Is A Blog Useful For SEO?

23. December 2008 · 1 comment · Categories: Google · Tags: ,

Can a blog be useful for SEO purposes?

It can, but blogs are a different animal than static websites, and must be treated as such. A blog is very useful because it provides a website with plenty of related fresh content. Considering many websites don’t have content that changes very often, a blog can be a way of commenting on related news and getting more search engine traffic.

Running a blog is hard work

But one thing about blogs is they take a lot of work to maintain. To establish any sort of quality on your blog requires making well written and cohesive posts on popular topics. If you have the time to update 3-5 times a week, than adding a blog to a website can be a fantastic way to build timely long-tail traffic.

If you enjoy writing, then a blog is something you can easily maintain. You might even have fun updating. When you blog, you “ping” the major blog search services, and they tend to take your content right away. Generally the main search engine indexes will also pull your content in almost immediately. Blogging is a way of telling Google that your website updates a lot, and is “in the know” on your subject.

If you have the time and the inclination, adding a blog to a website that doesn’t update much is a great idea. It will help you stay in touch with customers. It can help improve your website’s credibility. Updating often will give search engines the evidence they need to keep on visiting your website and sending in new prospects.

You’re Only As Good As Your Last Post

08. July 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Internet Marketing · Tags:

One thing about the internet arena, you don’t have much time to rest on your laurels. Since you need more traffic every single day, you can’t sit back and celebrate, even when something goes your way. If you do, you’ll end up getting complacent. This is almost always a mistake. With long tail search, your rankings tend to fluctuate daily, so looking for new rankings is often a good bet.

If you start to get accolades about your blog posting, don’t let it go to your head. It certainly is a good sign, but you have to maintain the same high quality or you can expect to fall out of people’s minds quite fast.

Yes, you’re only as good as your last post and you just don’t have time to sit around admiring what you’ve done. You still need more visitors, no matter how well your last one went. So now you’ll have to focus on your next post, or the one you’re doing right now. And when that one’s over, you have to go on to the next. This is the nature of the type of traffic generation that’s quite successful in the current blogosphere. Bloggers who update often tend to be rewarded for their persistence and consistent efforts.

Blogging almost always comes down to a debate between quantity and quality of posts. In reality, the bloggers who tend to reap the most rewards post often and post high quality posts. They keep their eyes on the prize and put their best feet forward every day.

If we follow the same plan, we’ll end up right along them in the pantheon of the greats. Or, at the very least, we’ll generate more traffic to our websites, which is the ultimate goal anyways.

Blogging And Pinging For Traffic

23. June 2008 · 1 comment · Categories: Internet Marketing · Tags: , ,

One nice thing about today’s internet is you don’t have to be lonely for ever. If you have a new blog, all you really need to do is blog and ping to generate traffic. Of course you’ll have to write about popular subjects that people are interested in, but that’s easy enough to do. Make sure you set your blog software to update several blog pinging services, and you’ll almost always be able to drag a few visitors into your website.

You shouldn’t expect huge numbers for your efforts, but every little bit of traffic adds up, especially for a newer website.

Creating a tight and related tagging and category system for your blog will ensure at least some traffic when you ping because the tags are used extensively by services like Technorati to rank your pages.

People searching for related tags are usually webmasters in related subjects. These people can be a cheap source of new links, which is just what your website needs. Make sure to update about topics that are hot, and ping the update services. Do this for 30 straight days and I guarantee you won’t be all alone at your website any more.