Making the Most of Your Content for Blended Search - Use Blogging Software
(Page 2 of 4 )
If you’re going to be adding fresh content to your web site on a regular basis – and you really should – you need to make it as easy as possible to add. Some large companies use a content management system to maintain their sites. Some CMSes are so complicated that they’re handled by an outside agency. That’s a little ridiculous for a small business; fortunately, there is an alternative.
Blog software is easy to find online and it’s often free to use. Check out Blogger.com or WordPress.org for examples. Most forms of blogging software ask for tags for each entry; that should give a boost to your keywords. Additionally, blogs can be set up to archive entries by category, which gives you another opportunity to get your keywords in.
Lee Odden notes that blogs can be used to publish “a wide variety of content types, such as: company news, industry insight, product announcements, press release or newsletter archives, customer testimonials, user-contributed content, surveys, and lists of resources or how-to tips.” With any luck, that list will help you think about the kinds of content that would be appropriate for you to publish on your site.
It’s usually easy to set up an RSS feed to be associated with a blog. Once you get users subscribing to your content, they’ll return to your site again and again. And they won’t need a search engine to get there!
Search engines will reward you for a good blog. Your visitors will too – as long as you serve their needs. If you do choose to blog, make sure you’re clear in your mind about the blog’s purpose, and that the information it delivers is what your visitors are looking for.
Odden tells the story of brick-and-mortar retailer J&O Fabrics Center, which illustrates the power of a blog. The company “added a blog to its online retail site as a way to archive a monthly newsletter online. Within three months, a part-time writer was hired to post to the blog on a regular basis. The blog now includes entertaining and informative posts that send customers directly to product purchase pages. The links from the blog to the main Web site have helped rankings. J&O Fabrics now competes online with much larger competitors like Jo-Ann Fabrics and enjoys rankings on Google like No. 3 for ‘fabric stores.’”
Next: Taking it Social >>
More Website Marketing Articles
More By Terri Wells
/ 3 
