Online Marketing Blog

Recently I posted a series of informal poll questions about blog SEO on Twitter to gain insights and feedback which were leveraged to construct a more in-depth survey.  I used the longer survey to collect information on how companies are using blogs for search engine optimization purposes and what kind of impact those efforts have. Essentially, I wanted to get opinions on and answers to: “Are blogs still important for SEO and why?”.

The topic of business blogging and search engine optimization as distinct and synergistic tactics have been explored here many times. A large number of companies are familiar with the process of starting a blog, but few have experienced the challenges of maintaining and growing a blog for more than a year.

Understanding long term benefits is key to sustainable business blogging.

The Best Pint of Abbot Ale, Ever

Blogs have been touted as effective tools for companies to publish content and demonstrate the conversational side of their corporate personality. Blogs have also long been promoted as a SEO tool. Despite plenty of optimism about blogging, there’s still a lot of mis-information, mis-perceptions and lack of awareness about effective, productive blogging for business.

Take This Blog SEO Survey: If you or your company publishes a blog, please take this quick poll looking into the perceived SEO benefits of blogging. Results will be published on Online Marketing Blog in the next week.  Like a fine pint of Abbot, this survey is smooth, to the point and might just put a smile on your face.

You’ve heard the stories from the tech echo chamber. Posts proclaiming blogging dead and RSS too slow have been circulating around the web for the last year or so.  And yet the blogosphere remains alive and kicking, despite the early adopter pontification.

Not yet running a blog or syndicating your content through RSS feeds?  Your competition certainly is, and if you’re not there you’re missing out on a vital area that can boost your SEO efforts.

Joshua Palau, VP, Search, Razorfish moderates this panel of industry leaders (including TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden) to explore the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to search engine optimization:

• Amanda Watlington, Owner, Searching for Profit
• Dixon Jones, Managing Director, Receptional LTD
• Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed

 As a preview to one of the 3 sessions I’m speaking on at SES New York next week (March 23-27) I bring you this interview with my co-panelists Michael Gray of Atlas Web Services, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus, Michel Leconte of SEO Samba and moderator Rebecca Lieb Lieb, VP of U.S. operations for Econsultancy, for the Blog and Feed SEO session.

These are specific, practical questions and answers about optimizing both blogs and feeds for better search performance from some of the smartest blog and Feed SEO experts on the web. 

If you’re a Twitter fan, please ReTweet: 37 Tips for optimizing blogs and feeds:   http://cli.gs/blogseotips

Please share 3 practical SEO tips business blogs should implement:

Rebecca Lieb: 

 After being a fan of Copyblogger and other projects, Brian Clark was kind enough to do a panel on SEO I was moderating at BlogWorld. Then I ran into him again recently at Affiliate Summit thinking each time what a great thing it would be for our readers to do an interview with him for Online Marketing Blog. 

Brian is a fantastic writer and marketer, recovering attorney and someone that over 50,000 people have decided to subscribe to at copyblogger.com - one of the most popular blogs on the internet.  Brian has a lot of what people want: knowledge, talent and success.  Read on to tap into some of that Copyblogger goodness.

How did you go from being a lawyer to an internet entrepreneur?

Yesterday I posted “3 Reasons Why Blog SEO Fails” to help readers avoid the pitfalls of starting a business or corporate blog purely for SEO reasons  only to end up wasting time and energy. Without proper planning, oversight and passion for the topic, blogs implemented purely for SEO objectives are doomed to fail. Additionally, social media referrals and recommendations are becoming a notable competitor to search traffic which can place SEO as a secondary promotional effort in some situations.

Here are five tips for successful business blog optimization benefits in the long run:

1. Find a practical purpose for starting a blog. There are many reasons why companies would benefit from starting and publishing a blog. Some might use blog software as a content management system for an online newsroom or to archive newsletters to the web. 

Yesterday I presented at SES Chicago in a session on SEO Through Blogs and Feeds with Stephan Spencer and Sally Falkow. I went first and presented the slideshow embedded below, a presentation in two parts:

1. Why blogs created solely for SEO purposes will inevitably fail.
2. Tips on how to create a successfully optimized company blog that will last.

My presentation was followed up by Sally who talked about Feeds and distributon opportunities. The final presenter was Stephan, who had 100 or so slides (joking) on WordPress SEO but got through about 20 before the Q/A which was handled by Rebecca Lieb.

There are many benefits to publishing a business blog and improved search engine visibility is one of the most popular.  It’s pretty common advice to hear: start a blog and the fresh content will attract links, improving your search results.  Such tactical advice can be very effective.

Unfortunately, the advice gets filtered and distorted, not unlike what happens in the game “telephone” kids play. Pretty soon one or more blogs are implemented for the sole purpose and expectation of improving search engine visibility and nothing else. At least nothing else that’s accountable.

What’s wrong with this picture?   Blogs started solely for SEO objectives will inevitably fail.

Here are a few reasons why:

TopRank Online Marketing will have two speakers presenting on two panels at SES Chicago this week.  

On Tuesday, Senior Account Manager Jolina Pettice (who recently spoke on a panel with Yahoo’s Ron Belanger and Anne Kennedy at DPAC) will be speaking on a session about how to use Public Relations tactics to improve SEO results.  On Wednesday I will be speaking on a panel about Blog SEO.

Here are the session details. We look forward to seeing you there!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 - 2:45pm-3:45pm 
“Turning PR Efforts into SEO Results”

I wonder how many people reading this blog right now work for a company that:

1) Doesn’t have a blog
2) Has a blog but it’s on life support
3) Is considering blogging but not sure where to start
4) Has been blogging for a while, but wants to make it to the next level

Well, I’ve got some really good news.  On the heels of the OMMA New York conference Sept 18-19 comes Blog World Expo in Las Vegas Sept 20-21. What better place to have the world’s largest conference dedicated to blogging than the city that never sleeps because most of the active bloggers I know don’t sleep either.

While doing some research for a presentation, I was checking out the WordPress.com site on “types of blogs” looking for creative ways to categorize them. And what did I come upon, but this page which separates blogs types into two overall categories of “popular” and “banned”. Guess where SEO blogs fall? Sigh.

Even our dear WordPress which so many search engine optimization professionals sincerely love and prefer as a blogging platform, is misinformed or at least, subject to making sweeping generalizations. This is the “banned” category:

And here are some examples of blogs that are banned from WordPress.com (all of these fall under the general heading of “spam blogs”, or splogs, and we will be deleted as soon as we find them or they get reported):

If someone has a better photo, please link in the comments

On day three, the last day of sessions at WebmasterWorld Pubcon here in Vegas, I participated on a panel called, “Search and Blogging Reporters Forum” with Rand Fishkin and Andy Beal.

Moderation duties handled by Mike McDonald. Basically, it was a round table-style discussion about blogging in the SEO industry as well as blogging as a marketing tool. There were some good points about using blogs as a public relations tool as well as some debate about hosting team blogs separately or all under the company domain name.

There was some nice back and forth with Andy and Rand plus great questions from Mike and the audience.