I guess there is a first time for everything as normally I disagree with people talking about SEO and blogs. Good job!

Thanks for the tip! It really works if you create a beautifull and interesting blog.

You’re welcome.

“The main feature for blogs – is fresh content.”

Actually, I disagree. The primary benefit of blogs (business or personal) is greater and deeper dialog.

“Blogs=Fast Indexing”

True, but this is should be considered a by-product of blogging. As a business, you should ask yourself – “Would I blog even if there was no SEO benefit?”

If the answer is “yes”, then your communication priorities and business blogging purpose are properly aligned with your business objectives.

It’s great that blogging also leads to greater findability and increased awareness, but the greater benefit (especially for businesses) is the ability to communicate more effectively in an open and transparent way.

http://blogsite.com/public/blog/87223

bf

The main feature for blogs – is fresh content. So, You write post on blog – it’s trackback/ping to SE “Google, Yahoo, MSN”. And you immediately index in Blog Search Engine of Google.

Blogs=Fast Indexing

“If the CMO doesn’t understand the time and resources needed for an effective blog, I question his or her credibility to be called a CMO.”

Well, perhaps in three to five years this will be predominantly the case. But today, I fundamentally disagree – I think there are some very smart CMO’s that get blindsided by business blogging and for good reason (or excuse .

Our experience with companies such as Pfizer and other large firms suggests that CMO’s [typically] have great misconceptions about business blogging. They generally think it’s simple, almost zero cost to setup and maintain, and it requires little effort and attention. They have these impressions from a flood of articles on the subject that say exactly this.

Misconceptions about _business_ blogging seem to stem from the status-quo of _personal_ blogging – it is indeed very easy to setup and ignore a personal blog. But businesses have far different requirements than the current state of the blogging tools industry. As such, new and sometimes unanticipated requirements surprise CMO’s when they actually consider issues like…

- legal risks
- legal review and publishing workflow
- brand requirements
- open commenting
- syndicating other people’s content
- trackback risk
- copyright and attribution
- integration of blog content with the web site
- integration of blog content with partner sites
- XML feed quality (half the RSS feeds on the net are invalid)
- technical and content quality assurance
- staff time, training and marketing message guidance
- server reliability and security

These are some of the things that are typically the responsibility of enterprise departments that work with (and for) the CMO.

Blogs moving into the enterprise is no different than instant messaging’s move into the enterprise in the early part of this decade. Lots of C-level folks were simply unaware of the issues surrounding chat. Like business blogging, most were very slow to react. But to the people that needed it most, it was new and touted as dirt-simple to setup and maintain (according to their 11 yr olds). And indeed it was, if you didn’t care about identity, security, chat history, etc.

With rare exceptions (one noted above by Bill) business blogs need more than a casual commitment. I have a very simple piece of advice for people who fret over this – get over it!

Like Nike says: “just do it.”
Bernie

“…webmasters should not simply add blogs to sites unless they are willing to spend significant time and effort in publishing useful posts.”

Coupl’a points -

1. What I’ve observed is that typically it’s the CMO that decides a business blog is needed. Sometimes the CMO *is* the webmaster, but it’s an important distinction that underscores your point – the CMO doesn’t typically understand the effort that may be involved in creating a successful business blog.

2. Some business blogs *don’t* require significant time and effort and they are very successful. The question of blogging resources cannot be determined until you understand the business requirements for the blog. Some business blogs are simple because the objectives are simple. Example – “provide an informative news channel about cleaning tips for the XP-123c paint gun”. If the objective is simple and focused, a few posts per month is probably the bulk of the effort. Add a few comments into other related forums and blogs, and you’ll probably be pretty successful meeting your customer support expectations for the XP-123c paint gun.

But your point is very good – most business blogs do require significant effort and to those that invest, the foundation of content and the quality of information grows over time. We have some clients with fairly large websites and they are stunned to learn that after 18 months of blogging, the search index footprint of their blogsite is 6 to 10 times larger than their website. This doesn’t happen unless they invest in the time and effort to do it right – all the more reson to create a requirements document before you spend 10 minutes setting up the blog.

bf

A business blog should first begin with a purpose. I agree, the content should be relevant to the business. And, it should stick to its purpose. We have a blog that is focused on tips, best practices and trends in our field of specialty.

I’ve run into people who are stuck on the concept that a blog is a “web log” for an individual. That thinking limits the potential of a business blog.

A business has people with varying skills and knowledge. By identifying the people who should post comments on certain topics relevant to the purpose of the blog, a business blog can be very productive.

