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How important is having a blog?

Kirk — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:19:15 +0000

Is having a blog central to a social media plan and if so how should it be used?

Something that is often missed or passed over by many commentators when talking about the effective use of social media is the importance of your own website or blog in the context of your social media activities. Indeed listening to some all you need to do is have a Facebook account!

No. This is not the case; its selling yourself and your firm far short

Working with a blog should be central to everything you do. Don’t let web designers or agencies who want to develop an expensive Web 1.0 style website tell you differently; refer them to this blog post.

The social media provide the means to build rapport, relationship and trust; this is where you become known, liked and trusted but its not where the business is conducted.

Why?

Because this is done back at your blog. The blog should be you centre or hub where everything is pulled together in one cohesive, substantive and all encompassing centre of excellence.

The social media utilities are where you create excitement interest and enthusiasm, your blog is where you pull it all together.

So if its that important, where should one start?

The starting point is not to start but to look and learn!

The starting point is to research the social media world; try it out as a user. In this way you’ll come to see how your blog might fit in the wider context; then

1. Set up an RSS reader and subscribe to blogs;
2. See what is really popular and think about what it means for you and your output;
3. Sign up on twitter and see what others in your sector are saying and doing [it may not be good]; its a good idea to do Twitter searches on your competitors;
4. Make a commitment to actively follow people on Twitter who you find or who you know put out great quality content on their blogs so you get to see it as it comes up;
5. Sign up at a mix of social book marking sites and engage; see how others use their blogs in this context;
6. Visit the main networking sites for your service arena;
7. Visit relevant forums and start posting a few comments, but only when and where you can add value;
8. Get a feel for it, take your time, see how it all works; get a feel for where you feel most comfortable

Remember that when your social media plan, your online videos, your podcasts and all else is in place you’ll have a fully interconnected series of new media sites that work in concert on your behalf; but don’t try or even think you can set it all up in a day and that’s it; it doesn’t work like that!

When you’re comfortable the 1st thing to do is to set up your own blog and simply start blogging with your very best materials.

A blog is a powerful tool as it allows your readers to: add content and to subscribe so they are automatically notified when content is updated; they also automatically ping the search engines when content is updated.

I recommend a WordPress blog as they are simple to set up and there are many free plug-ins available giving extraordinary functionality dependent on what you want to do.

The great thing about WordPress is that there is almost no set up but the downside with hosted blogging is that it does not deliver as much search engine benefit because the content does not reside on your website domain; therefore I recommend getting your own keyword focused domain name and placing your WordPress blog there;

All the main hosting providers have ready made arrangements for facilitating a WordPress blog so it really is very easy to set up.

The keys to effective use of your blog really are very simple:

1. Focus your posts on things that are current;
2. Address issues your target audience are concerned about or interested in;
3. Make sure each blog post is keyword optimised for words people are searching for that the post focuses in on;
4. Encourage people to contribute to debates;
5. Post the answers to the questions, problems, and challenges that you know from looking elsewhere that people are asking;
6. Don’t be afraid of controversy and taking a stand; this encourages participation; and
7. Focus on developing active conversations that draw more and more people into the frame;

Its also important to:

1. Post links to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn sites whenever you make a new post;
2. Think about guest Blogging on other high traffic, blogs using well written posts with a bi-line and a link back to your own blog;
3. Keep asking for comments, asking questions, seeking opinions and do make sure that you comment on all the substantive comments that folks make on your blog;
4. Visit the blogs of those who are commenting and write on their sites; and where appropriate link to their content in your blog posts and via Twitter; all is well as this becomes infectious and everyone benefits.

WordPress templates are also readily available giving preset functionality helping the newbie to quickly achieve the desired results. I use the Socrates template which you can find out more about by clicking on the Affiliate link word ‘Socrates’ at the very bottom right hand side of this blog page.

Your blog should become the main way for people to really come to know you and your firm.

Do people want to go to your blog per say? No! So why have one?

Because on your blog, with its keyword titled and optimised posts, prospects will find the answers to their questions and get to know you as you help them to understand more.

When considering the potential of the social media, its not the utilities themselves, be it your blog, Facebook, twitter, the social book marking platforms or news sites or LinkedIn that are important,it’s the information they contain

Set up an RSS feed:

1. RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically at the same time as benefiting readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from preferred blogs or websites.

2. In essence what happens is all those feeds from as many sites as you chose to draw from come into one place where the reader can view them all.

3. RSS feeds are read using an “RSS reader”. A user subscribes to a feed by clicking the RSS icon in a web browser. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

It’s a good idea to start social book marking your ‘stuff’ including all your videos and your high value blog posts. This will open up channels to your website creating back links and visitors; examples of book marking sites include: Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon,Google buzz, del.icio.us, Mixx, Fark, Clipmarks, Newsvine, Propeller, Mister Wong, Blinklist, and faves; but there hundreds more.

Now I know that most of these sites are US based but UK people do use them. As far as I can tell there are few if any of note specifically focused on the UK.

