How A Blog Can Help Your Google Rankings (again, and again):
Blogging is a buzz word in the small and medium business community. Almost every client we talk with (or potential client) wants to know how to do a blog because they have “heard” it will help their search engine rankings. This falls into the tradition of small business owners being about 8 years behind on new marketing tactics. That’s not a criticism, it’s a reality. Most small business owners don’t have the hours in a day needed to stay on top of anything besides what they do.
The Bad News. Although there is clearly some truth left in that assumption that a blog will help your sites rankings, but, and it’s a big but, if you are to see an increase in your sites popularity based on a blog, it must have valuable content that other sites and social media will pick up on and mention. If your blog is just another 700 + words of regurgitated news, facts, rumors, or opinion already published or blogged about on the Internet by 100 or 1000 other sites your chances of a web master or influential social media picking up on the blog are very low. And if your Blog isn’t mentioned on other web sites, it gets no help in rankings.
Additional Value of a Blog bedside’s Rankings. Now, if your blog gives your prospective clients or current customers some unique insight into your business or industry, even if they are not going to mention it or link to it, it’s still of value, just not for your search engine visibility. It will help you become more of a trusted source for whatever it is you do.
Internet Marketers Are Blog Obsessed. That’s a problem, because many (and I mean many) Internet Marketers have had some success with getting their blog or content mentioned and linked to, (and all that SEO stuff), by writing a blog,. They write blogs about blogs that are based on another blog in the hopes that someone they don’t know, and who is trying to get followers on twitter will retweet their content to an audience that has little or no interest in what they are saying, and have already seen the information 5 times in other higher authority blogs or sites.
The reason they have any success is it’s far more likely to get Internet Marketing content linked or mentioned on the INTERNET because Internet Marketers spend half their life reading this stuff. If you are a Plumber, or a Dentist, the likelihood of having your content picked up is very small. Plumbers and Dentists, and normal people don’t spend their life on-line reading every blog written, even when its content is the same as the last 5 they read.
It’s important for an Internet Marketer to be up to date on all the new stuff on the Interweb, if for no other reason, so they can sound really knowledgeable and use uncommon words when they speak to Plumbers and Dentists. I call it selling through a vernacular fear factor. More on that some other time.
Blogging For Visibility. So how does a small business utilize a blog for better Internet visibility? It’s all about the subject and content.
- Blog about a question a customer asked you.
- Blog about a unique problem you solved.
- Blog about how a person can prepare for your service.
- Blog about your kids.
- Blog about your employees.
- Blog about your favorite customers
All of the above will at a minimum be unique, and unique is the first principle of good content. Any content you write and publish should have these attributes.
- Unique
- Interesting for your prospects
- And if you can make it about the internet you’re really doing well.
By Mike Bayes, My One Call LLC, www.salesjumpstart.net
Would it makes sense to hire a professional writer for a business blog?
Seems lots of ‘internet marketers’ believe there is ‘something’ special about a blog. Reality is that it is the CONTENT that ranks, not the platform used to deploy the content. In other words, put the same content on a blog post or a static web page, and there will be no ranking differential, according to our studies (yeah, not factoring things like RSS subscription and UGC comments). I think this perception stems from the fact that a blog is a simple CMS, and therefore encourages ‘more’ content to be deployed, resulting in more ranking opportunities. Google doesn’t love blogs – Google loves content, independent of the deployment platform. But, ‘internet marketers’ are indeed blog obsessed. Good stuff – thanks, Mike!
Well Said Steve. Google loves the links and attention a well written blog might attract.
“….Internet Marketing content linked or mentioned on the INTERNET because Internet Marketers spend half their life reading this stuff. If you are a Plumber, or a Dentist, the likelihood of having your content picked up is very small.” Thank you for articulating this. I have been realizing this more and more al the time. The people having the most success with internet marketing are those selling internet marketing services and that is because SO MANY of us with real businesses are not having much success at all and are searching and reading for answers. How do you think I found this post? It’s kind of a self-serving industry. The truth is, for MOST of us, our potential customers are not researching much on the products we sell. For example, a good part of my sales are work clothes for tradesmen and maintenance people. ie: Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc,. These people are not going online to research “work pants” before they make this big complicated decision. I can write all the content I want about “work pants”, even the so hyped “great content”, and none of my customers well read it. And it is certainly not likely to be “picked up” by quality high ranking sites so it won’t do much for SEO. Besides, how much “great content” could possibly be written about work pants? But all the SEO people are hyping up so much about this “great content” crap. I think they truly believe it because it naturally works for them. Good luck for the rest of us.