Sunday, July 03, 2005
Business Blogging for Search Engine Traffic
Search engines love blog content and seem to give your site high marks if you know how to get that content out there
by John Jantsch
As more and more blogs go commercial, more and more folks want to know how and why they should blog for business. While there are any number of reasons, one of the most compelling is this: search engines seem to love blogs.
So what is it about blogs that those little spiders love so much?
Here's a little secret: search engines crave content.
Okay, so maybe that's not such a secret. But to look at many websites you would think it is.
The fact is too many websites do nothing to attract search engines. Providing content, not to mention fresh content, is one of the toughest chores of anyone who maintains a website. But when it comes to generating traffic it is the most important job.
Blogs, by their very nature, are all about content. In a commercial environment every blog entry is fresh content. Get in the habit of making two, three, even four entries a week and you've got a content building bonanza on your hands. Everyone knows you need new content to give visitors a reason to come back; blogs just make the task so much easier.
Lack of competition
Another advantage that blogs currently possess over traditional web pages and sites is lack of competition. While the number of bloggers grows daily, there are still relatively few commercial blog sites.
When I created my blog I found that it showed up in the number one spot in Google for the term "Marketing Weblog" within about three weeks of launch. Not bad considering I did nothing to make it happen.
There are a couple of other things you should do to make your weblog a traffic magnet. They aren't really that different than traditional search engine optimization (SEO) tactics but the names and faces are unique to the blogging world.
Use targeted keywords in your entry titles
No rocket science here but this tip can't be stated enough. Forget cute. Go for titles that fit your targeted keywords and phrases even if they seem a bit awkward. (You do have targeted keywords and phrases, don't you?)
Register with blog search engines
Search engines that specialize in blogs include:
http://www.daypop.com/
http://www.blogsearchengine.com/
Register with tracking services
These services note when a blog has been updated and publish an ongoing list. They even keep track of the most updated and most visited weblogs. Plus you get to learn what pinging is.
Two tracking services are:
http://blo.gs/
http://www.pingomatic.com/
Trade some links
You don't need to get out of control on this one but a few "relevant" swapped links to related blogs can boost your traffic.
Syndicate your content
This tactic is too technical to cover here but I promise to come back to this in another issue of Duct Tape News. For now, do some research on the term RSS and you may discover ways to have your content and entries fed to sites that are hungry for the type of stuff you write.
Many of the popular weblog software packages have this capability built right in. People are flocking to software and browser based programs that allow them to look at all of the blogs they want to view in one place.
Make your content available in that place and it will be seen. Here are some of the bigger RSS aggregator programs.
RSS Search Engine
http://www.feedster.com/
RSS Aggregator Programs
http://www.newsgator.com
http://www.pluck.com
http://www.feedburner.com
John Jantsch is a small business marketing coach based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of "Duct Tape Marketing" a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php.
