Page 148 - Social Media Marketing

132 Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman

Search engines such as Google love blogs. In fact, blogging en-
thusiasts often refer to blogs as Google juice, because a blog entry
attracts much more attention (and a much higher ranking) than if
the same content were included on a standard Web page. In addi-
tion, if several people post comments in response to your blog entry,
you can expect its Google page rank to soar without any additional
effort on your part.

Why? Because blogs do a much better job than standard web sites
at feeding search engines what they're hungry for: fresh, relevant
content and links. While you may create a small web site and at-
tract a small amount of traffic, a comparably sized blog can attract
thousands of enthusiastic visitors.

Later in this chapter I give you specific tips, tricks, and strategies
on how to keep your blog on center stage by updating its content
regularly and populating it with relevant links that attract attention;
but for now, let's talk about blogs and the technology that makes
blogging such an attractive option.

Understanding the Basics

Blogs began as a tool for anyone with a computer and a connection to
the Internet to create and share their own personal diaries, journals,
and commentary, but they soon morphed into sources for freelance
news stories and editorial content. People with inside information or
strong opinions could publish whatever they were thinking without
having to be employed by a newspaper, magazine, radio station, or
TV network. Blogging turned the power of the news media over to
the people. This is still one of the most popular uses for blogs today.

As with most things on the Internet, businesses eventually started
to tap blogging for commercial use. The popularity of blogs com-
bined with their ease of use made them a perfect marketing tool for
corporations, and the popularity of corporate blogging started to
soar. Now, many businesses that have any sort of Internet presence
have corporate blogs in addition to their more static web sites. Even
Martha Stewart Living has a blog: blogsl.marthastewart.com!