PR, SEO, and Blogging

We've been seeing a lot of traffic coming from Steve Rubel's blog post on Friday. I'm flattered that Steve mentioned a recent entry on how blogs can quickly see benefits from SEO. We all know that blogs are often used to position companies as industry leaders and spokespeople as authoritative. That's something our parent company, Connors Communications, knows something about considering its 20+ year history in public relations. And yet obviously times are changing -- which is why we developed HitTail.

Google says that one of the best ways to drive traffic (and therefore get your message out) is by having something worthwhile to say. HitTail helps bloggers gain respect by providing suggested writing topics that interest their audience and are beneficial to readers as well as search engines.

What is the point of blogging if no one finds your blog? You might as well keep a private journal. Blogs may gain some readers from word of mouth and viral marketing, but you can bet that the most successful ones have been learning something from the keywords that people use to find them.

I'm sure that Steve and others in PR are beginning to recognize that the importance of ranking well in search results is just as valuable, or even moreso, than appearing in news articles due to the fragmentation of media.

When even the New York Times writes their headlines with Search in mind, you have to compete with SEO if you want to be heard on similar topics. Or you can hunt for treasure in the long tail with HitTail.

Beyond SEO - Search As Research

I don't think enough has been written about the benefits of keyword research beyond simply one's search optimization plan.

For instance, what about using one's keyword research as a window into the buying preferences of your targeted consumers? Might not such numbers determine not just what keywords to target in the future, but the entire approach to your product as well?

I’ll use the long tail results provided and highlighted by the HitTail service as an example. Say you are in the business of making chocolates. A relatively good portion of the long tail results you have received through HitTail involve variations of the phrase, “chocolate covered strawberries.”

Well heck – maybe moving your business into specifically manufacturing chocolate-covered strawberries would be a good idea! These long tail results are giving you more than tips on good SEO – they are giving you market research.

Take another example that this interesting article on the subject from Media Post proposed – movies. Say you gather from analyzing search query volume that one movie has significantly more “buzz” than another. This might be helpful to project not only what film might do better at the box office, but where one’s marketing budget might be better spent. Or you get a bunch of long tail results like “Movie X Horrible” and “Movie X Bomb.” Maybe the long tail is trying to tell you something important about “Movie X.”

I think there are so many applications to SEO research and services like HitTail that we just don’t know about – yet. It might be advantageous to explore these options on our own and take advantage of them before the general marketing community does.

Realizing SEO benefits quickly through blogging

Quick results in Search Marketing are only possible with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, right? Wrong. The advent of blogging, as well as recent advances to search engine algorithms, has narrowed the gap between PPC and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to mere hours. With PPC, there is instant gratification as your advertisement will appear in search results almost immediately after your campaign is activated. However, this same advantage can now be seen in SEO.

First, let's take a look at some common reasons why SEO projects have not been carried out in the past.

• Companies don’t want to abandon tech investments (e.g. content management systems and web publishing tools)


• Lack of budget dedicated to SEO


• May take a while to demonstrate ROI

Blogging addresses each of these problems.

• SEO best practices are already in place
  
  Blogging software by default includes a few basic but important SEO practices by using proper Titles, headlines, URLs, and internal linking structure. Search engines also like sites that have fresh content, which can give blogs great influence over search results.


• Recent search engine algorithm changes boost the visibility of blogs
  
  This recent experiment by Ryan Durk took advantage of temporary changes in Google’s logo linking to the search results page for "January 1 TCP/IP". It shows two things: the speed by which a new blog is indexed and the short time between your blog getting indexed and it appearing high in search results.


• Blogs are inexpensive and easy to setup
  
  A new blog can be created in a matter of minutes with little technical knowledge. Blog creation is free in many cases, often with a nominal monthly fee for additional features.

Blogging is great for companies that are not ready to make the larger SEO investment or are worried about abandoning a CMS in which they have already invested. Blogging can be used as a proof of concept that shows that SEO can deliver results. Use of blogging software delays the larger discussion of SEO projects that are potentially more time-consuming and require a larger investment that reap longer term benefits. Setting up a blog is inexpensive and doesn’t force you to abandon or modify your existing IT investments.

Then get people to notice your blog.

• Conduct Keyword Research
  
  Creating a blog is just the first step. Keyword research can be the difference between a highly popular, authoritative blog and a blog that no one knows exists.
  
  Since everyone competes on the most popular words, try blogging about slightly less competitive topics so your site has the ability to rank for those terms. HitTail can facilitate this process of identifying writing topics that other sites aren’t necessarily targeting, yet will drive traffic.
  
  If you’re just getting started with blogging, write about a subject where you have expertise that you feel will interest your audience. Once you reach a critical mass of blog posts, take a step back and analyze how people are finding your blog and use that information to guide your editorial calendar.


• Utilize Social Media and Pinging
  
  In addition to keyword research, it is important to promote the blog using social media tools that increase the visibility of your blog and generate inbound links to your domain. Be sure to utilize pinging services to notify aggregation services of new content on your blog.


• Customize the blog template
  
  It is also important to link to your new blog from the Homepage of your main website to make it easier for search engine spiders to discover it. Often times, the default template needs to be tweaked slightly for maximum SEO benefit. For instance, make sure your blog Permalink uses meaningful anchor text and not "www.yourdomain.com/blog/?p=456"

Blogging may not be the long-term solution for fixing a broken site, but it will get your foot in the door for SEO, deliver results in the short term, and facilitate the process of getting buy-in for full-scale, long-term SEO projects for the rest of your website.

