Blogging/content strategy
-
While personal blogging & branding is pretty typical for those in a service/b2b industry, when it comes to CEOs/owners of retail businesses - not so much.
We have a company blog right now that is heavy on company news and updates - and will be working towards being more informational/educational. But, in the meantime, it's difficult getting the ok to contribute to contributor based article/resource sites - such as http://smallbiztrends.com, since the business blog, by nature, is promotional. (our clients are both business & consumer)
Assuming, we can generate enough content, my suggestion is to have the owner create a personal blog which will be purely information and educational, and use that blog to account for the owner's expertise and use those articles as means to get accepted as a contributor at highly prized sites. At the same time, we would still have a business blog that combines educations & company news/promotional.
Does this seem like a sound strategy? or is it better to just build up the company blog as an educational resource. Will reputable sites be ok with an educational company blog?
-
The kind of content I'm talking about would go on the company blog, primarily, and the rest on quality publishers' sites within your theme via outreach.
-
I think Chris had some good suggestions. I would add the following comments. 1) I would encourage your CEO or a ghost writer to start doing blog entries. I would add this as a blog category. In this way it is not going to look bad or screw things up if he does not always get a blog out. Once your CEO has built up a few blog entries it might be good to add a list of prior blog entries next to his profile. This would be a good way for people to get a feel for how he thinks and what he believes in.
I do think it is a good idea to hire a ghost writer(I admit I am biased as that is one of the services my company provides). However I would strongly recommend that your CEO participate in the process and approve the final blog so that the blog has his voice.
Even though you did not ask about this I thought I would also mention that you might want to add a newsletter archive as a category as well. This is a good way to keep old newsletters as a reference for those that are interested and increase your content at the same time.
Ron
-
In my personal opinion you should drop the idea of a separate blog and work on your company’s blog and make it a one stop resource for people within your industry and for your customers. If owner’s branding is one of the important part for you then just go with author tag and author profile!
Stay active on social media profiles and communicate with your audience instead of giving them a feeling that your blog or website is a one way communication!
Adding another blog will just only increase your efforts and will not really offer you valuable returns.
Hope this helps!
-
In fact, I would suggest working on your company blog instead of creating a new one. Even though the content on your company blog may not yet be optimal as an education resource, I'm sure your company blog has a current following which you can count on. If people are already following your company updates, the likelihood of them being interested in information related to your industry is quite high.
Work on creating quality educational posts that would be relevant to your target audience, alongside with your company updates. This would keep existing followers coming back for a fresh set of content, and attract potential customers through the educational posts.
Creating a new blog in this situation wouldn't benefit much. You would end up trying to optimise the new blog for SEO and having to attract the same group of people again, which I believe you already have in the company blog.
-
Thanks.. so, you support the idea of having a blog separate from the company blog? Or, can it be part of the current company blog?
-
If the owner isn't already actively blogging and been doing so for some time (meaning that he likes doing it, is accustomed to taking the time to do it, and is likely to continue doing it for a good deal of time into the future), hire a writer/ghost writer, instead. Map out an editorial calendar based on the kinds of content that will be acceptable to the highest quality sites you're able to get articles published on have the owner add a bunch of expert bullet points under each article topic and have the writer go at it. This way, your effort will be much more sustainable.
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
-
What is the perfect strategy for a Brand that manufactures the product?
Hello Moz Community, I'm currently associated with one of the brands. It's a nutrition and supplement brand that manufacture supplements. Now, they are running an e-commerce website. Problem: It should be product based website, not an e-commerce website (Like Design, Look and Feel of it.) The problem with SEO: What do you thing like which will work better.
Branding | | Max_
1. Doing Perfect On-Page SEO? And building links for queries like: Best whey protein supplement in "Geo." Buy Protein Powder Online Buy Whey Online "Geo." Generic Terms Brand Name URL All the Remaining Keywords and Anchors OR 1. Doing a perfect On-Page SEO? and
2. Doing massive outreach like Inviting bloggers for guest post (Natural Anchor) Guest Posts (Natural Anchor) Mentions on social media Content Local Business about reciprocal promotions Email outreach Product Reviews Influencers content Link building as mentioned above Q. Tell me which will work the best?
