The concept of Blogging
-
Can anyone describe the fundamentals of blogging?
Should I be aiming blog posts at "subject A vs subject B" or more on recent projects that have been worked on such as "keyword working with company A to complete subject X" ?
Also, should I allow comments on posts and filter out the spam using plugins and manual methods or should I just turn them off and forget the hassle?
Any help would be grand!
-
Hi Shaun,
Thanks for asking your question. What you do with your blog should be guided by what your goals are. Some industries are an easy, natural match for blogging. For example, a bakery can blog about awesome wedding cakes they've created for weddings in Los Angeles. They can post gorgeous photos, write up a description of the cake, icing, decorations, and talk about the venue to which they delivered the cake. By taking this approach, the bakery can hope to attract traffic from people searching for a wedding cake baker in LA.Some industries have to work harder to find something inviting and interesting to blog about. An attorney might be a good example of this. However, let's say he's an accident lawyer. He can potentially write about new driving laws, bicycle-friendly cities, accident avoidance, and news about local or national cases involving accidents. In such a case, his goal might be to demonstrate his involvement in his field and his expertise to readers, while also showing to search engines that his website/blog is a lively, frequently updated entity, enabling him to surpass more static competitors.
So, depending on what your business does, yes, showcasing your work with clients in some posts could be great, while other posts might focus on tactical advice about what you do for a living, or highlighting news in your industry that you feel is important. Different kinds of posts make a blog interesting.
Yes, I definitely recommend using a spam fighting plugin. I use Akismet and it blocks thousands of spam comments for me every year.
Allowing comments on your blog means that you are inviting interaction, and as this is the whole point of blogging, the decision to turn off comments would mean that you do not want people to be able to talk to you about what you write. There are some instances in which bloggers do this, but in my opinion, that takes away one of the key points of their having a blog and they might as well just be publishing a series of static articles. There could be exceptions to this, of course, but in most cases, the point of blogging is to interact with the public, so giving them a voice is an important part of that.
Hope this helps!accidents. In such a case, his goal might be to demonstrate his involvement in his field and his expertise to readers, while also showing to search engines that his website/blog is a lively, frequently updated entity, enabling him to surpass more static competitors. So, depending on what your business does, yes, showcasing your work with clients in some posts could be great, while other posts might focus on tactical advice about what you do for a living, or highlighting news in your industry that you feel is important. Different kinds of posts make a blog interesting. Yes, I definitely recommend using a spam fighting plugin. I use Akismet and it blocks thousands of spam comments for me every year. Allowing comments on your blog means that you are inviting interaction, and as this is the whole point of blogging, the decision to turn off comments would mean that you do not want people to be able to talk to you about what you write. There are some instances in which bloggers do this, but in my opinion, that takes away one of the key points of their having a blog and they might as well just be publishing a series of static articles. There could be exceptions to this, of course, but in most cases, the point of blogging is to interact with the public, so giving them a voice is an important part of that. Hope this helps!
-
Blog how you want to blog and how you think it will interest the reader.
From memory I don't really think blogs with massive amounts of comments rank overly well, could be wrong though.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it possible to do guest blogging on moz blog?
Hi, I know it used to be possible but now i don't find any contact to submit an article to the blog. How does that work? Is that still possible to do it? And if yes, what are the conditions to be writer for Moz blog? Thanks. Stephanie
Content Development | | steph_ba0 -
URL Structure for Blog
Hi guys, Hope you are all doing well today. I have a questions with regards to our blog URL structure. The URL for the blog is /blog - however when you click on a blog post the "/blog" disappears completely and is replaced by the title of the post. So it is ".com/title-of-post" for example. Would it be better to keep the blog subdomain in the URL so it is ".com/blog/title-of-article" Any insight would be appreciated. My thoughts are that surely the second option above is ideal? Thanks Tom
Content Development | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Difference in Forum and Blog for SEO
I was pushing my employer to agree to switch to add a blog onto our site and he asked me, what is the difference between the blog and a forum for SEO purposes. Besides the general look and feel and a forum being more community oriented, is a blog better than a forum for seo, and if so, why? It can be vice-versa I just need to fully understand this myself so I can begin to work on one and explain it to my employer. If anyone can provide any insight, it will be much appreciated.
Content Development | | ithvac0 -
Same content on site blog as a separate blog. Will unpublishing on one blog evade duplicate content issues?
I just discovered my client was posting the same content as the site I'm working on for him on a separate blog. I don't want to run into duplicate content issues. Both are Wordpress sites. Will it suffice to simply unpublish duplicate entries on the other blog and leave the posts as drafts?
Content Development | | locallyrank0 -
What is the BEST way to find guest blog? Use Google under the blog tab??
I want to post articles and get backlink. What is the best practice for finding guest blog? Thank you, BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Best places to get pictures for blog posts?
Well I'm really sick of reading people questions saying "help my sites been affected by penguin" So I thought I would ask something about blogging, where is the best place to find and buy pictures for blog posts? I already use Wikimedia commons. But I'm interested websites that have a bigger range that aren't too pricey. What do you recommend?
Content Development | | charles10 -
Simple question: How many words optimal for blog posts
Hello, We're adding a blog to one of our sites. How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines? If it varies from industry to industry, please give a couple of examples. We were going to do 500 words but that seems a bit long. Thanks!
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
Blog as sub folder or subdomain
Is it better to set up a blog using a sub folder on the website's domain or by using a subdomain: http://www.domain.com/blog/ http://blog.domain.com
Content Development | | yourspares0