In one of the Web 2.
0 fairs that I visited, a group of young Social Media marketers were chatting outside the venue; about the how Blogs are passe now.
It got me tuned in and offered to take them indoors for a cup of coffee - standing outside in the cold was a strain! The discussion got intense and lasted quite a while.
We concluded by agreeing that a Blog is still an integral part of any online marketing mix.
In fact it has taken a all new evolved form.
So how does a blog still help? 1.
For starters it reinforces the knowledge base and insight of the company, which specializes in a certain area of business.
The fact that information can be twisted in favor of the company's business, makes an end user explore more before taking a decision.
Only realizing to be convinced, that the business must have chose to sell or market a particular product or service based on its research and knowledge.
2.
Content is still King.
It hooks people who are 'exploring' for information on the Internet.
The target group usually gets hooked on to reading/seeing interesting information, coming from a trusted authority on the subject.
What other better way to share knowledge.
Your corporate brochure (read business website) is more like a Salesman.
Your blog is like a Counselor.
3.
A blog helps tremendously for Search Engine Optimization (thankfully nobody questioned this being effective!).
Organic top listings on Google, yahoo and other search engines are an outcome of content relevance, popularity, newness of the information and intelligent tagging.
Blogs meet all these criteria.
Imagine if you are offering a particular set of product or service - how often can you update your website? The answer is a Blog - it does not really disrupt your structure.
4.
Consider your Blog to be your second property on the Internet.
More number of sites you have the more business you are able to generate online.
This is based on a simple fact that that your 'surface area' exposed to potential clients is more on the web through the second website.
5.
Readers and participants of the blog form a niche community within your territory.
Now why would you want this community to be nurtured on a 3rd party forum, group of blog? Think of the long run benefit of this.
Social networks are no doubt good, but you don't own these communities.
Now that one can understand how useful a Blog still is, what are some of the basics that need to be kept in mind while developing one - 1.
Don't boast about your company here! Remember you need to be more subtle in your expression of thoughts.
This is not a Press Release section for your website where you end up highlighting the achievements of the company.
2.
Preferably, use a sub domain for a blog i.
e.
[http://www.
blog.
yourdomain.
com] .
This will help from the SEO point of view for both the blog and your domain.
Creating a blog on a 3rd Party website will not help you as much from the Organic listings viewpoint.
3.
Ensure your information is Keyword rich (Density to be between 3-5%).
Identify these keywords using various keyword suggestion tools which provide ideas based on past statistics.
Will help get more engagements of your potential customer.
4.
A faceless / nameless corporate blog is useless.
Have the author of the blog post put in his/her name.
Remember how you feel when you are made to interact with a voice message on the phone! Impersonal is no good.
5.
Promote your blog effectively through social networks.
Viral marketing take over after a while if the content is interesting.
6.
Encourage people posting comments.
This help you generate more content and balance viewpoints of the blog.
The more participative the blog is the more effective a community it becomes.