I read a lot of small business blogs. Some of these blogs are well written, well researched and a pleasure to read. Others, you can tell right away, are not really meant for human consumption. They are written purely for search engine optimization (SEO). These blogs are easy to spot. There are usually a ton of links in the text that are purely self-promotional. By that I mean they are linking only to their own web site. Also, the blog posts are usually stuffed with their relevant keywords and are not very easy to read.
The Right Kind of Traffic
For some people all they want is more visitor traffic from the search engines. Of course, we would all like more traffic but writing a blog with just the search engine spiders in mind may not be the best way to generate high quality traffic.
Who cares if someone comes to your blog spends half a minute reading your post and then leaves, never to return. What you want is someone finding your blog, realizing this is valuable content, thereby becoming interested in your company. Hopefully, they will then subscribe to your blog and become a regular reader and down the road become a paying customer.
Gaming the System
I believe that eventually Google will not reward these kinds of “SEO-centric” blogs with higher rankings. Google is always looking for ways that people are trying to game the system and this is one way that is becoming more common. What Google wants to do is return the most relevant and useful result for the search request and a blog that is not written with the reader in mind does not provide a good experience for the searcher. Now, I am not a search engine guru but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day Google penalized these SEO-centric blogs.
The Value of Inbound Links
Blogs that are built purely for SEO have one major flaw which may end up backfiring in their goal of higher search engine rankings. No one will voluntarily link to these blogs. They may be able to get some reciprocal links but no reputable site is going to provide them with an inbound link because they are not providing any real value. And it is these one-way inbound links, any search engine expert will tell, that is ranking gold.
Getting the Balance Right
I always advise clients to write with their prospective customers in mind. Write articles that these people will want to read. Sure you can throw in some links to your own web site from time to time, but also link to other places so you are providing value to your readers. And yes, you want to mention your relevant keywords in your blog posts whenever possible but not to the extent that it detracts from the readability of your post. A good balance is what I recommend but with the goal of creating value to your readers.
Create a blog that you can proudly promote to your customers and prospects. Make it an informational resource that is valuable to people, not just search engine robots. Then people will come back to your blog, they may tell others about it and may even provide you with that valuable inbound link. And you might find yourself suddenly moving up the search engine rankings anyway.
Photo courtesy of Swiss Bones
