Blogging
Blogging & SEO are vital elements in the field of SEO. Now this may sound strange to you if you see blogging as something akin to Perez Hilton's immensely popular blog about celebrities. The site, http://perezhilton.com/, is actually a good example of a top class use of the technology/technique, especially when you consider how powerful the site really is! Just take a quick look at http://perezhilton.com/mediakit/US/index.html?from=footer and you will see just how popular the site is.
Blogging refers to the act of adding an entry into a blog. The basic definition of a blog is a type of web site which is owned by an individual (or company) which makes regular posts (entries) of commentary about a particular topic. Generally speaking, blogs are fairly interactive and an early example of a Web 2.0 application which has been used and adapted for a huge variety of uses including personal sites right up to corporate and even govermental sites. The most well known examples of blogging sites are Wordpress and Blogger where it is possible to set up a free blog.
With regards to SEO and businesses, blogs can play various roles but the two most important are the provision of information (self promotion of your goods/services, business related news etc.) and external promotion. I will return to the aspects of blogging for external promotion and using blogs in SEO marketing in another article at a later date and, for now, I shall concentrate upon the area of using a blog on your business site.
Business Blogging
Blogs are usually database driven and are described as content management systems due to the fact that you enter the data into the database via the blog's interace and the blog software displays the database entries in a pleasant and readable fashion. The advantages of such a system are numerous but two obvious immediate benefits are that you can back up the database and ensure that you always have the important data backed up elsewhere. The second advantage/important feature of blogs is that they are usually template based in their design. Blog templates determine exactly how the site looks and there are plenty of free blog templates available online. Usually you simply upload the template to a folder on your site then click an apply button which then gives you a preview of how your site would look if that blog template was applied.
Obviously, if you are thinking about adding a blog to an existing site, you will need to have the template look exactly how you want. Thankfully templates are extremely easy to modify and even the most simple of templates allow for a small number of alterations, such as the changing of the header image. After a little practice, even if you are relatively new to web design you can radically change how the database information appears. You would really be surprised at how many sites you visit regularly are actually database driven blogs.
Why Start Blogging?
One of the most important reasons to add a blog to your site is to provide a means of supplying your visitors with regular, up-to-date information about your business or the general field in which your business is based. Blogging allows you to engage in conversation with your visitors, who can usually add comments at the bottom of your post. Many, many people are familiar with blogging so when they arrive at a site which incorporates a blog they feel comfortable adding a comment if so inspired. These comments can be a rich source of important feedback.
Blogging & Spam
When you first set up your blog it is important to use a few "plugins", the most important of which is a plugin which automatically moves spam comments into a separate folder for you to view and remove (stopping them from ever appearing on your blog). This is vital, if you do not do this you are inviting people to leave all manner of comments, some of which involve sex related content and products which may not be suitable for your site. I will return to this topic when I write an article about SEO blogging practices.
More about blogging soon.