Blogs (short slang for “Web Logs”) have sprung up everywhere on the web, and lots of companies are using them to attract new customers. Thought of by some as an extravagance for self-important writers that can’t get published otherwise, or soap boxes for political discourse by anyone with an opinion and a computer, blogs are an unusual new species on the web that are growing in popularity every day.
Blogs come in all shapes and sizes, focuses and categories. Just like the people who write them. But can they also be used to help grow a business? “Yes”
“The big search engines love blogs, because they love finding fresh new content, and a blog demands fresh new content.” Ninna says Web Wise Media recommends adding a blog to every one of her SEO customers’ websites. She goes one step further, saying Web Wise Media will build and maintain a custom blog for a modest fee.
“A stand alone blog is good, but a blog page added to a company’s main site is better for SEO.” Ninna says a stand alone blog that links back to the main business site helps, but won’t increase the main page rank as fast as a blog hosted right on the main business site.
The science of SEO is complicated and changing all the time. The gist is this: Google, Yahoo and Bing re-index their website rankings several times a year, top to bottom, where they look for and rank all sorts of technical additions and improvements to your site. But they also run small indexing on a daily basis, where they find new content and rank it. A blog that has new content added weekly (or better yet, daily) gives the search engines lots of opportunities to find and rank that new content.
The biggest downside is the simple fact that for any blog to make any difference, someone has to write and update it regularly. And that someone should know something about your business, your industry, current events in your market niche, etc. If you own a small business, you might be the best person to write the blog, but do you have time? (A blog that does not get updated won’t hurt your SEO, it just won’t help.)
You could trust an employee, or several employees to contribute blog posts. You could hire writers and tell them what you want written. Web Wise Media will build the company’s custom blog and have their writing staff add posts once a week based on content the business owner suggests. This is intended to get the custom blog going and to boost SEO. It is your blog, and you can post 50 times a day if you like, even while the outside writers add their weekly posts. More frequent content equals more frequent SEO ranking opportunities.
How does a blog help raise your SEO? Example:
For businesses looking for more cost-free web traffic, a blog is a very useful addition. A few minutes of writing every day or two is the cost of maintaining your blog. Set up by an outside company like Web Wise Media http://www.webwisemedia.com/
