Blogs and SEO waste of time yes or no.?

Mar 6, 2009

I have just inherited an 8,000 page wordpress blog.

Never worked on a blog before.:|

We have the SEO plugin installed.

So far the SERP results with the blog have been pathetic.

I have long suspected that blogs were a waste of space on websites,but can't be sure that there may be a few tricks I am missing.?

are blogs much less rated by the engines than main site pages.?

Any help ,advice,opinions much appreciated.

Earl

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

Comes back to the old mantra: make sure the content is informative and interesting and provides value to the visitor. If the blog is stuffed full of really great post then is will rank even without the SEO package. But if the posts are simply feeds to main site then they won't impress big G. As always, it is relevancy to the search criteria that matters and even though Google likes blogs, if the main pages are more relevant then they will rank higher.

No great conspiracy - content is still king (and SEO the queen and PPC the chancellor and usability the chamberlain and accessibility the knave and user testing the sergeant-at-arms and I've run out of people).

An Oasis · Mar 6, 2009

The SE's keep changing the goal posts. In niche markets pages rather than posts did do extremely well, but have not checked lately.

In tightly focused blogs it is pretty easy to get them ranking well, with a bit of thought. The Safety Scene site ranks well against gov, edu and various org sites.

But if the blog covers a huge range of topics I think links would be the only way to get it ranking well.

That's my 2p worth.

Mar 6, 2009

Like all else earl there are right ways and wrong ways.

Since many leading SEOs swear by blogs , they are hard to discount!
I have got blogs #1 ranked in a matter of days.

One problem is the "horse" may already have bolted on your new blog- eg on urls and category duplication - ie it could be set up wrongly.

1/- Make sure that the "pretty urls" are turned on - so that category and post slugs appear in the URL's

2/- Noindex category pages so that the posts and categories that contain them dont appear as duplicate content - and noindex admin pages, helps with avoiding page rank dilution

3/ Use a sitemap plug in.

4/ Set up the pinglist correctly for new posts.

Otherwise normal SEO rules apply.

The blog itself ensures that the posts title is H tagged

Promote new posts on social media.

Start building correctly anchored links.

Pingbacks/Trackbacks - a peculiarity of blogosphere linking are worth getting to grips with. Tools are avalaible to find other blogs in similar niche with pingbacks enabled.

OldWelshGuy · Mar 6, 2009

Nice post. There are a few things you need to do to get a wordpress blog ranking well and drawing in traffic. get them social bookmarking buttons on there, ensure it is piniging at every post, claim it on technorati etc.

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

admagic said:
Since many leading SEOs swear by blogs , they are hard to discount!

Care to explain?

I agree that blogs are a very good way get new content into the index but I still haven't seen any evidence showing a blog influencing the ranking of the main site (which I think is the question sirearl asked). Unless the blog drives traffic to the converting pages then the blog itself isn't much use.

Mar 6, 2009

Ok my brain hurts a bit.But thanks all for the info.

I think I have deduced that it may be best to use the blog for the longer tail terms as I can't see it being able to compete with the main site for major terms.

I take it the links from the blog to the main site will be of use as per normal.?

Earl

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

sirearl said:
I take it the links from the blog to the main site will be of use as per normal.?

Yes but internal linking has almost zero effect on ranking (as any fule kno). Google will visit and index the blog posts but if it has already indexed the main site pages then any links to the main site won't actually do any good.

SFD · Mar 6, 2009

fisicx said:
Yes but internal linking has almost zero effect on ranking (as any fule kno). Google will visit and index the blog posts but if it has already indexed the main site pages then any links to the main site won't actually do any good.

This confuses me as Ali from Weblinx has said this in the past:

Ali-v-8 said:
The most important factor that no one has mentioned is internal linking.
All top SEO companies are going down this route.
hope it helps

It was not said in a "to get indexed" context, more of a "to improve rankings"

From this thread: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=61216&highlight=internal+linking

Have I misunderstood?

OldWelshGuy · Mar 6, 2009

Internal linking structure tells the algorithm which pages are important in a natural way. This is the reason why submitting a google sitemap with all the page values set to 0.5 (the default), for a site that is already being spidered well, can kill it dead in the water

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

OldWelshGuy said:
Internal linking structure tells the algorithm which pages are important in a natural way. This is the reason why submitting a google sitemap with all the page values set to 0.5 (the default), for a site that is already being spidered well, can kill it dead in the water

Like he said.

It's the internal linking structure that's important not the links themselves.

SFD · Mar 6, 2009

OldWelshGuy said:
Internal linking structure tells the algorithm which pages are important in a natural way. This is the reason why submitting a google sitemap with all the page values set to 0.5 (the default), for a site that is already being spidered well, can kill it dead in the water

Cheers,

So for example when looking at an ecommerce site structured as

Clothing > Trainers > Specific Trainer

Should keywords in the product description be linked back to the category, would this help or am I missing the point?

edmondscommerce · Mar 6, 2009

Wordpress is by far the best open source platform of any type for SEO.

If its not performing well then I think its down to how its being used. Its very easy to get ranking and very quickly with a well put together blog.

Spock · Mar 6, 2009

OldWelshGuy said:
...This is the reason why submitting a google sitemap with all the page values set to 0.5 (the default), for a site that is already being spidered well, can kill it dead in the water

That's a scary thought! Just had a look at my sitemap and it has individual values, xml-sitemap.com does a good job on it's auto detection system.

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

SFD said:
Cheers,

So for example when looking at an ecommerce site structured as

Clothing > Trainers > Specific Trainer

Should keywords in the product description be linked back to the category, would this help or am I missing the point?

Missing the point! If you have the breadcrumbs in place then you are indicating to google the structural importance. But if you have a primary navigation bar across the top with: home, about us, FAG, T&C, contact then this can indicate that these pages are more important than the categories which appear in your secondary navigation.