Proactive Blogging

Blogtrepreneur has an interesting post about the single most important attribute for a blogger. He argues that the ability to be proactive is far and away the best harbinger of success. He makes a good point. Nothing can be done without first having the motivation to try. There's also more to it than that. Here are a few additional elements of a successful blog project.

Free Time
A proactive person may have that "get it done" attitude, but if there aren't enough hours in a day then not much is going to be accomplished. This is especially true of small business owners, who could benefit greatly from blogging yet have their hands full.

Creativity
Everyone can probably name a dozen blog entries you can't wait to write when a new blog project starts. But a few amazing posts doesn't equal a popular blog. You have to keep writing and a creative person can continue to come up with lots of great blog ideas.

Know How
This is touched upon in the Blogtrepreneur post, noting that being proactive will eventually lead to knowledge. This is true. Sometimes you learn best by doing. Although, already having the abilities necessary or being able to tap someone else with insight is definitely a shortcut.

A proactive blogger will get far, but a proactive blogger with free time, creativity, and know how will achieve success faster. Of course, you can always get help. By adding the HitTail code to your blog, you can get suggestions for new writing topics, so you'll have something to say long after the first few posts. And if you need help with time and knowledge, here at Connors we offer full service SEO, which includes managing a blog and spreading word of the site through social media networks. It will still be necessary to be proactive, but at least you won't have to do it all on your own.

NYC SEO Meetup

Hi everyone, please stop by Aspen Lounge if you're in the New York City area this Monday, February 11th. There will be a short talk from our own Mike Levin, Kevin Heisler (executive editor of Search Engine Watch), and Marshall Sponder (analytics specialist at Monster.com). Doors open at 5:30 and the formalities begin at 6:00. It should prove to be a great chance to network with other search marketing professionals and bloggers as we already have over 40 people who have RSVP'd for the event.

Details are available on Meetup.com!

Digg Breaking News Stories (And Break Some Of Your Own!) With HitTail

Quite by accident I found an extra use for HitTail that’s pretty killer in terms of generating content for my blog. And I’m going to spill the beans so you can try it for yourself.

Basically, you can use HitTail to discover leads, breaking stories, and gossip.

Yes, gossip!

First, a brief recap on how HitTail works.

You install it on your site and get real-time scrolled keyword results on the searches used to find your site. Then the service points out to you which keywords have the potential to be capitalized by you for best hits on your next post.

So for example, HitTail might point out that somebody used the phrase “green ipod nano” to find your site – even though you didn’t specifically use that phrase in a post. But now you know that there is a relatively untapped interest out there in content on green ipod nanos – and that if you write about them, your hits will increase.

That said, I’m talking about a completely different use for the service. Well, not “completely different” – you’ll still get a lot of hits for your site. It’s just that this service is a whole lot more…edgy. Let me explain what I mean.

While using HitTail last week to monitor my personal niche blog, I notice that the service highlighted a very strange phrase. It was the name of a couple of important people who work in that niche field plus the word “feud.”

Now, as far as I know, those two people, who had a working relationship, were the best of friends. So I thought it odd that someone would have type in their names in relation to a dispute.

So I asked around. And guess what? They did have a recent falling-out.

Now, had I been an Internet gossip columnist, or some hard-core niche reporter – or simply wanted to write a hit-garnering post – this lead on a yet-to-be-discovered story would have been pure gold.

But, just for the pleasure of finding out what hot topics people are typing into search engines AS IT HAPPENS – HitTail is a must for my blogging.

HitTail Gave Me Hot Topics: A Blogger’s Real Story

Hi. I’m a real blogger with a real blog. Here is a personal story about how HitTail worked for me.

I’m always looking for hot topics to blog about. I’m also always on the hunt for the “edge” that will allow me to break stories first. HitTail has given me the tools to do both.

Here is an example of what I mean; this really happened! I blog mostly about comic books and popular culture. Using HitTail, I found out that one of the popular phrases to find my blog was “who will play the Joker in Batman 3?” Now, I never wrote a post about that subject; but somehow the search engine in question found some combination of those words in my blog.

What this result on HitTail told me was that there are readers out there who are interested in this topic. Now I have a great story idea with a confirmed potential audience!

HitTail even has a “to do” feature that lets me move the phrase or words in question to a separate page for easy reference. So when the well is dry and I’m jonesing for ideas, I can take a look at my HitTail to-do list.

Next time, I will reveal an even GREATER secret about using HitTail for your blogging needs – how to not only find hot topics, but actual story “leads” to investigate further. I really got the edge using this – you can too.

Top Keywords Free

I'm frequently asked how to get the top keywords for your site for free, and the common wisdom is to use services like the keyword suggestion tools built into Google and Yahoo. Other people recommend services like Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker. But the truth is that the best keywords for your site are already burried in your log files in a way that's too hard for most Webmasters to dig out. That's where HitTail comes in. We analyze your log files, looking at factors that are consistently overlooked by other analytics packages, and zero right in on the top keywords for your site, and issue them to you as writing suggestions. Just act on them (as I'm doing now), or plug them into your PPC campaigns for instant results.