Your Blog should be integrated into all aspects of your social media initiatives;

1. every post should be promoted via twitter;
2. when videos are included in a post each should be uploaded to the main video upload sites,
3. all your blog posts with video should be posted to Facebook and LinkedIn,
4. and if its of real interest you should make a Pod cast of the blog post video and up load it to the main Pod cast channels although for the minute its itunes that is the most important

One important guideline is that a significant percentage of your blog posts should include a short video, with commentary. The commentary should be a repeat of the same information presented in the video; its for those that prefer to read quickly, including giving any links that are mentioned in the video,

One of the most frequent questions about blogging is this:

What is more important the quality of the content of a blog or the frequency of the updating of the blog itself? i.e. do we go for a few infrequently placed really good articles or loads of average fare?

Now of course frequency is an issue and it is important. Who wants to repeatedly go back to a blog and see very little that is new? Nobody!

If you do take this approach then you’ll quickly find that the few that come in the first place start coming back fewer and fewer times if you’re not updating.

So if you want regular visitors, whom you’re seeking to build rapport and relationship with, you must keep updating regularly

But above all else,, whether considering the blog from the readers perspective or the search engine’s, it’s the quality of the material that is by far the most important factor in your success.

This is where most go wrong and loose what following they have built because the substance just isn’t there to warrant repeat visits

This means whether you use a daily, or a once or twice a week or a twice monthly blog update regime this is far less important than only Blogging when you have something relevant, valuable, timely or interesting to say to those you’re targeting.

The upshot of all this is that you must keep on top of your Blogging:

1. you must be doing your research; you must be developing new or fresh insights;
2. you should be shaping up interesting angles;
3. you must be posing questions to stimulate debates and new threads;
4. you need to get off the fence and polarise folk into taking a position;
5. you need to be providing an insider’s perspective, developing an angle, or taking a stand, whatever it takes to be someone people appreciate hearing more from.

The adoption of such a tack will mean your blog will get backlinks, people will respond and make comments; people will quote your ‘stuff’ and it will be seen as useful and worthy of future visits.

The result your market profile will become ever stronger, you will enjoy better search engine rankings people will see you as someone with something say; people will start to appreciate your worth and a whole new world will open up.

A problem for some firms that have started using Blogging and the social media is their failure to manage it as a means of attaining beneficial results.

Jumping into Blogging & social media initiatives without knowing what clearly defined benefits you seek to attain is a totals waste of time. as usually this means that little will achieved as there is no focus in what you’re doing and no integration in the campaign context with other social media sites.

Real value must be defined from both the client’s and the firm’s perspectives.

There is no purpose in doing something that will take time and resource if its not clear why you’re doing it, how all parties will benefit and where should be the focus to achieve the desired benefits.

For example For your firm the benefits of your blogging and social media activities might be

1. To improve the service innovation process by encouraging customer input;
2. To build trusting relationships with prospects that translate into new client contracts;
3. To identify service short falls via client feedback;
4. To understand what people think of you and what is being said about the firm in the local context;
5. To connect and build relationships with other firms that result in JVs or new business;
6. To get happy clients to become advocates of the firm;
7. To reinvigorate past clients to use the firm once more; or
8. To build must use status for the firm in its area of expertise or To build go-to status for the firm’s business leaders

Then from the client’s perspective the benefits might be:

1. The provision of excellent quality information communicated in ways and at times when they want to receive it;
2. To gain the feeling that the organization values and really cares about them;
3. To enjoy a great experience when interacting with the company;
4. The ability to affect how a service is being marketed or created thus giving a feeling of contribution and involvement; and
5. They can enjoy special Offers and promotions which they take exclusively through the social media channels they like to use or at the blog.

These may or may not be specific to your clients as there will be hundreds of objectives and resultant benefits arising from the effective use of the social media sector by sector, practise by practise.

The key here is actually setting up these value statements so that you have a clear idea in what areas and how, the firm its partners, prospects and clients who are consuming your materials and entering into dialogues with you are benefiting.

Why?

Because herein lies the raison d’etre for committing too and implementing your Blogging programme and your social media plan.

You can see many more articles like this at our Online Video for Professionals blog.

How Google Measures Link Popularity

Kirk — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:20:00 +0000

How Google Measures Link Popularity

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How Google Measures Link Popularity

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Posted: Feb 26, 2007 |Comments: 0

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How Google Measures Link Popularity

By: Jim Pretin

About the Author

Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers create a free web form with the code to email the web form responses.

(ArticlesBase SC #110038)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – How Google Measures Link Popularity

Link popularity is by far the most important factor for determining your search engine ranking. You need to know what link popularity is, why it is so important, and how Google measures your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top of Google, you will rise to the top of all the other search engines as well). But, before we talk about how Google measures linking, we need to cover some basics.

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. Google uses a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, Google gives an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site. As long as you are persistent and tailor your strategy towards Google, you will do fine.

Retrieved from “http://www.articlesbase.com/link-popularity-articles/how-google-measures-link-popularity-110038.html”

(ArticlesBase SC #110038)

Jim Pretin -
About the Author:

Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers create a free web form with the code to email the web form responses.

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