We are contemplating whether to put a blog on our site.
-
The reasons we want to put one up is obviously for SEO reasons but since we are a small business with limited resources the higher ups are worried that we will start strong but slack off. Some feel that it's worse to start and not keep up the blog as it gives an unprofessional vibe to google and other users.
I maintain that I will try to keep it up to the best of my abilities and that it's better to have something than nothing.
What do you feel and do you have any experiences in this?
-
Hey Stephen,
I don't really agree with you here. It's quite easy to make a calculable difference with a blog for a small business owner. Not everyone needs to be OK Cupid. Not everyone needs a following of people who read the blog daily or come back to the blog often. Some businesses, such as small (local) businesses, only need a few posts on their blog to make a difference. If there is worry about it not getting updated perhaps they can simply make more content pages on their site rather than a full-blown blog effort. Content creation doesn't always mean blog. Perhaps they can do some keyword research and look for long-tails to write blog posts about. Perhaps they could target a local keyword. These evergreen posts will continue to provide benefits for their business for years.... if the keyword research is done correctly.
-
What Franck says is correct, it creates user engagement and can help with the SEO. And David has also mentioned outsourcing to elance and Odesk as well as not using the dates. Also a good start.
Another thing you should do is just write a bunch of content before hand and just keep them as drafts, that way the writing won't hold you up except for maybe once a month. In addition, you have other sites like fiverr.com which is hit or miss on how good the content is but only costs 5 dollars.
But if you want a writing service that is backed by actual people and don't want to be worried about whether they speak actual english or whatever language you are looking for, there is also professionalwritingservices.biz/ and I think they cost like $10.
However, back to your original question. It can't hurt you to start a blog. It promotes engagement and makes your site dynamic, instead of static. With the addition of a blog to your site you are providing your customers an insight into your business and an opportunity for them to engage you.
If you choose to go ahead with the blog, make sure that they are socially enabled, meaning people can like it on facebook, share it on twitter, and post it on Google + (good for SEO) so that you are getting the maximum outreach with each post. I hope this helps.
-
I suggest you read this http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/12/10/how-important-was-blogging-to-okcupids-success/
I (and many other in the industry) have admired the brilliance and marketing effectiveness of the OKcupid blog for many years. That article reveals how much work something of that effectiveness takes to create!
"The posts each took four to eight weeks of full-time work for him to write. Plus another two to four weeks of dedicated programming time from someone else on the team. It’s easy to look at an OkTrends post, with all its simple graphs and casual writing style and think someone just threw it together, but it probably had fifty serious revisions. And we threw out a lot of research that didn’t turn into good posts. "
People often have high hopes for a blog: "if OKCupid can knock it out of the park, why cant we?"
What is your success criteria? Can you put in enough time to actually hit it?
99% of people don't hit it and waste their time. You have to be pretty determined to be part of the 1% that make a calculable difference from their blog
-
If you're worried about it not getting updated you can always remove the dates on the posts. That way, people won't know you haven't been updating it.
Also, you can find writers on Elance and Odesk who will write great content for you for about $50-$100. Good way to keep the writing going for a cheap cost.
-
Hi
In my experience a corporate or product blog is always useful because it provides content for users and for Ecommerce websites it can be a place to answer users inquieries or to announce events, or to keep in touch with bloggers ans the community, etc
But you must have a content plan and try to post new posts on a regular basis. Don't put the focus on Google but on users. You can easily capture new visitors if your content is relevant.
In my experience (Ecommerce websites) blog traffic represents 5 to 12% of global visits with good engagement rate.
Hope this will help you and your team
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
-
Blog post generating irrelevant traffic. What should I do with it?
I have a blog post that has been generating more than 75% of my website's traffic month over month.-averaging about 1000 views a month. Awesome that so many people are finding and benefiting from this post, however it is really skewing my traffic. I have an 87% bounce rate, and I'm only ranking in terms related to this post as opposed to industry related terms. I'm not sure what to do with this blog post. I want to be able to better evaluate my website's performance and be sure I'm targeting the right audience in order to gain more leads. Would a 'noindex' or 'nofollow' be appropriate here? Thanks!
Content Development | | Ali_DeLeg0 -
Repurpose/reuse blog content - email address to make available for this
Hi, From Rand's recent Whiteboard Friday, I learned this: "Have right on the blog page the email address to use if they want to repurpose/reuse the content. That way if someone wants to give us a backlink and quote/reference our blog, they have an easy way to get permission." My question is, what do I say with the email address when I list our contact email? Something like 1. Just list the email address 2. "To reuse/repurpose our content, please contact adress@email.com." or something else?
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
What platform is it better to write my blogs
In a nutshell, I have a website and on the web site I have a rolling blog updated regularly with informative ,interesting and non pushy original material. However . I notice that my website blog has a lower page and domain Authority than my original platform which is on Googles very own platform "blogger" . Should I use Blogger or the website ? or would it be better to promote the website blog on blogger ? or am I over thinking this ?
Content Development | | weddingshoesandaccessories0 -
Sell your writing or make your blog to publish it ?
Hii would like to know that should we sell our own written articles on freelancing site or any other sites. or we have to make our own blog and publish it on. Because I see most words that content quality is very important, So what do you think i sell the writing or publish it on my website. Actually i register a domain mbgadget and just want to know what should i do, i sell my writing or publish it on my blog what to do, I don't know if there is any other stratgy that you know, to make some bucks online in a same manner what to do, please explain it.
Content Development | | seom20140 -
Authorship showing in SERPs for non-blog pages
Hi, A few months ago we set up authorship for on our blog articles for multiple authors, which has helped driving extra traffic to our blog posts. Today, I did a search for one of most important search terms and one of our non-blog pages is showing in the first page of the results with one of our authors headshot next to it. Technically we have not not set it up to do this, the page is on a different CMS to our blog (which is wordpress). I'm not complaining because I think this is a positive outcome, but does anyone have an idea why it has done this? I was under the impression that only blog article pages could have authorship set up. Thanks, Stu
Content Development | | Stuart260 -
My New blog has NO content since 2 months, the day it was launch, What to DO? Is it "DEAD"???
2 months ago, I publish a NEW blog, http://www.mervrating.org The blog has only 3 posts. I don't have much time to work on it. Does it HURT my SEO? Can I start working on it on regular basis and try to built authority or does it looks "dead" to search engine? I would like to bring it alive and give it a second chance, will it be hard if it has no content since the beginning? What is your opinions? Thank you, BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
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 -
Blog Categories
I am working on redoing my blog and there are many posts that fit into two categories. Should I keep them in only one? or place them in both? For example- Category 1 - Gucci Category 2 - Shirts Should a post about "Gucci shirts" go in both places or only the "Gucci" category and the "shirts" category would then only include posts about my more minor brands. Thanks!
Content Development | | theLotter0