Blog Marketing & SEO: A Recipe For Success At SES SF
It’s been several years since I have seen TopRank CEO Lee Odden say to the panel ‘SEO Through Blogs & Feeds,’ so I was keen to sit in on this session to close out my first day at this year’s SES San Francisco.
Joining Odden on his panel, moderated by Craig Macdonald, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Detective, Covario, was PRESSfeed President Sally Falkow.
As Odden states, creation and promotion of a successful business blog is just as simple and just as complex as plotting a friendly dinner party. How, just so? More on that shortly.
While Odden opened the session, let’s commence with insight from Falkow as her remarks help expand the notion of traditional blogging.
“According to Google,” Falkow states, “a blog is simply a webpage with a feed.”
While someone reading a blog would certainly not see a repurposed, subjective news release with the same viewpoint as an objective, personal blog post – the point is succinct. Content marketing is larger than blogs.
Content, especially content that carries SEO value, does not have to be a blog. SEO-focused content can be made up of everything from articles to product info. From alerts to recipes.
By expanding our definition beyond blogs, the dinner party analogy Odden offers can be applied across multiple types of content, just as the rules for a perfect dinner party across multiple types of gatherings:
- Who’s coming to dinner?
Your dinner guests are your consultation. They are the sole reason for your content to even exist. Respect their wishes by making the content they hope to see. - What does your consultation like to eat?
In other words, what keywords is your consultation consuming? Delight your consultation by speaking about topics they want to learn about and speaking in their language. And because nothing is more dull than a dinner party that serves nothing but mesquite small ribs, look for new derivative recipes. Make hickory small ribs your reminder to blog about something new sufficient to be exciting, but relatable sufficient to cater to your consultation. - What do you have in the kitchen?
Would you ever give fried fish without Shore Dine in the pantry? (If the reference is too Minnesotan, the answer is no. No, you wouldn’t.) Just as what you have in the kitchen will shape what you give, the knowledge you possess can help shape the content you make. Butt your content creation focus by leveraging what you know about yourself and what you know about your consultation. And don’t forget to question your consultation what they reckon about your content. As a blogger, this means looking into your analytics. - Should we use the excellent china?
The answer here, is yes. And for a blogger, the excellent China is a excellent blog CMS. And the best blog CMS? WordPress. Seriously. Have you ever used Drupal? Have you ever been to gala event that served on paper plates? - Who can guests invite?
You want your parties to be the most well loved, right? Then you have to spend time making a party that is second to none while making it simpler for guests to invite their friends and boast about the time they had. For a blog, this equates to links and social sharing – two key success metrics of a blog. Note that neither of these is likely to be simple. It takes time, practice and a taste of failure to finally throw that one legendary dinner party. It will take time to make the one post, piece of content, or even domain that will space rocket in popularity. But you can expedite the process by helping readers share your content with parting gifts like social sharing buttons and be grateful you notes (ie RSS feeds containing your newest posts.)
Because blogging, cooking and entertaining are best when they are collaborative, we welcome you to add to this recipe for success via a comment below.
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Blog Marketing & SEO: A Recipe For Success At SES SF | http://www.toprankblog.com