| | | Blogging Your Way to the Top
It is no real secret that a well written topical blog can significantly help out your website - so why aren't you doing it?
The most common reasons I hear for not starting a blog involve a lack of time to write posts, and limited ideas to write about, but taking that extra time to get some useful content out there can do wonders for your search rankings among other things.
An established blog that is updated regularly gets spidered by Google often, and increases the chances of new search rankings considerably. I have seen multiple situations where regularly updated blogs wind up ranking #1 in Google for relevant phrases literally within a couple hours of posting. It usually takes a well established website and blog to make this happen, but there is big potential if you do things the right way.
While blogs work best if updated multiple times per week, even those with a new post every week or two have advantages. Blogs don't have to be a major undertaking, spending only an hour or so a week on posting can have you seeing results in no time.
There are many advantages to adding a blog to your website. Here are a few.
Increased Rankings
By boosting your topical content, you increase the value and relevance of your site. The more new stuff you add, the more of an authority you make your site, and this helps to improve your overall search rankings. It can also help you obtain rankings for "long tailed search phrases".
Long tailed search phrases are those that are less commonly searched, and usually exceed 3 or 4 words in length - they are also very targeted to your product or service. Blogs are great for getting rankings on long tailed search phrases. If you see a long tailed search phrase you want to rank for, use the phrase as the post title (if it makes sense to do so) and write a good, content rich post about it and your ranking potential for this phrase will rise.
By writing blog posts with your target phrases in mind, you can often help improve your overall rankings by increasing the relevance of the site to that search phrase. Consider also linking to other relevant pages within your site from the post.
Increased Traffic
Blogs are great for increasing traffic. Aside from the added traffic you may see from search ranking improvements, if your blog is interesting and topical, you will get some repeat visitors to your site as readers check back for new posts. If people really like your blog, they will spread the word, resulting in even more visitors. Just think, have you ever emailed or instant messaged a friend with a link to an article you have read? Don't you want your link to be the one passed around?
CredibilityBy blogging regularly about your industry you will help to establish yourself as an expert. Many of your potential customers will see your blog and notice that you know what you're talking about and be more likely to utilize your services. By sharing your knowledge it can help to instill trust onto your visitors which can actually result in increased conversions. There are a lot of faceless, anonymous websites out there - an active blog can help people relate to you and trust you.LinksA good, well written blog can result in free one way links to your site. Sometimes it is as simple as a fan adding your link to their blog roll, and other times it may be RSS working its magic. Try to squeeze in a link or two into your posts and direct them to other internal pages on your website. If anyone then republishes or syndicates your posts on their sites, you will also end up with a relevant back link. (If you would like some other ideas on link building be sure to check out Ways to Increase Link Density & Building Links with Directory Submissions)A blog is not a magic bullet used to skyrocket your inbound link counts, but it can certainly help.
What Platform To Use
I am a firm believer in the power of WordPress and the seemingly unlimited plug-ins available to help you. That said, just about any blog platform will work. It is probably best to stick with the main stream providers as they tend to have more options available and better support forums in case you get stuck with customization issues. In the end however, any search friendly blog platform will ultimately do the trick.
Blog Post Ideas
If after reading this you are sitting there thinking, "What should I write about?" here are some ideas to help you get going:
- New product launches
- Press releases
- Industry relevant news
- How to's related to your product or service
- Answers to reader comments
- Posts revolving around relevant long tailed phrases
- In depth product descriptions or tutorials
- Company history or interesting stories
- Reviews of related products, services or online tools
Blogs are relevant for pretty much all industries, and they don't have to take a lot of your time. A little creativity can help you come up with ideas for posts, just try to think outside the proverbial box.
If you've been putting off the blogging idea for some time, consider getting started now. There is much to gain and very little to lose.
by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO
| | Google Announces Google Wave
Google Wave is on the lips of countless Google watchers today as the search monopoly announced a unique concept for online interaction. Created by the two brothers that brought Google Maps to our desktops; Lars and Jens Rasmussen. So what is a Google  "Wave" and how does it work? In Lars's own words: A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content - it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.
Amongst the immense news this release is generating most experts agree that Google Wave is a likely game changer for the social media space because it could conceivably integrate all of the social platforms into a single conversation. Then Google no longer needs to consider purchasing any of the other individual social platforms if it works out that Google Wave is where the majority of social interaction takes place. Google Wave is being previewed for developers Thursday at the Google I/O conference in Mountain View. The keynote presentation will be available later Thursday. by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
| | Bing is Microsoft's Latest Name for Search
Bing, as announced Thursday, is Microsoft's latest variation of its search platform. The search engine is supposed to marry a myriad of search verticals to create a one-stop-shop for netizens. For example, according to this official introductory video the search engine will incorporate price comparisons and reviews for everything from flights, to hotels and electronics. It also appears to include a hefty dose of local content for anyone trying to choose a restaurant in their area or needing directions.Screenshots of the major functions of Bing are available in this extensive virtual presskit Microsoft has kindly made available. Personally, I am going to hold off posting any polished screenshots on the StepForth Blog until I can test the search engine myself and see if the results are as good as portrayed. With luck Microsoft will have created a real contender in the search market but I am fraught with deja vu so enough with that line of thinking. What About Live? or Kumo, or MSN... Whatever...