Q. What I've to change in the strategy?
Q. Also tell me how to do a perfect keyword research for product pages? Thank you0 -
Copy/pasting the article from another website and referencing correctly not to get penalized
Hi all I am looking at copy/pasting an article from another website which is very relevant to my business, is there a standard practise/best practise for SEO to do this and ensure Google doesn't think i am plagerizing content etc.. Link to source down the bottom? Using Quotations... making a page noindex or no follow etc?
Branding | | IsaCleanse0 -
Anyone know the benefits of sharing articles blogs posts on stumble upon?
Hi ALL, Just wondering if it is worth setting up a stumble upon account and sharing our articles or blog posts? I noticed a few companies in my industry who write alot of blog posts who share their articles to stumble upon. Anyone have any insight into the benefits of doing this for SEO? Cheers
Branding | | edward-may0 -
Best strategies for alcoholic beverages online store
Hi, we are now creating an strategy for an online store that sells alcoholic beverages and also drinks to mix with them (for example for creating cocktails). The company is located in Spain and wants to begin selling in France. We are thinking of optimizing SEO of the online store, but it is a little difficult cause the description of drinks are really similar, and the inner text too. (Gin is Gin, and you can't describe many things about it. The brand changes, and also the bottle, but it is very difficult to describe a product like that) So we are thinking of creating a content marketing strategy and alsoa social community using facebook and twitter, and so on. As allways we are thinking of a blog and placing the contents there and then distribute then in social networks.... As the the products are alcoholic drinks, we thought that we could give people ideas and recipes of cocktails, and also to create videos about how to prepare those cocktails.But I am not sure about this strategy, specially about the video generation, cause as the products are alcoholic beverages, I am not sure about the policies of Youtube about that kind of issues. I tried to search on the Web and find nothing. This kind of content is for adults only? If so, should we create it anyway? Is it worth it? What kind of strategies will you apply to gain visibility for an store like this? I will apreciatte your comments and advices. Thank you!
Branding | | teconsite0 -
Commentluv enabled blogs for inbound links?
Question 1: What is the general consensus on gaining links through blog comments on blogs with CommentLuv enabled? Backstory: I was studying our competitor's links and tripped upon something I haven't seen before. There were a number of blog comments created in 2011 by an individual who was probably an SEO hired at least partially for the purpose of making blog comments to gain inbound links for the competitor. I haven't dug deeply enough to find if there are any more recent than 2011. The interesting part was the name/link of the company for this individual which was not the company's actual name but a URL crafted from a main keyword. It obviously has a redirect to the actual competitor's website which is where the link took me AND a link to this individual's "most recent blog post". This blog post on the company site was written by someone else entirely. Question 2: Clearly some manipulation to build links- would these links be considered unnatural? Question 3: Would it be smart for me to find blogs with CommentLuv to gain links to my blog?
Branding | | gfiedel0 -
Branding/Domain Challenge
A year and a half ago, SEO was all new to me and I may have made a mistake that looks to be a problem now. In a misguided quest to rank higher and faster, I used a domain for it's keywords and quick ranking potential rather than using my business' name URL. I've built the links and authority to where I'm now ranking well for many of my local search terms which is important for my local business success. The situation is that now I want to expand my business nationally as a franchise which will require my company's name in the domain(?), and the addition of entirely new pages and terms. My company's name' URL> www.ImpactMMAfitness.com is pointed to my site www.austinfitnessgyms.com and GA shows a significant # of visitors type our name in to find us. I also think it would be odd for someone outside my town looking for franchise info to be pointed to a different domain with Austin in it. I was wondering what option would be best: Keep as is Change domains - ouch!? Make a new second site ? I have 'ImpactFranchise.com I could use for a new site just for franchising but I would be starting at the bottom for any rankings. Is there a solution, or did I dig myself into a hole?
Branding | | OhYeahSteve0