Blogs.... are they necessary?

[UKSBD]

But it's the language people understand

You design a dress for someone having a wedding, you tell the bride you have a little blog section you would love to feature them on, you don't say it's a marketing section, a tips section, a how to section.

You get a list from the pride of who is doing the photos, who is doing the make-up, who is doing the flowers, etc.

You contact them and let them know you are blogging about the day and can they provide photos, info, etc. which you will feature on the post.

Speak to people in the language they understand, don't avoid the word blog just for the sake of it.

With regard your comment about not googling for xxxx blog.
It's one of the 1st things I would be doing if I was in charge of optimising a wedding related site

 

[fisicx]

With regard your comment about not googling for xxxx blog.
It's one of the 1st things I would be doing if I was in charge of optimising a wedding related site

You might but the great unwashed wouldn't.

I looked after a wedding photographers site for a many years (until he retired) and when he changed the menu link from 'blog' to 'galleries' conversions increased a substantial amount.

 

[UKSBD]

when he changed the menu link from 'blog' to 'galleries' conversions increased a substantial amount.

You could probably say the same if you said "when he added a menu link saying 'galleries' conversions increased a substantial amount."

 

[fisicx]

There was a link in the menu called 'blog'. All he did was change label to 'galleries'.

 

[JamesM]

Doesn't it depend on the context?

If I visit a wedding photographers site, I expect (want) to see a gallery of his work.

I couldn't care less what his articles are like.

 

[Deleted member 69011]

I think for your niche, it would be a great way to provide valuable content that you can then distribute across your social media platforms. But it's good to 'own' the content on your own site for your type of business because it's lifestyle related.

Once you have created content, which could be a combination of text, photos, videos and even fashion sketches and mood boards, you can syndicate it to other publishing platforms to make use of their (most likely) bigger audiences (there is a bit of code you need to do this to show google that the original content lives on your site).

I can't add a link in here but I wanted to share a couple of similar sites that are doing this which I think are great examples for you to take a look at. Their 'blogs' include DIY guides, style guides. money saving tips etc. Lots of really valuable content that is very shareable and interesting to magazines as well as consumers.

 

[fisicx]

...distribute across your social media platforms.

....you can syndicate it to other publishing platforms to make use of their (most likely) bigger audiences.

This used to work but it doesn't any more. SM works best if other people share your content not if you do it yourself. And syndicating content across multiple sites is something Google doesn't like at all. What you want is for other people to reference your content and add a link back to your site.

 

[Ian J]

What you want is for other people to reference your content and add a link back to your site.

Easier said than done in many cases. I have been blogging on my own specialist subject for nine years and in all that time despite the blog having interesting content I have managed just one link back.

I think that competitors (as that is who reads it most) jealously guard their link juice

 

[fisicx]

You get links by engaging with the other sites. Demonstrating knowledge and offering help and generally becoming a useful bloke to know. You can then be invited to contribute and that's when the magic happens. It takes a lot of time and effort and can work if the topic is popular but I'm not so sure people are going to get all excited about factoring news. What they might be interested in is news about how you saved someone from insolvency and make them profitable again. These sort of stories are popular as are big financial analysis posts. People will link to your statistical breakdowns of whatever.

 

[ktelectricianuk]

business listing and regular post on famous social media site like Fb, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc are very helpful to getting traffic on the blog.

 

[fisicx]

business listing and regular post on famous social media site like Fb, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc are very helpful to getting traffic on the blog.

No they aren't.

 

[ADNattan]

No they aren't.

Of course they are! You write a blog. It has no readers. You post it on famous social media where you have no followers. You then multiply it all together. 0x0 = millions of moneys.

It's true. I read it on here.

 

[UK Business Directory]

I have been running an IT related blog for several years now. I work in IT so use the blog for documenting fixes.

It receives hits from around the world, and recently i started to use the blog to advertise my services.

It really depends on why you want to setup a blog

 

[fisicx]

I work in IT so use the blog for documenting fixes.

And that right there is exactly the sort of thing a blog should be used for. Provide a service and you will get the ranking and traffic. Clever integration means you can then monetise the posts.

 

[Deleted member 69011]

And syndicating content across multiple sites is something Google doesn't like at all.

