor tag the linkage.
SAME DAY - 9:36pm listing has moved to #4 (first page, 4th result)
Next day... 9am. listing is at #10
following monday -- stuck at #10
following monday -- stuck at #10
so i make some more website modifications...
now it's holding at #6 out of 48,354,000 results
What to take away from this....
YES.. blogging can help SEO.. BUT IT IS NOT A LONG TERM SOLUTION, just a short term..
and here is your nugget of wisdom..
the quicker you move up, the quicker you fall back.. and if all you are doing is social media linking, you will fall farther back then you started if you don't keep the same pace.