Is this an additional search engine at Microsoft or is it replacing Live.com? If you are confused then I am certain you are in good company - including myself. Well this screenshot at Gizmodo shows a note at the top right of the Bing screen saying "Live Search is evolving - Tour Bing" so I gather Live Search will be no longer. Indeed it appears Microsoft is devilishly happy screwing up its search branding every couple of years... I don't know about you but I am VERY tired of it all. I hope they stick to their guns this time... heck I was just getting used to Live.com. What I find the most ironic is that Bing's slogan is "The world doesn't need just another search engine, it needs a decision maker". I guess that means Microsoft will be using Bing to make its decisions from now on. More on Bing to come soon.
by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
| | StudioPress Increases SEO with Joost
Congratulations to my friend Joost de Valk and his new business ally Brian Gardner of StudioPress Development. The two Wordpress gurus have joined forces to build Wordpress themes with SEO essentials built right in.
Why is this News? I know from experience working with Wordpress sites there is a lot of optimization that can be built in from the get-go if the proper template is used which saves time and money so this news is very good news for the web marketing community and Wordpress users alike.
If you would like to learn more about optimizing your Wordpress website check out this interview I did with Joost de Valk on SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.fm about Wordpress search engine optimization.
by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
| | Social Media Newsmakers
The following are some social media newsmakers I came across Tuesday: Digg Joins the Twitter and Facebook Party Digg jumped on the bandwagon and added the ability for visitors to easily share stories on Digg.com with Twitter and Facebook; a sign that even the competition can no longer ignore the success of Twitter and Facebook. In addition, Digg removed the controversial "Shouts" feature that Digg users were none to happy about. Stories with additional detail: The New York Times Hires its First Ever Social Media Editor Today I expect the New York Times has elevated the legitimacy of social media for many skeptics by hiring its first ever Social Media Editor - Jennifer Preston (on Twitter @NYT_JenPreston). So what will Jennifer be doing exactly? Well here is an excerpt from a leaked email at the New York Times I found via Mashable: Jennifer is our first social media editor. What's that? It's someone who concentrates full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers.
Think of Twitter. Did you know that The New York Times is No. 2 on the Twitterholic.com Top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers? (Behind Ashton Kutcher but ahead of Ellen DeGeneres.) Don't care? OK, but the point is that an awful lot of people are finding our work not by coming to our homepage or looking at our newspaper but through alerts and recommendations from their friends and colleagues. So we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well. At the same time, more of us are using social networks to find sources, contacts and information. Like this guy.
Jennifer will work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and others to use social tools to find sources, track trends, and break news as well as to gather it. She will help us get comfortable with the techniques, share best practices and guide us on how to more effectively engage a larger share of the audience on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Digg, and beyond.
by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
| | The Net Reality
Cybercriminals, Black Hat SEO and Dangerous Keywords: McAfee has published its report on "The Web's Most Dangerous Search Terms'. This ZDNet article nicely summarizes the findings as:
- the most dangerous keyword to search for using public search engines these days is "screensavers" with a maximum risk of 59.1 percent
- The categories with the worst maximum risk profile were lyrics keywords (26.3%) and phrases that include the word "free" (21.3%). If a consumer landed at the riskiest search page for a typical lyrics search, one of four results would be risky
- The categories with the safest risk profile were health-related search terms and searches concerning the recent economic crisis. The maximum risk on a single page of queries on the economy was 3.5% and only 0.5% risky across all results. Similarly, even the worst page for health queries had just 4.0% risky sites and just 0.4% risk overall
iPhone Art Gracing The New Yorker: Using his finger and an iPhone Jorge Colombo created "Finger Painting" for the cover art on this week's The New Yorker.
CNet news reports: "Artist Jorge Colombo designed the scene of a New York City hot dog vendor using an iPhone app called Brushes, software he only started using in February. Created by developer Steve Sprang, the $4.99 program lets anyone from amateur to professional draw and paint using the iPhone as canvas."
A video clip showing how Colombo created "Finger Painting" details each stroke used to build the evocative image.
Biggest Tech Failures of the Decade: ZDNet reports that Time has published yet another list. The winners (losers) are
- Microsoft Vista
- Gateway
- HD DVD
- Vonage
- YouTube
- Sirius XM
- Microsoft Zune
- Palm
- Iridium
- Segway
By Bill Stroll, Sales and Marketing Manager
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