Captain’s Log: Stardate 2317 would have been an unsurprising start to a ‘web log’ in the early days of ‘blogging’. Online diaries, or logs, uploaded by techies with the knowhow, blogging did not start out as mainstream, let alone a corporate, activity.
Now every enterprise, and not just The Enterprise can and should be blogging. Why?
- It’s Easy
Software makes it easy to post and organise content on your website. With very low barriers to entry, it’s hard to find a reason not to blog.
- Business has moved online
The ‘customer journey – from discovery, to awareness, consideration, purchase decision and post-decision, now takes place virtually. An active online content strategy increases the customer’s chances of ‘bumping into’ you on that journey. Guided by Google, of course.
SEO is Key to Online Success – And Blogging Can Help
Jumping up Google’s search ranking can mean the difference between success and failure in the online space. The way Google ranks search results is based on a series of algorithms used to rank answers to search questions.
To give the most useful information, search algorithms look at many factors, including the words of the query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and the searcher’s location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of the query.
Websites with fresh content, traffic and links score higher on the rankings than those with limited activity.
By regularly and frequently posting blogs on your company website, you will improve your score for fresh content and will feed the search bots crawling websites and indexing what they find. That’s what makes search engines like Google so useful. They are always on and keep fine-tuning factors and algorithms to deliver the most useful search results.
Keywords are a key factor in SEO and that’s where blogging really scores. New blogs give you a chance to write about trending topics, using those keywords. As your blog roll builds over time, your company will have more content and more keywords indexed.
Perhaps nothing has changed on your website for a while. You might regard it as a ‘shop window,’ with your contact details, product catalogue and list of services offered. What’s there to update? How well would Google score that website? Coming up in a search should be a priority. Of course, you can buy ads, but should also be playing all your organic SEO cards.
Blogs Haven’t Killed the Press Release
I’m not turning my back on press releases, and neither should you. The blog and press release are two different tactical tools in your marketing communications mix. Let’s consider the main differences between the two:
| Press release | Blog | |
| Content focus | Breaking news, an announcement | Solving a customer’s problem, answering a question, sharing advice |
| Distribution | Sent to media to be considered for publication | Hosted on the company website |
| Objective | Inform stakeholders, build the company profile | Build trust, generate leads, improve SEO |
| Point-of-view | Outside the company, objective, third person | Inside the company, first person |
| Timing | Time sensitive, event dependent | Can be planned ahead, topical but timeless |
Let’s look at an example. If a client specialising in Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), I could write a useful blog post on the different types of systems available, and which are better in which application. Someone researching the topic will get an overview of which system might be best for them. The piece is hosted on the company website and includes expert advice and examples.
A press release for the same company could be about the launch of a new product, or establishment of anew branch, the appointment of a new GM. The release is distributed to media organisations and published, for example, by the Engineering News.
Writing blogs
Good blogs start with research. Understanding who you are reaching out to and what information they will find useful. To get maximum SEO benefit, keyword research should also inform topics and content. You can outsource the whole setup to us, or we could step in and assist with writing, editing, brainstorming, whatever works for you. Let’s get blogging.
