If you are trying to run a profitable website, then search engine visibility is crucial to your success. I know that is an obvious statement, but too many businesses don’t take it as seriously as they should.

So how can business blogging help you to increase your search engine visibility? The two main areas that will be affected by business blogging are changing content and link building.

Changing Content

Blogs are always changing. Every time you write a post, the whole face of the blog changes. The reason this is good for improving both search engine rankings and visibility is because if the site is always changing, you are giving the search engine spiders a reason to keep coming back.

One problem that normal HTML sites run into is they tend to be more static. In other words they don’t change very often, which means that the spiders have less reason to keep coming back to the site. The more often you blog, the more your content is changing and encouraging repeat visits by the search engine spiders.

Link Building

You’ll notice on this blog that any time we use one of our desired keyword phrases, we turn it into a link to a page that most relates to this topic. This helps to create relevant links for this site. Link building and link popularity is one of the key things that you need to do if you are going to increase your search engine rankings for any given phrase. By doing this on your own blog, you have more control over the links that are being developed for you.

Blogs are great for other reasons, but those are two of the main reasons that business blogging can be beneficial for your overall search engine visibility.

I’ve you’ve ever wondered how important back links are in regard to your search engine visibility, consider this. Adobe Acrobat Reader’s website is #1 on Google.com for the search term “click here.” Right about now you’re thinking, “So what!” Well, have you ever considered how they got to be #1 for a search term that NEVER appears on their site. That’s right, you won’t find the keywords “click here” on Adobe Acrobat Reader’s website, not even once – yet they are ranked # 1 for that keyword search. Let’s consider why.

In conjunction with good website design, most websites that offer PDF files for download will tell the user where they can get the program needed to view the file. Therefore, there are literally millions of sites out there who reference Adobe Acrobat Reader, and create a link using the words “click here” that links back to Adobe’s download site for Acrobat Reader. Because search engines, and specifically Google, weight links very heavily in their ranking of web pages, one of the best things you can do to increase your search engine visibility is to build keyword links to the pages of your site.

So, let’s consider again the “click here” example. It’s this simple: the more keyword links you have pointing to your site the more relevant your site becomes for that particular keyword. Because search engines are catering to their customers, or those who are performing the searches, they will naturally return to them the sites that are most relevant to the keywords being searched for.

To make a long story short, building keyword links back to your site is one of the most effective means of gaining search engine visibility. If you’re not doing this effectively, chances are you’ll be left in the dust by those of your competitors who are.

If you have taken any blog training, you no doubt are feeling that you have the formula down for search engine optimization and blog marketing. You probably may also be vaguely familiar with the love hate relationship between SEO and Google. One SEO expert suggests that the formula that you have learned, if applied without discretion, might make Google hate you.

You have been told to place your keywords in your title tags, in image alt attributes, in the domain name and file name, etc. And that is all well and good but blog marketing - which is where you are using many of these keyword phrases - is more than keywords and if you have been getting your training from the instructors at RSS Applied you will have understood that, though keywords are important for search engine visibility, your first obligation to your readership is providing relevant, well written posts on your products or service.

“The most important aspect to being a good SEO is creativity. You shouldn’t worry too much about the specifics of putting keyword phrases here and there, and again over there. Not every page needs an H1 heading with keyword phrases in it. If your page isn’t designed to use H1 headings, you don’t need to change it to use one just for SEO purposes. And many images don’t really and truly make sense with a keyword phrase in their alt attribute (alt tag). Don’t force one to be there just for the search engines.”
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Keywords should be distributed evenly, and without excess, throughout your page. If your writer knows your target market, knows your product and service, then their writing will naturally be full of phrases and words that apply. Blogs walk a tightrope in which they must serve to bring robust traffic to your site but also serve to convert that traffic into customers and regular visitors. And the best way to convert that traffic is to give then what they came for - good information that will satisfy their search.

A local skate board retailer is interested in how search engine visibility and optimization will cross over to mobile web. What modifications will he need to make to his blog and site? He is wise to express interest given that his users are heavy mobile users.

Though this area of SEO is evolving, there has been much written about what an e-commerce site or blog can do to assure that their site can be found and that it displays optimally.

The first considerations should not present any problems if you have employed a simple blog site platform and utilized strict XHTML code. Keep the content short, clean and easy to read on a cell.

“… Mobile search is not trivial. It takes more effort to type a search word or phrase on a mobile device (especially those without a Qwerty keypad) then on the desktop Web. In spite of that time investment, studies show … that 75% of mobile searchers are not willing to browse beyond the second page of search results. With the first mobile results page showing at most 6 items, you can clearly see just how important is for your mobile site to be visible.

