Content creation is, now more than ever (thanks to the Google Panda update), a critical part of many search engine optimization strategies. If a company runs a blog, it becomes a platform on which they can display expertise and passion for their industry to the consumers that might potentially invest in the service they are offering. Not only does a blog offer added value to the user, but it also indicates to the search engines that a website is of high quality due to the frequently updated content. It is also, however, a great way to develop links within the community that relates to your blog.
One very important feature of blogging relates to reputation building. If a business can produce high quality, dynamic and original content in their blog, then to the readers this will reflect positively on their company. Interesting blog articles can quickly spread throughout the community thanks to the innate connectivity of the web and social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. Not only does this improve the chances of the blog being read by a wider audience, it only acts as a signal to the search engines of quality content.The logic behind this is that if a piece of content spreads well around social media networks and is shared and linked to a lot, it must be a high quality piece of content.
Essentially, to use a blog for link development it will take time and dedication, either from the company internally, or the trained SEO copywriters hired to maintain the blog. It could be a long term process, targeting the owners of other well-established blogs within your industry and establishing a business relationship by displaying your personal expertise and experience.If they trust you, they will vouch for you and create a link pointing to your blog or website.
There are perhaps a few key rules to remember when using blogging to build business relationships and develop links:
Patience is a virtue, and this is no truer than in SEO. Establishing trust is not something done overnight; it takes commitment, but this will yield the best results. It is also important to remember to not ask for a link, not initially anyway. Links are earned, they aren’t free.
It may be worth targeting your blogs towards the content that interests the major bloggers within your industry. For example, if one of the biggest blogs within your community conducts a survey and publishes the results, you could mention those results, perhaps show support for them or perhaps even critique them.
If you do mention a popular community blog within your content, eventually create an outbound link to them.This will show in their analytics report, and if you haven’t asked for a link, this might be a good way of subtly implying that you would like one.
If one of the bigger, more established blogs says something that you don’t agree with, call them up on it in one of your blogs.This doesn’t mean insulting the blog they have written, but rather producing your own evidence contrary to what they have published and discussing these results.
These are just a few tips that can be employed to help your blog fulfil its potential. When executed properly, company blogs can vastly improve the quality ranking of a website. It is well worth investing the time in one of these syndicate blogs, or alternatively your SEO strategy might leave you feeling like you are ‘blogging a dead horse’.