It's totally ok to syndicate content - major publishing platforms such as Huff Post and Medium do this each day with no punitive measures from the mighty google. It must be done with a small piece of coding that tells google where the content originated. The code you need to add is the rel=”canonical” tag. This really just means the “official version”. It belongs in the header section of the post, just before the closing head tag, like so many bits of scripts and code.

This used to work but it doesn't any more.

I wasn't think about links and sharing, but rather reaching a wider audience through content marketing. It's something my clients do very successfully. I would think for a wedding dress website, it would be a fantastic strategy. There are lots of platforms where this would work and there are lots of sites hungry for content in this area.

 

[fisicx]

Huff post and others are respected sites and their syndication is well controlled. @Poppylong doesn't have the means to publish her content on respected sites so any syndication she does could cause problems. The rel=”canonical” tag for example only works if the publishing sites allow this (most don't because they want all the link juice).

Content marketing needs to be properly managed - hungry sites can attract the wrong type of content and again can cause problems.

If the OP had the funds to pay for proper content management she would have done so already. Trying to do it yourself without the skills and knowledge it's a good way to go.

 

[Deleted member 69011]

Huff Post actively seeks blog contributors (especially from people with existing blogs) and publishes all with the canonical tag. Medium has several options to do this - which is automated if you use the wordpress plugin.
It is standard industry practice now and is easily managed by the author/agreed with publisher. We are in the age of content marketing, where nothing is unique! ;-)

 

[fisicx]

You misinterpreted my post. The op isn't going to get anything posted on huff or any where else that has a wide audience. The only places that will accept her posts won't have an authority and won't use the caconical tag correctly.

Content marketing will consume itself. Google has got wise to the practice and is already wiping sites from the index just like it did with the discredited article publishing sites and many guest blogs.

 

[extulsftjz]

Having worked with many clients with blog and having access to their Analytics, it's rare that a blog post will bring in traffic which converts to a sale. The advantage of having a blog is that it can reflect well on your business. It helps people's perception of your credibility as they browse your website and compare you with competitors.

It's certainly not essential and I plan not to have one on my website (at least initially) and to use the hours I could dedicate to blog writing to other uses.

It's also a good idea to keep them up to date. If the last blog post was in 2013, then it would be better to have no blog at all.

 

[fisicx]

...it's rare that a blog post will bring in traffic which converts to a sale.

If you do it properly you can generate a lot of new business by posting the right content in the right place.

 

[Chris @ businesshands]

In my opinion, the value of a piece of content such as a blog is in the short term. You need to:

1) Determine a topic which will genuinely be useful and interesting to your customer
2) Promote your blog in a place where you target customer will hang out (that could be Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, on a forum or even in a newsletter). This is oddly the piece that many small businesses forget. They write content and assume people will magically find it.
3) You should think about what the purpose of the blog is for your business - there's little point in them coming to read you blog and then going off again elsewhere. What's the call to action in the blog? What do you want them to do next? How does that fit into the sales process? If you're blogging for the sake of blogging, you'd be far better off putting your energy into something else to bring customers to your website.

 

[fisicx]

In my opinion, the value of a piece of content such as a blog is in the short term.

Any content on your site can have longevity. An article written to provide a solution to a problem and published as a blog post can rank well and bring in useful traffic for many years.

Look at sites like stackexchange, css-tricks, copyblogger and so on. Old posts often show up in searches.

 

[banjohnadvid1]

yes blogger is good for getting more traffic and back link for your website

 

[RefCarFinance]

For most businesses it is good to produce some content, whether thats in the form of a written blog, an infographic etc.

We find that when we publish blogs on our social media pages our traffic increases hugely. It also means we receive links from other websites who want to link to our content and this helps us in terms of SEO. Any other pages we create on the site will also be indexed faster by Google as they will crawl our site more frequently as we publish more content.

 

[fisicx]

We find that when we publish blogs on our social media pages our traffic increases hugely.

How much of that traffic results in a conversion?

It also means we receive links from other websites who want to link to our content and this helps us in terms of SEO.

Do those links point to the SM post or the blog?

 

[RefCarFinance]

How much of that traffic results in a conversion?

Do those links point to the SM post or the blog?

