Having read this blog I have found myself, on the whole, in agreement that blog writing – corporate, personal or otherwise should primarily be about quality of content and message over chasing ratings, rankings and what Google wants. In concession, there is an element of an underlying need to thread content with optimisable wording as a necessary evil.
As the Marketing Journal Blog says: ‘Launching a blog and waiting for people to arrive is not as easy as it might seem. You could find yourself writing for months and even years without mass amounts of traffic.’ As the title of this post shows, simply name dropping some big search engine performers is not going to cut it, although I have found in my short time of blogging with a purpose, that the most traffic my site has received has been associated with having the word ‘Vodafone,’ as part of this post.
Primarily, blogs should be written with personality, consideration of audience and on topic. Blogs should not be about chasing the that will feast on the most optimisable word or phrase. Write because you want to, because you want your reader to engage, comprehend or learn something from you. It is demonstrably pejorative for your content to be overly shaped by search engine optimisation (SEO) than for your content to force the SEO through quality writing and content.
Well written content will optimise itself. If the text is good it will be read, consumed and recommended to others. As part of my Public Relations support role, I point people in the direction – predominantly by linking through the Marketing Donut Twitter account – of articles that are a great read , of interest to the target audience and that add a little something to the debate. The power of a ‘Retweet’ will seed good reads throughout the online community in no time at all, which will return a more organic incoming traffic and data return.
