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How Blogs Can Break Or Make Your SEO Strategy
By Jon Rognerud (c) 2006
Blogs are a great way to get started authoring content and
sharing your knowledge and insights with other people. Plus,
mix work and play - and you can get rich doing this.
You don't have to be an MBA-accredited author by any means.
However, there are some rules to play by, and I'll break those
out below. We will talk about the top blogs, practicalities
around blogs and creative ways to get started, including how
you could possibly ruin your good-standing ranking and having
to change your Search Engine Optimization strategy.
Blogs - Structure and Layout
I work in the field of Search Engine Optimization. It has a wide
range of options, from the technical to the more strategic. Tons
of discussions are found on off-page and on-page factors, latent
semantic analysis, content scope, quality, HTML/CSS development,
site navigational structure, spamdexing, 301 redirects,
plagiarism, link strategies, directories, blogs, search engine
news, email marketing tips & online (internet) marketing. Most
all of the top 10 SEO firms (http://microsaw.stikipad.com/) out
there agree that blogs are a "must" for driving traffic and to
get established in the Internet community.
There is a right way, and a wrong way. We'll discuss these below.
Be warned - too many folks out there are thinking about "how to
outbeat the search engines" and use the latest-and-greatest
(blogs) to elevate their rankings, essentially via content and
blog spam. Blogs are a powerful way to get seen by the search
bots. Blogger (Google's own) is an important key to the puzzle,
but there are many.
The Un-Official Top 7 Blogging Best Practices For SEO
1. Start here, begin a quick review of the world's top blogs:
http://www.technorati.com/pop/blogs - updated daily
http://www.problogger.net/ - he makes #16,000/month
http://microsaw.stikipad.com/ - web 2.0 blogs
2. Get an account - it's free. Log in - and - don't start! What?
No, you must first continue by scanning the list above and get a
sense for what people are writing about. This could be more
generic at first, but start looking to yourself. What do you
know? What do people come to you for? Anything that you
specialize in? (Hint: don't think "how can I sell this" - but
"how can I share this?") You'll also learn how to use trackback
functions to allow other people to be notified. Permalinks are
great for SEO and should be used where appropriate. So, now you
learned something big: be yourself!
3. Think about an interesting headline. You don't need to be
a copywriter, but you should think about your headline and the
topic at hand. More importantly, is it something that you are
passionate about, or can contribute something to? It's ok to
spend some time here, writer's block can come up. Think about
other sites, can you re-write their UVP (unique value
proposition)? How would you write yours (thinking theme here).
What I've found to work is simply sit back and start talking as
if you were discussing a (hot) topic with a friend, and then
break it out into sub-groups from there.
4.Writing tips: casual, friendly and interesting (meaning you
have something to write and you don't copy others) works well
in blogs. Make sure you stay on topic and that you are truthful.
Would you lie to your mother? Of course not - then think about
this when you are writing online (and she will not come after
you). Yahoo's blogging policy is a good one: "Be respectful of
your colleagues, get your facts straight, provide context to
your argument, and engage in private feedback." Also, make sure
to include images (flickr) and video (youtube, google video)
where you can. Make the images rich and colorful, don't worry
about sizing too much.
5. Committment, persistence and discipline. Sound like an
extract from Jim Rohn or Anthony Robbins? Well, they probably
are - but it applies to most of the things you do in life. So
be it with blogging. Carve out 1/2-1 hour every day to nurture
your blog business. Think of it as your morning ritual - right
after you have attended to your family and other duties. Plus,
often you are not going to be in writing mode - but rather,
maintenance mode - reviewing and responding to other blogger's
input.
6. Search engines start picking up your blog, and traffic
increases. Be prepared and if it gets out of hand, be able to
manage that too. I'm not simply talking about traffic, but as
others join and comment, you may need to defend your stance,
including admitting mistakes if / when you make them. Folks
appreciate other folks who are big enough to admit mistakes if
it gets there. For example, you may have folks who don't like
you - even if you're Bill Gates. This guy created a Corporate
Weblog Manifesto (http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2003/02/26.html)
that I found interesting.
7. Run and host your own blog service. More expensive, but this
could have a large impact on your ability to control not only
the content, but custom HTML layouts, code and information
architecture that are important to search engines. You can offer
this as a service to others in your niche market.
http://businesslogs.com/ is a great resource to use for starting
this process, and more hands-on development companies like
http://www.leveltendesign.com/ can be an option for you. Keep in
mind that the market has developed niche-companies, from
real-estate to healthcare, and you should research those
specifically.
Content is important for Search Engine Optimization - be on top
of it, keep a schedule.
Voila - that's it, there you have it. Watch how the search
engines will start picking up your content. You can run tools
to see how you are ranking, how often you are showing up in the
search engines. We like http://www.UrlTrends.com as a simple
beginner starting point. However, it's not 100% accurate, other
SEO tools can provide more detail.
Keep your content fresh, updates daily is preferred - and
definitely once a week and your search engine marketing (which
includes search engine optimization) will become more visible
than it was just last week. Then, use http://pingomatic.com/ to
alert search engines that you have made updates. It's a free
service, and will help your visibility.
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Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search
marketing, and has spent over 10 years developing websites and
marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo. His
website, http://www.microsaw.com, provides a wealth of
informative articles, resources and free email courses,
including complimentary site ranking reports at
http://www.microsaw.com/emailpage.asp
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