What are Blogs?
Blogs are online
journals that can be used in a variety of different
ways. In a personal sense, families can keep track
of each other across the globe by posting to a family
blog. One family member posts, then another member
adds their comment underneath the post, and so forth.
Businesses can announce
new products and services, discounts, discontinued
items, or holiday promotions in their blogs. I'll
cover additional ideas for the use of a business blog
further in this article.
The biggest challenge is
to get your target audience to read your blog. That's
why you need a “blog with a purpose.” You need a reason
for your audience to visit your blog on a regular
basis. What would make your blog special to your audience?
Why would they want to bookmark your blog? Why would
they want to link to it and tell others? That should
be your ultimate goal.
Think about your
own site, and let's start talking about “blogs with
a purpose.”
Five Example Blogs with
a Purpose
1. Free Directory Listings
For some time now,
I've been steering people away from reciprocal linking,
due to the inherent problems associated with it. Submitting
to directories can certainly help your website from
a link popularity standpoint, which we all know is
crucial, but how do you know which directories to
submit to? There are a lot of scammy directories out
there, so you need to know which ones to stay away
from. Plus, it can cost you a lot of money to submit
to directories. What if your pocket book is a little
tight at the moment?
Martin Preece at WebSEODesign
came up with a novel idea. He decided to submit his
site to free directories, and then keep track
of when the site was accepted into each directory,
the PR of the directory, whether he has to link back,
and other statistics. He shares all of his experiences
on his website for readers to follow. All you have
to do is follow in his foot steps. Here's the link
to the actual listing of free directories:
http://webseodesign.com/resources/free-directory-listings.htm
Then, he set up a
free directory listings blog where he reports on the
progress of his free directory reviews. He also writes
“how to” articles in his blog, such as how to submit
to directories.
http://webseodesign.com/blog/2005/04/free-directory-listing-101.html
Martin has created
a “blog with a purpose.” People visit his blog, because
it benefits their websites and their
link popularity building efforts. Why should they
spend the time finding and researching directories
when Martin will do it for them?
How does it benefit
Martin? He's getting traffic to his site, building
link popularity, gaining potential clients, and getting
visibility from the search engines. It's a win/win
situation for everyone.
Plus, his free-directory-listings.htm
page isn't doing too badly in the rankings.
It's #1 in MSN for “free directory listings” out of
6.5 million, and #14 in Yahoo! out of 130 million.
What has he done,
in part, to achieve those rankings? He's linked to
his free-directory-listings.htm page from his blog
using absolute links and using “free directory listings”
as the link (anchor) text.
For example, this
is an absolute link:
<A HREF="http://webseodesign.com/resources/free-directory-listings.htm">free
directory listings</A>
Below is a relative
link. This is the type of linking convention most
website owners use when linking to a page on his/her
own website.
<A HREF="free-directory-listings.htm">free
directory listings</A>
Tip: Always use absolute
links when linking to interior pages of your site
from your blog, and always use keyword phrases in
your link text when pointing to those interior pages.
2. Wordtracker KEI Observation Deck
Yes, this sounds
like blatant self promotion, but when you hear the
story about this blog, you'll understand why it needs
to be included in the article.
A few years ago,
we had a plain old blog. We posted information about
our site on the blog, articles, etc. The search engines
loved it, but the visitors didn't. Why? We didn't
give the Web audience a compelling reason to want
to visit.
The blog was . . . boring.
My partner, John
Alexander, and I teach Wordtracker strategies in our
courses, and we believe that the key to success with
any website begins with solid keyword research. We
constantly hear students tell us how they can't find
high KEI numbers in Wordtracker - that the competition
is just too high.
So John came up with
a fabulous idea. He set up the KEI Observation Deck
on our blog. He spends about 10 minutes a day finding
high KEI values and posting them on our blog. He's
using the blog as a teaching tool, because we're educators.
People love it. He's
proving to them that Wordtracker is full of high KEI
values, if you only know how to find them. Affiliate
marketers flock to his page to see what John will
come up with next. SEOs have syndicated the blog through
the RSS feed, so they can keep up with John's latest
research. Search engines spider the page almost every
day.
How is it benefiting
Search Engine Workshops? John can use it to promote
our other products and services. Wordtracker has linked
to the blog, which is definitely a plus for the site.
The blog is no longer
boring . . . it's effective -- a blog with a purpose.
(Continued
in Part 2)
Robin Nobles teaches SEO
strategies through hands-on, search engine marketing workshops and online SEO training
courses. SEW recently launched localized SEO training
centers across the country through the Search Engine
Academy. Visit the Workshop
Resource Center, a networking community for search
engine marketers.
