The simplest ROI of blogging in SEO: Link building
Do you still build links? Well, I don’t do link building anymore, I get links. People link to my SEO blog voluntarily, not just any people but respected bloggers and search marketing mavens.
At the same time I notice that people in the search marketing industry are still cautious when it comes to blogging. They either do not see the ROI in it or they fail to explain the return on investment to their clients. They still rather prefer to sell old school link building instead of setting up a blog for a client company. Marketers still do not make the connection between earning money and the writing for a blog because it does not drive direct sales in most cases.
Now the simplest way to explain the ROI of blogging for a SEO or a SEO client is to take a look at the backlinks:
- How many are they,
- who linked
- and how?
How does my blog perform in contrast to my website?
Not only my blog has been linked by the really respected figures and sites in the SEO industry:
- Search Engine Land,
- Search Engine Watch,
- Search Engine Roundtable,
- TopRank Online Marketing Blog,
- SEO by the SEA
to name just a few, dozens of other great bloggers have linked to me, my blog posts have been submitted by numerous individuals on many social sites etc.
- Did I actively engage in link exchange with these people?
- Did I actively submit my site?
- Did I have to actually build links?
No I didn’t.
I got the links. I got those links because I participated in “the conversation” on social media. I got them because I had an interface between me and the outside world, my blog. People won’t link as eagerly to a website which is simply selling something, be it SEO services or car parts. So I challenge you: Set up a static site and a blog at the same time and do link building for the site while you create content and join the conversation for the blog. Now track the time you use for both and compare the results. Also do not forget to look at your link structure: How natural do these links appear to Google?
Of course blogging and social media is far more than just getting links but if you need to explain the ROI of it in SEO terms use the backlinks to justify the effort. This is both the simplest ROI of blogging as well as the simplest way to explain it.
To read more on blogging ROI check out this list.
I completely agree - to an extent
Blogging is a great way of encouraging incoming links and also linking out to great content within your industry. It works really well - as long as your industry is proliferated by blogs.
In the SEO industry everyone has a blog and the collaborative community is huge, spanning Sphinn, Twitter, SEOMoz, lots of forums and many other networks. Most other industries don’t benefit from this - heck in a lot of industries most commercial sites don’t have blogs!
We do setup blogs for our clients, encourage them to use them, try to get them enthused and help them with content development, the problem being their blog ends up being an island in a very large ocean. I hope this changes soon, but I’m not holding my breath.
Comment by Matt Sawyer — May 28, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Matt, thank you for the feedback. While I agree that in some sectors there are not as many blogs as in the SEO sphere itself I have to tell you a little anecdote to explain what I mean: In the fifties two German shoe companies, one state owned from the GDR one from Western Germany send out their representatives to a country in Africa. The one from the east calls home and says “No way, we can’t sell any shoes here, everybody is walking barefoot.” On the same day the guy from West Germany calls home and says: “Fantastic market! We can sell everybody shoes here, they all still walk barefoot!”
Do you know what I mean? It’s even better to be the first blog in a niche. You have an unique selling proposition then.
Comment by Tad Chef — May 28, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
Good conversation. You also have to consider that there are significant SEO benefits that have nothing to do with linking.
Search engines eat up specificity and frequency right? Blogs do well on search not just because of inbound links, but also because they are usually narrow in scope so they closely match the targeted keyword phrases and they are frequently updated so they get preference on the SERP.
One other thing to keep in mind with Corporate Blogging….it’s almost never ‘a’ blog but needs to be several to many. Most successful companies engage both employees and constituents and organize blog content around topics or keywords to really affect SEO.
And remember the call to action. Businss Blogs have a job to do just like any other page on a site….to take the visitor to the next step in the relationship.
Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
http://www.compendiumblogware.com
Comment by Chris Baggott — May 29, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
Very good points here, both in the post and the comments. It’s good for SEO, but that’s not all.
A blog is also a very good branding tool and a PR tool. You can actively use it to build up a relationship with your customers and evangelize them, to communicate the soul of your brand. Business is interaction between a provider and a customer and a blog is the perfect platform for such interaction.
Comment by Hjörtur Smárason — May 30, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Very good point,if you have good content with useful information you don`t need to run after link exchanges it will come to you
Comment by jocuri barbie — June 8, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
[...] Link building, if you offer value people will naturally link to you [...]
Pingback by Can I outsource all that social media marketing crap to affiliates? | SEOptimise — June 27, 2008 @ 11:45 am
I surely agree! I will take the challenge.
I will the note of the “the conversation”. as starter link building. its not just blog and blog, its about having a Context and content. true to your words and god fearing.
Comment by Link Building Staff — July 28, 2008 @ 2:48 am