Here are some SEO basics for any mobile site:

• Optimize for keywords and short phrases
• Include keywords in title tag, H1’s, H2’s and content
• Think how your title will appear as a mobile bookmark
• Provide keyword-rich anchor text for internal links
• Get indexed. Provide Google Mobile Site Map.

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You will also want to consider registering your site with  services like the recently introduced FeedM8.

“…FeedM8 uses patent-pending technology to enable content to be accessed and read on your cell phone. The intent is to circumvent the necessity for website publishers to create content that’s compatible with several different mobile standards, in order to work across hand-held models. FeedM8 lets you search for content with short codes, and will modify the mobile content to work with your phone, mobile network bandwidth and screen size. Registering for the Publisher Network also lets you join in on the revenue-sharing model that FeedM8 has set up, earning 60% from ad splits and referrals.”

When it comes to promoting your business online there are plenty of places to turn. Of course you can always advertise, but remember: advertising creates awareness, not sales. It’s good, hard marketing that builds your sales percentages.

Advertising and marketing combined will, however, build your search engine visibility. People today use search engines to find information, products and services online. The top search engine of choice: Google.

Nielsen/NetRatings ranked Google first in search popularity for the month of July having received 53.3% of the total online search share, highly outranking its top competitor Yahoo at only 20.1%. Millions of searches are performed through Google each month, and billions of results are found. One of the best ways you can ensure that you will be found within all of this hodgepodge is to market your website via smart blogging.

Back Links

A blog can be used to build the number of back links leading to your website. After all, a blog not used to link to your website is simply a waste of time! Use your time wisely. Link to your website often and build up that keyword usage! Anchor those keywords to your site to build your online visibility and credibility with Google and the other search engines.

If you can’t catch Google’s attention, whose attention are you catching? It’s time you start sucking up to the boss; be the ultimate teacher’s pet; blog to Google’s standards and up the ante against your competition.

RSS publishing is duly noted for it’s efficacy in disseminating your content,enhancing brand recognition, increasing traffic and elevating a site’s search engine visibility. But is that content there to serve your reader first, or to serve your marketing objectives at the expense of the reader?

The subject comes up in a discussion at MediaPost about Freakonomics’ recent partnership with the NYT. In particular,it brings attention to the debate over Freakonomics’ decision to reduce what had been a full RSS feed to a summary. That Freakonomics is so highly regarded, is, in part, due to the passionate and articulate community that they serve and a portion of that community is clearly communicating their discontent.

“…roughly six hours after Dubner published his announcement, roughly 100 of the 120 comments were in protest of Freaknomics’ move from full to partial RSS subscription feeds, forcing feed subscribers to begin their flow and then abruptly transfer attention to the NYTimes site via a separate browser window!

A sampling of the comments in Dubner’s post underscores the dilemma that online publishers face as they adapt to a more open Web, heightened competition, attention scarcity, savvier readers, rising expectations and RSS syndication…”

Attention and engagement are the coin of the realm and are quickly withdrawn if inconvenience is introduced. I far prefer and value full content, daily updated, and soon remove a feed that fails in both. It seems to be a common practice. But much, as well, depends on the site. I get my political fixes directly from the source because the comments are where all the treasure is found. People will click through according to what serves them best. It doesn’t seem too difficult a decision to provide a choice, unless traffic trumps community expectations.

“So the million-dollar question is: How should the Freakonomics authors and NYTimes — and publishers in general — interpret and act on such community feedback?
[…]
Audiences are no longer just about aggregating lifeless content consumers. Today, we must now consider reader participation, a powerful proxy of engagement. Participation now is content itself, and the glue that binds audience into meaningful community.”
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A food manufacturer pays a pretty price to have his product displayed on the shelf where the customer will most likely see it. That shelf is expensive because it’s high visibility will afford his brand optimum exposure,thus, producing more sales.

Now consider your website. Every page in your web site is a “shelf” designed to achieve high search engine visibility in order to afford your brand optimum exposure, thus, producing more conversions.

You can thank your lucky stars that you’re not paying “shelf prices” for those pages, but some of your pages can be compared to premium shelf space that is left sitting empty. At least that is what search engines see when they spider down your “aisle”, so to speak - an empty page.

These would be the pages where you forgot to have fun. The “About Me” page where the prose is pedestrian and your reader starts muttering “Blah bla bla bla blah” under his breath before he gets past the first few lines. Not only are folks usually putting their least creative juice on these pages, they are often failing to optimize them. No value is extracted from them.

“Your everyday pages are easy to take for granted, but they shouldn’t be. They have the ability to rank well in organic search results because they are often linked to by many pages of your site, if you include within them terms that people will search for. They also may show up at search engines in some of the other results that are becoming more prevalent with the emergence of blended and universal search. Make sure that they are working for you, everyday.”