However, as long as the site is built for people not for search engines you will be OK.

Mar 6, 2009

edmondscommerce said:
Wordpress is by far the best open source platform of any type for SEO.

If its not performing well then I think its down to how its being used. Its very easy to get ranking and very quickly with a well put together blog.

well as one never see's a wordpress blog high in the rankings for major keywords .I would question this statement.?

Earl

SFD · Mar 6, 2009

Cool, makes sense now. Thanks.

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

edmondscommerce said:
Wordpress is by far the best open source platform of any type for SEO.

If its not performing well then I think its down to how its being used. Its very easy to get ranking and very quickly with a well put together blog.

Agree, but that's not what sirearl is asking. His question is about the SEO advantages a blog provides for the main site (the bit that is going to make him richer).

UKSBD · Mar 6, 2009

SFD said:
Cheers,

So for example when looking at an ecommerce site structured as

Clothing > Trainers > Specific Trainer

Should keywords in the product description be linked back to the category, would this help or am I missing the point?

Take a look at the diagram on here,
http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/top-10-seo-tips.html

It's a bit outdated and not very well written, but gives you a general idea.

Assuming Sub-1 is trainers, it interlinks with main site and other Subs.
The product pages (individual trainers pages) are then placed in Sub-1,
these are all interlinked with each other and with the Sub-1
What this effectively does is create a mini-site about trainers within the
main site.

Codefixer · Mar 6, 2009

I think a blog on a site can be a great way to raise the profile of the overall site and in turn get links back to the home page.

UKSBD · Mar 6, 2009

I have seen on numerous occassions a blog post raise the position of
an existing page within the serps.

Not only that, but it even raises the position of a page that the blog
post isn't even linking to if it is on a blog within the same site.

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

Codefixer said:
I think a blog on a site can be a great way to raise the profile of the overall site and in turn get links back to the home page.

I agree - but if the blog is WITHIN the main site then would it not be better to market the converting pages rather than the blog? And what use is a whole bunch of INTERNAL links back to the homepage?

UKSBD said:
I have seen on numerous occassions a blog post raise the position of an existing page within the serps.

Do you have any examples? Does this also work for an blog within the main site?

If I have a blog all about Dolls houses and include a link back to a supplier of bits then that's a good link. But if every post has a link back to the same supplier then google may smell a rat.

Codefixer · Mar 6, 2009

fisicx said:
I agree - but if the blog is WITHIN the main site then would it not be better to market the converting pages rather than the blog? And what use is a whole bunch of INTERNAL links back to the homepage?

Hi fisicx,

I'm not really talking about internal links, I'm talking about building up a blog with great content, increasing the profile of the site, and then other sites linking to the main page as a great resource rather than the actual page link.

OldWelshGuy · Mar 6, 2009

One thing not mentioned here is page saturation (the number of pages in the index from an individual site) within the Search engines index. This of course will/can/might help a site with regards google trust.

Adding a blog will increase page saturation, and of course, increase the backlinks from internal links. The benefit is then increased when people link to the blog post, which in turn links to the home page, thus passing on link jusice directly to the home page AND other well linked pages within the site.

fisicx · Mar 6, 2009

Codefixer said:
Hi fisicx,

I'm not really talking about internal links, I'm talking about building up a blog with great content, increasing the profile of the site, and then other sites linking to the main page as a great resource rather than the actual page link.

Fair enough, but the blog itselt isn't making money for sirearl. The main site pages are ranking above the blog posts so why concentrate on building up ther blog at the expense of the converting pages?

I'd rather spend an hour tweaking a page to improve conversions than writing a blog post to get more visitors.

Spock · Mar 6, 2009

I recently took the $1 offer for a month with the SEOmoz Pro account and was advised to add my blog to the main site instead of on another domain as this would help with building more content on the main site. As fisicx says, content is king, and as long as it's relevant and informative then it should help improve your serp.

In theory

UKSBD · Mar 6, 2009

fisicx said:
Do you have any examples? Does this also work for an blog within the main site?

Easier to explain if you see it with your own eyes.

search for a niche phrase (3 or 4 words) which returns one of your pages
in about 7th to 10th position in the seps.

Then write a blog post on the same site using that exact same phrase
as the title and in the content. Do not add a link in the blog post to the
other page.

Ping google the new blog post then wait.
Depending how strong your blog is will depend how long you wait.

I can sometimes raise the position of an existing page within 10 minutes
by doing this.

Mar 6, 2009

fisicx said:
Yes but internal linking has almost zero effect on ranking (as any fule kno). Google will visit and index the blog posts but if it has already indexed the main site pages then any links to the main site won't actually do any good.

A bit of a generalisation,

Siloing is a great way to engineer page rank for pages that would not easily get page rank by themselves - so getting high rank (as in serps position) for pages that would not easily get serps ranking

But to do it needs careful engineering of links....

At SEO level - A silo can force page rank from blog through commercial pages....and so get ranking for commercial pages - not just traffic.

I reckon the main purpose of blogs is as an interface...

A blog interfaces the information end of a site which can pass page rank and traffic, to the commercial side....you can only promote information on social media/web2 , not commercial.....so the blog is a great way to harness the power of web2/social

Blogs also have an invaluable role in listbuilding.

Search

Search

Blogs and SEO waste of time yes or no.?

fisicx

An Oasis

OldWelshGuy

fisicx

fisicx

SFD

OldWelshGuy

fisicx

SFD

edmondscommerce

Spock

fisicx

SFD

fisicx

UKSBD

Codefixer

UKSBD

fisicx

Codefixer

OldWelshGuy

fisicx

Spock

UKSBD

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