It depends what the content is; if it's targeted with certain keywords some of the blogs we've written have produced lots of conversions. One of our most converted pages was a blog post which was ranking on the first page of google. And some of them not so much! It depends what you want; not every post we write has the aim of increasing conversions.

We have links pointing to several of our blog posts - although the majority link back to our homepage.

 

[fisicx]

That is good news. It's worth pointing out to others though that you are in quite a specilaised niche so blog posts will generally work well. If you were promoting cheap underpants it might not be as effective.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I agree with Fisicx that's what wrong with the main site for anything that can be written into a blog, which i must admit i have never read any.

Take your wedding mentioned earlier, you can easily have pages of this years weddings with all the bumph and thats where by far the majority of viewers would look trying to get information about your service.

Many people cannot live without social media but infact there is a whole load of people who just use the web as a tool and would never look at faceboot , twitter, blogs or watch big brother

KISS (Keep it simple stupid) is the best business advice anyone can give

 

[HelenCope]

It is often said that content is King and I would have to agree a blog gives you a valuable section to add fresh content and keep your site updated which Google loves.

 

[KimyChung]

well, blogs are mostly for your brand building rather than for increasing sales, they are more for building your "fan" base. It's quite a good tool for promoting your business unless it has a specific goal and that goal should not always be matched with the goal of advertising, it's more for review. In some cases, blogs have a great power as it can a be as a widespread range of communication.

 

[J2DHS]

It is often said that content is King and I would have to agree a blog gives you a valuable section to add fresh content and keep your site updated which Google loves.

Google's recently changed the way it analyses sites, so now fresh content isn't king, in depth content is.

Hubspot recommends "Pillar" articles around keywords.

For example, having a page about "Workout Routines" as your pillar page, and then you'd have pages linked to that on "Hiit workout routines" "Fat Loss Workout Routines" "Muscle Building Workout Routines" etc etc.

There's some really good articles dotted around that're worth a read

 

[hakireview]

Your Blog is a long-term asset that helps build your brand on Internet ).
But it takes longer than you might think =))

 

[fisicx]

Your Blog is a long-term asset that helps build your brand on Internet ).

If that's why you are blogging then you are doing it wrong.

 

[mark.v]

thanks James, i have a few businesses... this is for a bespoke wedding dress company

I haven't read through the 4 pages of replies but I can tell you for a wedding dress company, blogging would be great. Blog about new material, new designs, discounts, an event your company has provided a dress for. Blogging can be very beneficial if used in the right way.

 

[kev598]

It is one of the examples how to start your business and involve people in it. You can share your unique experience or the idea of what do you want to deliver to your potential clients.

 

[fisicx]

...for a wedding dress company, blogging would be great. Blog about new material, new designs, discounts, an event your company has provided a dress for.

Except they aren't a wedding dress company. It's a site where you can sell second had dresses.

It is one of the examples how to start your business and involve people in it. You can share your unique experience or the idea of what do you want to deliver to your potential clients.

How is this going to help @Poppylong? Have you looked at her site?

 

[StevePoster]

I have a wordpress blog, but never really blog.Is it worth starting?

Yes its worth it, but you must be consistent on providing unique and interesting content to your target audience.

I can see the point of adding weekly news etc, but I don't understand how the blog would be found/read.

You need to expose your blog in different mediums around the web such as active online communities in which are related to your blog.

Is there a way to tag images so I appear in google images searches (for example)?

Yes its highly recommended to put alt tag/s in every blog content post. This is the way of search engines understand your image/s is all about.

 

[Stuart Elmes]

A blog can be useful for developing a position as a 'thought leader' in an industry.

I write as solarblogger.net and have received numerous speaking opportunities as a result of articles that I have written. it's lots of hard work to produce proper content - don't believe the SEO web marketing companies that tell you they'll write a blog for you every week. All they'll do is rehash some news article they've found online and post it. No one will read it and you'll be wasting your money.

Only do it if you have an interest in what you're writing and have something to say.

 

[Ian J]

You can also post there news about your products/services and communicate with your customers in comments so you'll get feedback from them

Why can't you do that on your main website?

 

[Mike_Cartwright]

Yes, I'd recommend for you to proceed with the blog to add to your marketing efforts. You can share your blog contents through your social media accounts afterward. Just make sure your content is engaging, add images/videos.