As prospective customers visit the blog, they will form opinions of the business based on the value of the content. As long as people stick to their area of expertise and contribute meaningful content, the business will benefit from the blog.

Oh yeah, and search engines will like it too.

Regards,
Bernie

“… I have yet to find a Law that defines what does and does not constitute blogging… ”

Mike raises some interesting points, so for the sake of greater clarity on this subject, consider that the lack of stated rules does not mean there are none. For example, if you are blogging, a general rule of thumb is to make an effort to provide insight or personal opinion that elevates the collective knowledge about a subject and with some degree of relevance to your experience, knowledge, skills, etc. I’m not about to try to judge whether you do this poorly or well.

Another rule that goes without saying – provide your content in at least one of the popular syndication formats so that people interested in your commentary can be efficiently informed about new commentary. Ironically, this unstated rule leads to unintended consequences, the likes of which has apparently contributed to Mike’s accusation (e.g., feed/article aggregation). Again, I’m not judging your content aggregation/blogging approach – these are simply my observations.

I’m also not trying to speak for Mike, but I think it’s important to point out that he doesn’t appear to be challenging the definition of a “blog” – rather, his comment seemed to target the contradictory nature of this article in reference to the blogging practice he has observed.

With specific regard for the definition of a “blog”, I personally find great irony in the reprimands from professional bloggers when businesses attempt to shape the idea of blogging for business use. The headwaters of blog evolution started with web publishing and content management systems that were too rigid, unable to embrace publishing velocity requirements, and included enough process friction to slow (even stifle) communications. The birth of blogging was much like the Boston Tea Party – it was a revolution against all that we had come to know about web publishing; settling on one definition of blogging seems a bit rigid and rife with hypocrisy.

Businesses and individuals should be free to shape the foundation of their blog services to meet their respective requirements. Some of those shapes will be poorly implemented and equally ill-conceived; others will open the way to new and innovative solutions that we can’t live without. But content consumers will decide what works and what doesn’t – the definition of a blog will continue to change to meet constantly shifting requirements (both business and personal).

With regard to “stealing content” (i.e., aggregation) – I think it’s wise to use automation and syndication formats to aggregate information for the benefit of content consumers. After all, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! all do it with voracity; they even earn revenues doing it and largely without the consent of the authors. Give me your blog’s RSS feed and I’ll show you three places where it is displayed with ads for which you are receiving not a dime and each of the places will be on services earning billions. The only reason this is not a rampant practice is because [today] it’s difficult for individuals to do so without some technical know-how; but even that barrier is rapidly diminishing. We use this approach on our own blogsite (and in our services) to create greater attraction and attention to relevant subjects. We used to link to content like this; now we simply integrate it. Unlike most [however], we obtain written permission to leverage content sources and integrate them seamlessly (and shamelessly into our site. But we don’t call them “blogs” – they are “guest weblogs”.

bf

As mentioned in the very introduction of my blog, it is an agregator and it evolved into it because of the overwhelming amount of info on the subject and the fact that I could not commnent on it the way I wanted. I invite you to visit the blog’s archive and note that I’ve been blogging basically on a daily basis, be it with content of my own or agreggating. On the other hand, I have yet to find a Law that defines what does and does not constitute blogging… It is a wide range of things that people are doing, and will do, through blogs.

As an argument for spologs and feed scraper sites it’s a good one. As a argument for blogging regularly, it’s a misleading one.

One wonders how you would do if you were providing your own original content, instead of stealing it from others.

Education is the largest key to success for a blogging Realtor. As an industry they are new to the idea of managing regular online content decisions and so it’s often hard for them to grasp the ideas you speak of in your article straight away. The folks that have evolved are using it for niche marketing purposes. They blog about communities and neighborhoods that they would like to be recognized for, they blog about the different attributes of their listings, they blog about projects and developments (old and new – as resales are often viable), they blog about local market trends and statistics. They strive to answer the questions that viable buyers and sellers of locally relevant real estate are asking of Google.

I love blogging as a marketing tool – it’s sustainable and it often levels the playing field for folks that have a lot to offer but a small marketing budget.

That was a great article! Blogging has been a real asset in my field and I’m so pleased that I was advised to do it — and ecstatic that I followed that advice immediately.

Relevance to your particular topic is essential… and it is amazing how quickly readers come to you from all kinds of places.

It’s a great way to create dialogue with your readers which builds credibility and trust.

Best wishes
Jeanne
http://aspirationsplus.typepad.com/uydayg