Blogs a Powerful Tool for Improving SEO

Blogs can be a great way to update your site with relevant information, provide more text for search engines to use when ranking your site, and increase the likelihood that others will link to your site and increase your rankings.

When undertaking a blog, the important thing to remember is consistency. Starting a blog can be a fruitless endeavor if you are not committed to maintaining it and posting regular new quality content.

SEO blogger Lee Odden lists several reasons why a blog can become ineffective. He says that sooner or later, the dynamo for staying focused on a blog can fizzle, resulting in less time spent on improving a blog's visibility and effectiveness as an SEO generator. The antidote: time and effort. This may be difficult, but the results of providing a frequently updated, well-written blog can be worth the effort.

“That's all well and nice,” you might say, “but what am I supposed to write?”

Seopher.com's Steven York offers some tips about the purpose behind blogs. He says they should engage readers, providing content they can use—not just a mundane record of internal business developments. Use it to offer information and advice about different aspects of your industry, he advises, and people will begin to think of you—and your business—as an expert in the field.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Building Your Companies Reputation Through Blogs and Forums

There are several ways to add good content to your site without taking up a lot of space on your landing page. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide says “This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.”

Blog posts, forum posts, and emails should be of some benefit to the customer. For example, if you write a blog post (or blog article) on something that educates visitors, they are more likely to read it and pass it on to friends and family.

Don't let the task of writing copy for your website overwhelm you. HIT Web Design has a team of professional writers who are dedicated to helping our clients create the most effective copy for their websites, newsletters, press releases, blogs, or whatever other writing needs they may have.

For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

Off Site; Read and Stay Ahead

The internet provides ample opportunity for communicating about numerous subjects. You can learn about everything from the eating and sleeping habits of a leopard tortoise to the best place to skydive in North Dakota. As a small business owner, you should be part of the online conversation. More specifically, you should lead the conversation that is taking place in and about your industry. If you aren’t part of the conversation, start today. All you need to get started is a website with a blog that contains informative articles.

Blogs are great because you can post information while you give your potential customer a chance to interact with you. Once you’ve got a blog of your own, find out who is leading the conversation in your industry. Do this by searching out keywords and key phrases that are appropriate to your industry. Do this using at least a dozen key words or phrases. What sites are showing up in the results?

Your site will have to do more than show up in the first few search engine results for someone to consider you an industry expert. Look at the sites and see who is interacting with your potential customers. When you find reliable information and interaction, you’ve found an expert.

What is the expert writing about? What are they getting the most response from? What isn’t working for them? You don’t want to repeat articles that have been written on other blogs, but you can write about similar topics. In short, you want to find out where and what your intended audience is reading, and then give them what they want.

For more information, please visit http://www.heritagewebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.

RSS Feeds and Blogs

RSS Feed Drives Traffic to your Site

Want to drive people to your site in droves? Of course you do!

One of the best ways to increase web traffic and web ranking is by distributing news and updates about your business or products that are, in turn, picked up by other websites. If you do this on a regular basis, you can't help but drive people to your site as they see your news items and click to learn more, ultimately ending up on your site. This process is easy, and effective, and is made possible through use of the “RSS Feed” feature. Originally made popular by Netscape, your site popularity can benefit tremendously by integrating RSS Feed into your overall marketing strategy. Writing the code for RSS Feeds is a bit complicated, but at HIT Web Design, we take care of everything, so you don't have to worry.

Blogs Bring Business

Another strategy to bring people back again and again to your website is to incorporate a Blog. Blogs provide an opportunity to constantly update your site with new and fresh material, thus making your site relevant and useful. Blogs also introduce an element of interactivity to your site, and open dialog translates into open doors—more business, more connections, more knowledge, and more website visits. In a list of reasons to blog compiled recently, people gave blogging credit for new jobs, new opportunities to share important information, and the chance to connect with people they considered important. If you are still wondering what value a blog can bring to your website, consider that blog structure matches the “skim and scan” mentality of website visitors, thus providing an easy way for them to get the information they are looking for. If you need a little help with your blog, don't hesitate to consult your HIT Web Design professional for advice. (see HIT Enhancements.)

Blogs: Don’t Do Business Without Them

Household phrases of advice like “Make sure you wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident.”, attributed to the mothers of the world, and a popular credit card company, “Don’t leave home without it” are joined by another timely piece of advice; “Blogs—Don’t do business without them”, recommended by the marketing department at Heritage Internet Technologies.

Blogs! What the heck are they? A Blog is comparable to an online journal that allows the owner to post comments, stories, personal viewpoints, etc. It also gives the visitors the ability to comment on what’s been posted.

What are their benefits?

Gain Popularity: Find others who share similar opinions and interests. The site will accrue popularity as others develop a habit of reading the Blog. Any type of website that has the potential of attracting a “following” can benefit from a Blob Database.

Control the Conversation: The administrator has access to features that will enable them to control the conversation. If there is harassment, negativity, or obligatory postings, they can boot and block the offender as well as update comments and entries to encourage visitors to keep checking back to see what’s new.

Search Engine Ranking: By making regular posts at least once per week (minimum) a Blog can boost the placement in the search engines. In order for this to work, users must use an update service to advertise the fact that an update has been made. This is also made more effective when the Blog is integrated as a part of a site. There are many services that can be used. A couple of these are: http://pingomatic.com, and http://blogsearch.google.com/ping.

Create Value: Keeping readers informed for free fosters trust. When visitors to a site begin trusting the opinions and advice posted on a site, they are more likely to purchase services or products from the site.

For questions and further information on how Blogs can benefit your business, remember the friendly professionals at Heritage Internet Technologies are just a phone call away.