I know you've heard it - Blog to rank. Content is king. Rank on the first page or forget it.
Well, forget all that for a second. Ask yourself, if I blog - how is my blog going to reach my intended audience?
I'd like to flip that blogging for SEO strategy on it's head for a minute. I'm not saying that blogging won't get you SEO traffic, it will BUT, if your intent is for your information to get in front of as many people interested in your products and services as possible then there is a better way to use your blog. Don't assume that everyone is going to find your website. Worse, your current clients may not ever see it.
This concept may change the way you blog, why you blog. It may even make you actually WANT to blog.
Your blog has some pretty cool things associated with it.
- Blogs have automatic publishing features (Called RSS or Real Simple Syndication)
- Blogs are easy to optimize
- Blogs are easy to add
Given the fact that you have a grasp of how to blog, #2 and #3 go without saying. But are you using the RSS feed the way you could be? Most small businesses aren't and that is a huge mistake. Here's what you can do with the RSS feed:
- Post your blog on your social media sites AUTOMATICALLY.
2. Use Pinging services to publish your blogs to other sites (you'll get SEO value from the backlinks if nothing else). Again this can be setup to work automatically.
3. Create a newsletter using your blog posts. 50Bubbles integrated newsletter software and most of the major email marketing systems (like Constant Contact) will work with your blog feed. It might be a headache to set it up but you only have to do this once.
If you take this approach to setting up your blog and your blog rss feed here's what you accomplish every time you post:
1. The post reaches everybody on your email list - potentially 1000's (better if you get opt-in permission on this list).
2. The post shows up on Facebook
3. The post shows up on Google+
4. The post shows up on Twitter
5. The post shows up on LinkedIn
6. The post shows up on 100's of feed sites
7. The post will probably show up on Google 1st page search results because of 1-6.
Can you think of a better way to spend 5 minutes? I didn't think so... now what's you're excuse? Go Blog.