30/01/2008

Blog Marketing

Most businesses have heard about blogging and a lot of web users read the popular blogs published every day by professional journalists on sites such as the Guardian, the Times Online and even the BBC.

Until 2005 blogging was simply seen as a way for people to publish their thoughts online but the world woke up to the commercial potential of blogs when AOL paid $40 million for Weblogs Inc, a US based blog network.

In 2008 blogs are now seen as an easy way for companies and individuals to publish their thoughts, comments and news to an ever growing audience.

The power of the weblog is demonstrated very well by looking at the recent saga involving the popular technology blog Engadget and the Apple iPhone. In May 2007 Engadget posted a rumour that the Apple iPhone would be delayed until October.

The rumour came from a trusted source but was confirmed to be totally incorrect just 20 minutes later. Unfortunately by then the story had already reached the stock market, causing over $4bn to be wiped off Apple's market cap before the story was corrected.

With the advent of social news sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and many more a brand new blog by an unknown writer can have hundreds of thousands of people reading a story within 48 hours.

Now we know just how much influence a blog can have it is important to see how this medium can be harnessed to bring better brand awareness and more reveune to your company.

Search engine rankings

The main reason a lot of companies start a blog is to gain better search engine rankings. A combination of search engine friendly architecture and text heavy content often leads to blog posts ranking very highly in the search results.

Writing a blog can also bring lots of all important backlinks to your website which are the basis of the Google PageRank algorithm. In general the more links your website has the higher it will rank in Google, the best way to get these links is to write interesting and newsworthy content and let other sites naturally link to you. This is why sites like the BBC, who have been producing interesting and newsworthy content for years, are at the top of so many search results on Google.

Branding

Publishing a popular blog allows a company to reach out and talk to customers and, most importantly, get their feedback in the form of comments. Most companies are scared of using blogging to communicate but with the right systems in place it can be made very safe. At Branded3 Search we offer our clients training on how to blog safely and ethically and give them a list of guidelines that will allow the blog to grow organically and without risk to the companies brand.

Sustainable traffic

Companies running popular blog can have thousands of subscribers reading new articles every day. This insulates the site against any fluctuations in Google rankings and allows online advertising budgets to be reduced.

Having your most loyal customers actively reading about your products on an opt in service means every product launch is easier and more cost effective than before. No longer do you have to use press releases and mailshots to reach your core customers - simply post about it on your company blog.

Most companies have a news section and with a bit of alteration this can be turned into a blog. A blog can have exactly the same content as your news section (although we recommend including some non self promotional material too) with extra features such as RSS feeds, email subscriptions and the ability for users to add comments and bookmark your posts at popular social sites.

The Branded3 Search blog consulting package includes:

• Full design & development service
• Ability to moderate customers comments
• Tracking what people are saying about your brand online
• Blueprint for future posts
• Training on blog marketing
• Content creation
• Training on blog ethics
• Market research
• Social media training

Contact us for a quote today