Business Blogs

Blogging is uniquely suited for search engine optimization, because the search engines definitely favor websites that have lots of relevant, easily updated content.  However, there are ways you can maximize your blog’s promotional abilities - SEO techniques you can use to “blogcast your brand”.

Here’s a rundown of my SEO for Bloggers series:

Part 1: Getting Started with SEO. Start here to learn exactly what SEO is and the basics of how to use it to promote your message, including choosing your keywords properly.  If you only read one of these posts, read this one (but you really should bookmark them all!).

Part 2: Link Building and Link Popularity.  This post covers a key component of any blogger’s SEO strategy: getting tons of incoming links. Search engines love websites that lots of people are linking too - after all, popular blogs are popular for a reason, and that reason is simple: people like ‘em.

Part 3: Link Baiting for Fun and Profit.  Link baiting is the art of getting other bloggers and webmasters to link to your site by creating interesting posts that benefit your readers in some way, shape, or form.  After all, people link to content they find compelling.

Part 4: Building Your Cornerstone.  Strong flagship posts are the pillars of blog - they are your most compelling content, they bring in the links, and they naturally have an ultra high keyword density.

Part 5: Off-Site SEO and the Social Media.  This post describes how to use the social media networks and the user-driven aspects of Web 2.0 to enhance and promote your blog.  There are a whole lot of amazing tools and communities out there, so use them to your advantage.

There’s one more point to remember about SEO, and that point is that the results generally don’t happen over night.  Yes, content can go viral, but building a popular blog with lots of readers takes time - you have to develop your keyword-dense cornerstone content, to build link popularity and generate incoming traffic, and to make a name for yourself in your niche.

So we’ve established the search engines love sites with tons of incoming links, and we’ve talked about a few different ways to earn them. However, I have yet to mention a major source of traffic - the social media sites. Granted, using the social media networks as a source of links isn’t typically considered part of SEO, but they can be very useful when used properly.

How to Play the Social Media Game:

Social media can be defined as the online technologies and practices people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives (thanks wikipedia!).  Although social media is generally used as an umbrella term that encompasses everything from YouTube to Second Life, bloggers can utilize content-sharing sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and Stumble Upon and social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Linked In.*

First of all, syndicate your blog content on all the social media networks that you have profiles on, as well as any directories that index content related to your niche. You don’t have to reprint entire posts, rather, just copy the first few sentences - use it like a teaser or preview, and then be sure to link to it with “read more” or “continue”. After all, if someone is comes across your profile on any social media site, they’d probably be interested in your blog too. Be sure to get some of your keywords in the in the “teaser” part, however, so you’re playing to the search engines as well as the readers.

Second, become an active participant in social content sites like Digg, along with popular forums in your niche. You have to give some to get some, after all, and by reading and interacting on these, you’ll learn what kind of content is well received. Over all, however, it pays to be bold, to show off your passions, and to create content that has value for your users. This is where link baiting (in the altruistic “creating compelling content” sense) can really pay off.

Note: when you’re submitting posts to the social media networks, aim for “scannable” content - easily digestible article with bulleted or numbered lists, headings and subheadings, and charts and graphs. Reading on the web is not the same as reading a book - most people tend to just scan over things and pick up the main ideas.

Viral Ideas and Blogging

Viral marketing and viral content are major buzzwords these days, and for good reason. An idea, a post, a website, or an application can go viral and get thousands of links and millions of hits in a matter of hours. Of course, these can be shallow hits and non-targeted traffic, but the viral marketers do have a point - people spread ideas and share content that’s easily understandable, benefits the user in some way (even if it’s only to make them smile - look at how quickly things like lolcats get around), and neatly packaged (perhaps in the form of a concise, well-written blog post).

*This is by no means an exhaustive list, and it may take some research and trial and error to figure what communities are best suited to your purposes.