Page 155 - Social Media Marketing

Blogging Your Way to Credibility 139

sell the agent. The new way of doing business requires that you
establish a Web presence to gather leads."

When you give away valuable information and demonstrate your
subject matter expertise, consumers are more likely to buy into you
and ultimately buy from you.

Earning Higher Search Engine Rankings

As I revealed early in this chapter, one of the most significantbenefits
that blogs offer is that they attract the attention of search engines,
including Coogle. You don't earn a high search ranking, however,
simply by installing a blogging platform and adding a couple of
posts. You need to be more proactive than that.

In the following sections, I show you how to keep your blog on
center stage by updating its content regularly and populating it
with relevant links that attract attention.

Post Fresh Content with Key Words and Phrases

When a search engine visits a web site or blog, it looks for content
that it hasn't seen since the last time it visited. Sites that are con-
stantly updated with new information tend to get higher rankings.
That's where blogs shine. With a blog, you can quickly post content
simply by filling out a form and clicking a button. You can even set
up most blogs so that you can submit your posts via e-mail or by
using a cell phone or wireless device, such as a BlackBerry.

When writing content for your blog, think about unique words
and phrases that capture the essence of what your blog is about and
that people commonly use to search for the content that your blog
contains. Sprinkle these key words and phrases generously through-
out your blog postings. Boldfacing or italicizing key words and
phrases also signals to search engines that these words and phrases
are important, but don't overdo it; some search engines will lower
the rankings of your posts if you do anything obvious to make your
posts appear more important than they really are.