Is Blogging Good Search Engine Optimization?
So you’ve decided that you need to start a blog. Everyone else has one. The competition has two. You think they’re cool (now that you know what they are) and you’d like to start one. Is it good for Search Engine Optimization?
The real answer is, Yes, blogging is good for Search Engine Optimization – if you do it right. If you don’t do it right then it can water down your Search Engine Optimization. Here’s what I mean.
First, the two types of blogs for Search Engine Optimization: On Site and Off Site.
You can put a blog on the same domain name as your website and build your search engine saturation. That means the number of pages you have indexed at the search engines and potentially ranking for your keywords. Every blog post is a separate web page to the search engines so after you’ve written one year’s worth of blog posts (assuming you blog every day), you now have 365 additional web pages. But are they optimized?
With this type of blog, you have to use keywords, alt tags, anchor text, and other SEO elements in order to ensure that you gain the necessary mojo to rank for your keywords.
An off site blog is different. With an off site blog, you’ll still gain search engine saturation, but it will be for the blog itself, not your website. You can, however, build links to your website from your blog and that helps with link building.
Keep in mind, though, that most people in your industry will more than likely link to your blog posts before they’ll link to your company website. If your blog is on your company website, you may or may not get that link love. If your blog is on a separate URL then you’ll likely get link love – if your blog posts are well written and draw attention from other bloggers. That will tend to push your blog higher up in the PageRank scale. If you are linking profusely from your blog to your website then that PR will transfer to your website with each link.
That’s it in a nutshell. Blogging is good for Search Engine Optimization when done correctly. Most bloggers, however, are missing the beat here. To be the most effective blogger, you should learn the principles of Search Engine Optimization.
7 Responses to “Is Blogging Good Search Engine Optimization?”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
Thank you, Nick. This was VERY helpful, as I am very new to blogging.
Good topic Nick,
While the blog owners can do steps to increase their SEO, the blogging software itself can makes a big impact on SEO efficacy.
We’ve assessed over 1,000 blogs to determine their SEO value. Many can provide an initial benefit, but fail to deliver long term. Generally this is because the archives are not well linked.
Article tagging (TAGS) allow for an easy way to deep-link to older posts and thereby produce a long term SEO benefit. There are other means to internal content optimization and blogging software varies significantly in the way that they structure information.
I’d like to see a comprehensive assessment of blogging software.
David Rodecker
“getting local business online”
888.8-RELEVANT
Good stuff, I couldn’t agree more. I have been very successful in using blogging to develop domains and increase the value for resale or advertising. I currently use the ireporter tool. I just put up a video on http://www.domainnews360.com Video is pre–recorded so just hit play. It is on right side of page. let me know what you think.
I would like to have a means for my customers to enter
comments on my web site. I would also like to enter information
about the area and activities. Can anyone recommend an add-on that I can purchase to allow my web site to support this??
So what are the principals of search engine optimization?
Irene, glad I could help.
David, you can read more about blogging, including software, at http://www.blogmarketingjournal.com.
Mark, sorry. Didn’t see a video.
Doug, since your site is a static html website, you’ll need to add code if you want your visitors to comment on certain portions of it. I did notice that you built the website with Frontpage. Not a good idea. You have too many keywords listed in your keyword meta tag. I’d keep reading SEOJ and learn everything you can about SEO. If you want commenting and community type features then you might be better off with a CMS system like Joomla or Drupal.
Steve, keep reading SEOJ.
Doug, another idea on the comments (and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this first) – install a blog on your website using WordPress. WordPress will allow your visitors to comment on every post, plus every blog post you make is another web page and gives you a chance to rank in the search engines for your key terms. You’ll get crawled by the search engines more often, keep visitors coming back to your site more, and maintain keyword-rich content on a daily basis. If you need help with installation, let me know.