PDF We are all familiar with the term “Blogging”. By now there are millions of Blogs online covering all matter of subjects and industries. If you can think it, there is probably a Blog about it.
Blogging has become so popular…
It now extends far beyond the “online diary of my cat”, and into the business world. Blogging has become a great knowledgebase resource for business, both to educate the world on your products or services, and to establish your presence as an expert in your industry.
While these advantages are useful and of great benefit to every business, the SEO benefit of Blogging for your corporate website should not to be overlooked. This article will differentiate Blogs from websites and talk about how owning a Blog as well as contributing to other Blogs “Blogging” can increase your web traffic, thus lead flow and sales should also increase.
Note: For the remainder of this article, when referring to Blogs, I am talking about Blogs for business. Although these points could apply to personal online spaces also.
Your Blog
To own and operate an active Blog in your industry means another “channel” to talk about and market your business products and services. It is effectively like having another website. However, a Blog and a website serve two different purposes.
What’s the difference?
The difference between a Blog and a website mainly involves two criteria; content and functionality. Your website can hold a lot more information and more sophisticated functionality, such as complex searches, account login and control panel interface and inventory management. The list could go on, but you get the point.
Blogs are article-based
A Blog is more related to article posting that can include text, images and video. Blogs are informal writings about your business and industry. The intention is to build an audience that is interested in what you are writing and having them “subscribe” to be notified when you add more content.
The Bloggers Goal
The ultimate goal for your readers, is to turn them into leads and finally, paying customers. Blogs are also interactive, which means that your readers can interact with you through posting comments and questions directly on the Blog, these of course can be moderated prior to inclusion on your live Blog.
Many of the SEO techniques that can be applied to your website can also be implemented on your Blog.
Your Blog, however, already has the advantage of being updated regularly (we hope) so that it is already showing Google (and other search engines) that your Blog is current and therefore worth ranking to some degree, in search results for relative keywords.
So, what more SEO can be incorporated?
With any SEO strategy a keyword list should first be created, based on industry keywords and phrases used by prospects or customers to search for your product. Creating a keyword list is a whole other article. So lets assume you have a list of around 10 common keywords and phrases already. The process now is simple, make sure that your articles and posts use these keywords often.
Don’t overdo it!
That could backfire, and count as point(s) against you! Intersperse your words throughout your Blog, sometimes your Blog post might be specifically relating to one or some of your keywords. Great. You shouldn’t have a problem using them here.
Use your posts, articles and images to direct traffic to your website
Of course it goes without saying that your posts, articles and images should be directing traffic to your corporate site, through obvious links, links from images or “for more information” comments and even the headings. Again, don’t over do it as you may deter readers as well as search engines noting your content as possible spam.
Host it yourself
One key point to mention when setting up your Blog is to host it yourself. Don’t use a free Blog url e.g. http://myblog.wordpress.com. Doing so helps Google see that you are not a serious player in the industry and may discredit you because of it. Sure, you can use free Blogging software like WordPress or Blogger, but make sure you register a domain name and install the Blog on your own server space. This will effectively “add SEO value” to your online space.
Blogging on other Blogs
So you have a Blog in place and its generating a decent amount of traffic for your brand and your corporate site, is there anything else? Yes, now that you have become familiar with the concept of Blogging and writing Blog posts, its time to start Blogging on other industry related Blogs.
There are millions of Blogs to choose from
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, there are millions of Blogs out there. That said, there stands a strong chance that there are already Blogs out there in your industry, regardless of how small a niche your business operates in. Try this, run a Google search for your keywords and include the word “Blog” in the search term. You’ll probably come up with a list of other Blogs in your industry. Check them out, look at the types of articles they are writing. Not only will this give you some ideas for your own Blog, it will probably present topics that you feel you can add something too, and maybe even comment about.
Don’t be shy, scroll to the bottom of the post and add your thoughts or comments about the Blog post
Always be sure to include a link to your own Blog and website in your response. Now, when other readers of their Blog look at the comments and read what others have said, they will come across your comment and links to your website.
Click-throughs
You already know that the reader is interested in your subject matter because they are reading a similar industry-related Blog to yours. Because of this, they are more likely to click your link to read more. This is called a “click-through” to your website. Great news. Best of all its a free source of traffic generation!
Get Google to vote for you
This benefit extends one step further in that now you have a link back to your website from a different website to one owned by you. Google counts this “backlink” as a “vote”. The more votes you get, the more reputable your website becomes in the eyes of Google. Get backlinks on popular and important websites, and your website becomes even more important to Google.
Don’t be tempted to SPAM
Be careful though, simply visiting Blogs and posting links to your website without contributing to the Blog with valued comments is seen as spam, both to the Blog host as well as Google. Doing this will work against your SEO efforts. Regular posting of quality comments and input to other Blogs will help you establish yourself as a “key player” in your industry, help build a reputation online and links back to your website. The results are increased leads and sales from a growth in web traffic.
Using these Blogging methods will generate traffic to your site
Use them wisely though, SEO is a sensitive piece of your online marketing efforts. Overdoing one aspect can work against you, not for you. By consistently publishing relevant Blog content using your keyword list WILL increase traffic to your website. How much traffic directly correlates to the amount of effort you put in. The more posts, articles and comments you submit, the more traffic you will generate to your website.
Ask us about setting up a blog for you or developing a custom SEO strategy and start increasing your web traffic today.
About Sam Beamond