I have a question for you guys that market your websites. I have notice between my website I have and a few blogs that I have that my blogs get indexed pretty fast in search engines. For example I can write an article on a blog today and tomorrow someone can search for a certain thing in that blog and find it. Where it could take weeks or months on my website page to get indexed by the search engines. Do you guys that know a lot about SEO think that blogs are easier to get ranked high on a search engine as opposed to regular websites?
I am told that blogs with high traffic that link to websites generate good click through traffic.
I can also tell you that, based on past results, I pick up half a dozen clients or so based strictly on my blog entries. Most of those folks email or call me direct rather than going to my site.
That is as far as I am willing to go without completely showing my ignorance about generating traffic.
One of the algorithms that search engines use to decide how often to visit a site is the frequency of a site's updating. In other words, if there are no changes between visits, the robots visit less frequently. Blogs are updated frequently and therefore are visited frequently.
Everyone's talking about all this SEO stuff - I created my blog over a year ago - Google picked up on it - ranked it on the 1st page of certain searches and traffic went nuts. I could spend 10K in SEO and my webite would probably never get half the traffic.
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Search engine optimization does not have to be difficult and it does not have to cost anything. Just a few simple tweaks to a site, very elementary stuff, can make all the difference.
For anyone serious about the subject, just invest a few bucks in a book. The best a couple of years ago was Search Engine Positioning by Fred Marckini. I assume it has been updated since I bought it. Anyway, do a search at Amazon.
Blogs are the hot thing right now. Google is always changing the algorithm's it uses. I guess it thinks that blogs are going to be more informative for someone than a site that is trying to sell them something so they rank higher. Also, each time you update it it helps your ranking. You probably don't update your site nearly as often as your blog.
I don't know much but I have been listening to a podcast from the people at webmasterradio.fm It is their SEO 101 podcast. It's a little dry, but that's how computer stuff is I guess, not every industry can be as exciting as insurance.
The key is to get blog hits to generate website hits which will eventually move the website up in rankings on search engines and, in time, the website will become one of the top listings in a search engine enquiry. Both the blog and the website are equally important to this marketing approach.
Blogs are good because they are rich in content and search engines love them. However, they're bad at converting customers. Someone searching on Google who's looking for an insurance agent to call isn't going to want to to read paragraphs written in your blog. Make sure you use your blog as a tool to get your website to rank in search engines. Don't make it the thing you want customers to find.
I recommend only having more than one if you can handle it. If you have a good blog that has been around awhile, and the search engines know it exists - it's better just to keep posting content on it. The more you update it with good content, the more secure your position on the search engines. It's useless having multiple blogs unless Google has indexed them. If you want to find out if Google knows about your blog, go to blogsearch.google.com and search the title of your blog.
or you could put the blog on a subdomain of your website, and not squander all that great traffic.
Yes! Being a web developer and specializing in SEO, adding a blog to your site as a subdomain is perfect. Either do blog.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com/blog. Whatever sprinkles your cupcake.
Use a blog to get information out there about relevant content on your business. Use the website as a tool to conduct business. Make it part of your system. Collecting information, letting clients manage and update their information, request changes, run quotes, etc.
You definately want to have a blog and a website. One part of SEO that so people miss especially in larger/saturated markets is using the power of a bigger website as a way to outrank their competition.
Which is what you can do with a blog...it will also create more internal linking power for you.
I typically reccomend that my clients set up at least two blogs...one on your website on a subdirectory i.e yourwebsite.com/blog or whatever you what to call it. Always do a sub directory over a sub domain as Google tends to treat sub domains like as a separate domain but considers sub directories as a deeper extension of a single domain.
And then another blog from an external source which will help you build backlinks.
This way your building content and backlinks at the same time. Which can help your website rank faster and make it easier to hold its position once it is ranking.
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You definately want to have a blog and a website. One part of SEO that so people miss especially in larger/saturated markets is using the power of a bigger website as a way to outrank their competition.
Which is what you can do with a blog...it will also create more internal linking power for you.
I typically reccomend that my clients set up at least two blogs...one on your website on a subdirectory i.e yourwebsite.com/blog or whatever you what to call it. Always do a sub directory over a sub domain as Google tends to treat sub domains like as a separate domain but considers sub directories as a deeper extension of a single domain.
And then another blog from an external source which will help you build backlinks.
This way your building content and backlinks at the same time. Which can help your website rank faster and make it easier to hold its position once it is ranking.
Two Blogs? Overkill, I dont disagree with using a Blog, but most have no idea how to use it properly or what the strategy should be on building authority and never do it on a consistent basis. Why? They dont see results!!!
So Just having a blog and posting content will not cut it, Like most do. The blog will never build any authority, so much easier ways to instantly drive traffic and sales and build "Authority Links" from "Authority Sites"
Google needs good content for its Searchers, based on the Keyword Phrases.
Is it going to get relevant content from already Established - Trusted sites or an Agents (PR0) blog?
Use the leverage from the Authority Sites from your relevant indexed content, then link that to your relevant content on your Blog, then to your Website. Trust me the Traffic will Arrive!
Last edited by dmiller90 : 11-18-2009 at 11:27 AM.
Websites or Blogs?
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