Web Merchant Resource Center

Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing have come a long way since the days of meta tags and banner ads. One of the newer and rapidly growing strategies for marketing your business online is blogging.

There is a lot of buzz about blogs these days – they are rapidly reshaping social and news networking, but awareness of how blogging can increase exposure for your business online – and thereby increase profits – is really emerging relatively recently. Most online businesses have not yet started to blog. I mean, heck . . . . we only just started poking our nose into the “blogosphere” in early 2008.

There is nothing mysterious or “magical” about a blog – a blog really could be nothing more than a set of pages on a web site frequently updated with interesting content. WordPress, probably the most popular blog publishing platform, defines a blog as:

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.…

Generally speaking (although there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

• A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
• An archive of older articles.
• A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
• A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”.
• One or more “feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

The most fundamental thing about a blog is that it is content, and content is king in the world of Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing. Another fundamental aspect is that is it inherently social — blogs provide a resource that provides interaction and discussion, mainly through comments left by visitors, but also through more advanced options such as “feeds”, “trackbacks”, “blogrolls”, and other forms of networking. Finally, blogs are updated frequently, and it is this constantly fresh  content that makes them
interesting and valuable.

By now, you might already be starting to see how a blog could help to increase your exposure on the World Wide Web.

First of all, a blog increases the content — information relative to your business and customers’ interests. It provides more “stuff” to get indexed into search engines, and thereby increases your exposure and likelihood that customers and clients will find you. Assuming your content is quality content and actually relevant and useful to your customers and clients, it provides a tool for you to develop a relationship with them.

That is, through the use of comments, “feeds,” “trackbacks” to and from other blogs, blogs provide a medium of interaction between your business and your demographic . . . and most importantly . . . between your business and your customer/client base. When your customers and clients find your information relevant and helpful, your blog can begin to go “viral” . . . . the Internet version of “word of mouth advertising.”

What is more, frequently adding new posts to your blog keeps it fresh . . . and that keeps search engine robots and people coming back for more. For instance, how often do you really add new content to your business’s website? Maybe you add some new products now and then or make the occasional update to your home page or “links” page, etc. How does that compare to adding new posts full of rich content weekly or even daily?

All of that being said, starting a blog may not be right for your business. For one thing, it takes time to write solid content; you have to like to write . . . or at least be driven to write . . . a lot. If you don’t publish at least 1-3 posts a week, then your blog can quickly become stale. For another, you really need to have something worth-while to say about your industry, market, or niche; if your content is not compelling, well, it’s not going to do much for you. On the other hand, article writers can be contracted and if you serious
about and/or seasoned in your area of business, it’s hard to imagine that you would not be able to think of interesting and informative topics to discuss on your blog.

Our next post will address how to get started blogging . . . .

Tags: Blogging, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Blogging for Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.