Loading ...It can be difficult to find the line when it comes to a blog for a business site. On the one hand, every business naturally wants to push its products, services, and ideas. On the other hand, there are conventions surrounding blogging that make it more of a journalistic artform than a marketing launchpad. These two different aspects of a business blog can sometimes clash, and clash badly.
The conflict comes from the business’ reasons for hosting the blog and the internet user’s reasons for reading it. There is a perception, created by the success of some of the independent bloggers around the net, that blogs are a platform for individual thought. Once upon a time, blogs were predominantly the ramblings of their creators, kind of online public diaries. These days, the more prominent blogs out there have more of the feel of groundbreaking journalism or biting editorial commentary than the subjective thoughts of their writers.
When internet users come across a blog, then, there is a certain expectation of the content it features. The major expectation is that the information featured there will be fairly objective, even if there is a spin to it. This means no advertising.
When business owners hear the words ‘no advertising’ in relation to such a high-energy project as a blog, they tend to panic. Preparing a website for blog hosting, developing content, and spending time building up a readership are not things most business owners can do just for fun. Without the ability to push their business aims, a blog seems like a huge waste of resources.
Any business owner who views a non-advertising blog as a waste is, when you get down to it, wrong. Blogs bring in many benefits for a business, all of which can lead to an increase in conversions. They provide fresh content for the business website, which brings search engine spiders back more frequently and can ultimately benefit the site’s ranking. They attract links, which are another search engine optimisation benefit. They create a sense of community, which brings return traffic. You can discuss the benefits of blogging as part of your SEO campaign with us at SEO Consult Australia.
All of these benefits, however, rely on the content of the blog being attractive to internet users, which advertising talk tends not to be. Those blogs that do overtly market products or services tend to be less successful than their information-based counterparts. In an ironic sort of way, those businesses that doggedly pursue the marketing benefits of a blog end up causing the waste of resources.
Just because your blog needs to avoid outright advertising talk, it doesn’t mean you can’t subtly push a product or service every now and then. What it does mean is that your blog has to contain genuinely useful information to be attractive to internet users. Marketing speak does tend to put internet users off a page, but information is also what the net is all about. The value of this information may be offset by them whenever they realise they are being sold to.
Related posts:
- Why should you read and comment on the blogs of others?
- You don’t need a blog to get blog business
- Blogs can benefit SEO
- Encourage others to comment on your blogs
- The Essential Nature of Blogs
Tags: blogging, content, SEO campaign, SEO Consult, spiders
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