Bill Slawski at SearchEngineLand.com does a very thorough examination of what he calls the everyday pages where he observes “…small business sites not taking advantage of enough.”

The value of content that is stressed with such emphasis during blog training doesn’t end where the blog ends. It applies to every page in your site, just as every shelf in you brick and mortar store is “optimized”, so should every web page that you send out in your name.

Whenever I ask people who are unfamiliar with blogging, they typically have the same impression about what a blog is. They think of blogs as online journals. Places where people bear their souls and talk a little too much about their personal lives. I quickly point out that is how most blogs were started. Then businesses saw an opportunity.

Web sites are often the formal face of the company, while a blog shows a more human side. Blogs allow businesses to interact with their customers and the public in a more authentic way, and it’s also good for business. Search engines are slaves to original content, and blogs are perfect for that.

Recently, I taught a class demonstrating how easy and quick it is to make an entry on a business blog. I wrote a sample blog post about internet marketing. I clicked the publish button and it was online. In about an hour I had a Google alert for that post. That means Google indexed that post barely an hour after I wrote it. Try tracking how long it takes for Google to index a new page on your corporate site. It can take months.

Another benefit of a blog is that each post is a new page of your site - with its own URL. Each page you put online is another opportunity to get rankings in search engines for words that relate to your business. And once set up, a blog requires almost no technical skills to maintain. However, to get maximum search engine visibility, it should go beyond that. For example, it should be integrated with your web site with backlinks using keyword phrases from the blog.

Perhaps the best thing about blogging is that a small business or someone virtually unknown can suddenly become very important. All because of their search engine rankings. And when you rank high in a search engine for a term that relates directly to your business, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Fortune 500 or a home based business. You’ll see the impact.

Social media marketing is another aspect of online marketing that you will likely want to explore. It’s another opportunity to build your brand and gain more boost for all of your blog marketing efforts.

Facebook and Small Business Marketers

According to Trendcatching, in May, Facebook had 25m users, expected to reach 50m by year’s end. Of those, the fastest growing demographic is the 25 and over age group. This is where so many marketing efforts are supported by blog marketing. All of the excellent content that you have been industriously writing and optimizing for search engine visibility can be distributed very easily to your potential customers among those 25m plus users.

John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing recently began exploring the marketing potential in FaceBook, not as an area of immediate return, but as an investment of time that will plow the road for what may come.

“The move by Facebook, dubbed f8, should put small business marketers on alert. Now is the time to start learning how to navigate and use the Facebook platform and the coming storm of applications that are on the way.”

One such application comes by way of Google.

FaceBook + Google Shared = Brand Exposure

“…The application is called Google Shared Items. This application allows Facebook members to easily do two very useful things. First, it makes it very easy to feature your blog posts on your profile page (your Facebook home page) allowing your network to get a taste of your blog. There are other ways to do this, but this one really works well.

The real power behind that app though is that it also allows you to see a list of all the blog posts that your friends/network have shared (Shared by bookmarking them in their Google Reader) and then ranked as the most popular items. This feature gives you your very own Digg like tool to discover changing content that, if your network is like minded, will provide you with a fabulous resource of relevant reading that you may never discover on your own.
Duct Tape Marketing

All you need is a Google Reader account and a Facebook account - both easily executed and both free.

Search engine visibility for your site is greatly improved for local search results by optimizing your images, especially given Google’s and Yahoo’s implementation of universal search.

Beyond aesthetics, images cause a viewer to linger, particularly if your product has a community of “passionate users” (a label applied to those consumers whose enthusiasm often culminates in vibrant online communities) that you want to attract.

A local bike retailer invites their readers to send in their bicycling images. Located near a regionally famous bike trail, this retailer stands to benefit greatly from the traffic generated from searches for that bike trail alone. Many of the images he has received are of local and visiting biking enthusiasts who regularly ride that trail.

I will save for a later post the many marketing opportunities this retailer has yet to exploit, such as the absence of blog marketing and RSS publishing and videocasts, all of which would serve this particular community of users well. Given that the site offers a great deal of relevant content, it is almost a disservice to fail to deliver it as optimized blog content.

Concentrating on optimizing images for local search, our bike retailer could greatly increase his traffic by simply correctly optimizing his alternative text on the Gallery of images submitted by his readers. A click of the above screen shot will provide ample evidence of missed opportunity. Don’t let the same be said of your site.

“Always add ALT text into image tags! Describe the images using valuable keywords. Do not over-stuff keywords into ALT text! Make it brief, and naturally-written. Using ALT text is also good for best usability and accessibility as well. For a map image, the ALT text ought to include the business name and location. Ex: “Acme Hotel at 100 Elm St., Springfield, MO 65721″”
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