Comments on: 3 Reasons Why Blogs for SEO Fail

By: Tam

Tam — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:33:33 +0000

Great post. This really puts SEO in long-term perspective for me.

By: Greg Arnold

Greg Arnold — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:54:46 +0000

No magic bullets. Even in blogging it seems most will fail because there is work involved. Thank you, very insightful….Greg

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:29:45 +0000

On the point that SEO is a dying breed, SEO needs to adapt. Lead generation should be the ultimate goal, not just rankings. Rankings are of course still important, but it should be about ROI and that means generating new business through SEO effots.

There is a new company out their called VoiceStar, http://www.voicestar.com. These guys have developed a proprietary platform that allows SEO professionals to track their SEO efforts for their clients. It is also a means for SEO professionals to upsell their clients and get an additional revenue stream. The point is that a piece of code goes on the client’s website and a tracking number that looks like a phone number is put on the website. When a prospective customer comes to the website and calls that phone number, it gets recorded for the client. This is a great tool for SEO professionals to quantify and measure their work.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:10:13 +0000

I have jumped onto the blogging for business bandwagon for the sole purpose of helping my clients rank higher on search terms. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. I do agree that just creating a blog to create incomings for a website will dilute the effort.

I have a few clients that I am developing blogs to be online magazines, and not your blog. The new Revolution theme that is out there is one such platform. Ask yourself this question: how will my blog site tie into my current main website? How can it become a resource for my customers? If you have a site about custom cabinets, then have a blog site dedicated to being a how-to guide to assembling cabinets for the do it yourselfer.

By: Brent Skinner

Brent Skinner — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:23:18 +0000

Thanks — that clarifies things. What companies need to understand is that the barriers to entry that have till now stood between them and favorable SEO have been technical and sometimes expensive; now, however, even as these barriers to entry disappear, one major barrier remains: time. It takes time to develop creative and compelling written content.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:38:08 +0000

Brent, yes for the most part the types of things that search engine spam teams or quality teams are addressing. Some are not gray or black hat per se, but they are a capitalization on a search engine weakness. Advantage is often short term, so it’s important to manage risk by not emphasizing those kinds of tactics but rather on longer term, more creative and compelling marketing.

By: Brent Skinner

Brent Skinner — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:46:40 +0000

Great article — I’m curious about what you mean when you say, “The loophole based SEO tactics of yore that brought incremental ranking advantages are being efficiently dealt with by search engines.” Are you referring to content or to techie, gray hat techniques?

By: Vanessa, Phantom CTO

Vanessa, Phantom CTO — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:45:33 +0000

These are core reasons why blogging just for SE rankings can’t work over time. Before blogging, you should always align your passions with a commitment or plan to deliver good value(content) over time. That’s the basis of a lasting blog.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:25:57 +0000

I definitely agree about having passion about what you’re blogging about. In order to create traffic, you need to engage the targeted audience. That’s one of the main principles of marketing. It’s also like any other means of communication. If you have no interest on your part of the conversation, the transaction won’t be going very far. This is the same when communicating to an audience. When the marketer doesn’t try, neither does the consumer, and there is no followup of a purchase or whatever the goal of the SEO is.
A good marketer must generate interest in a consumer in order to be effective in their work, and whatever they put into it, is what they receive in return.
GIGO.

By: AK Works

AK Works — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:51:32 +0000

I have actually had to explain to people that blogs do not = SEO and that it requires more than blogging. I’ve noticed that real estate agents were the biggest culprits of thinking blogging = automatic SEO. But, to be fair, a lot of them were told about blogs by other “SEOs”.

There are some SEO companies that push blogs and give the impression that blogs = automatic SEO.

I’ve always told my people that blogs are a good addition and that IF they like to blog and write, then a blog can help them. But they have to be interested in writing all the time.

I for one don’t like to blog too much – I have reactionary commentary but not blogging. I have friends who blog and they blog frequently. A love to write is critical.

I tell people that the truth about blogs is that they are not magic. You have to work at it. You have to write – a lot. You have to build links to the blog – no one magically comes to your blog. And I tell people that a blog is nothing more than a glorified website; it’s easier to manage, but you still gotta do the whole thing as if the website was a regular HTML site.

By: Neil Sequeira

Neil Sequeira — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:43:43 +0000

Great post Lee. I agree publishing a blog purely for SEO is not sustainable.

By: Jun Valasek

Jun Valasek — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:48:25 +0000

I had an SEO blog and after 6 months I sold it for $3,500. The reason is, I was running out of topic.. LOL… and that’s fall on number 2… I lost passion… This is really a good read..

By: Gerald Weber SEM Group

Gerald Weber SEM Group — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:55:15 +0000

I think your right about the commitment. Even if you are genuinely passionate about a specific area writing even one or two posts a week can be a challenging commitment. I think relying on only yourself as a blogger may be a part of the mistake. That being said having one or more extra copywriters handy to help your write posts may help with this issue. That’s how I manage my blog.

By: Paul Viau

Paul Viau — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:43:58 +0000

A blog can be cumbersome and tough to commit to on a regular basis. I often parallel a blog to going for a run 4 times a week. At times your always looking for the excuse to just stay home. Its harder on your brain often than your feet.

It needs to be part of your business plan or goal.

By: Jeff Oster

Jeff Oster — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:01:48 +0000

Although blogs may have become less effective for business, the bottom line is that they still work for business SEO….and they work well. And even though 90% (or so) of blogs die on the vine for lack of activity, search engines still covet the chatter in blogs. I’m always impressed when I blog a very targeted key word and have #1 position in the SERP’s.

By: Ryan Hilliard

Ryan Hilliard — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:37:26 +0000

Thanks Lee. Very helpful article. Many clients are interested in using blogs for SEO purposes, but you’re right after the honeymoon period wears off who will manage and continually update the blog?

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:34:25 +0000

I think your absolutely right, and I heard other pros in the web community warn against this and a lot of people did not agree. I will be launching a brand new content blog to be installed on my website because my passion outgrew my ability to keep up with new content. Now the new software will be able to categorize all my new content and instead of messing around with making pages I simply add new content so I can better serve my clients.
In the world of the internet I often find myself asking “Where’s the Beef?”. It just seems like there is a lot of fluff and no tangible purpose for “stuff” to be up on the web other than people wasting other people’s time. This reminds me of the telephone, we got sick and tired of people wasting our time with nonsense so we bought answering machines. I wonder what a new answering machine for all the web nonsense will be. Maybe it will be another “don’t bug me list”.

By: 5 Tips for Successful Blog Optimization | Online Marketing Blog

5 Tips for Successful Blog Optimization | Online Marketing Blog — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:41:03 +0000

[...] I posted “3 Reasons Why Blog SEO Fails” to help readers avoid the pitfalls of starting a business or corporate blog purely for SEO [...]

By: Delia

Delia — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:25:58 +0000

You know, I totally agree with Rick Hendershot. As marketers, WE see the value in doing what we do, not necessarily our target markets…

By: Local Internet Marketing | AndyFh.com

Local Internet Marketing | AndyFh.com — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:51:16 +0000

Fresh and unique content really is the only way, even this can be outsourced to a certain degree. If it’s a serious marketing project tho there’s nothing better than writing your own valuable posts every day or two and building yourself a real asset. I’m always trying to keep upto date with the latest techniques and writing about them at AndyFh.com