However, in order to increase the effectiveness of your corporate blog, you need to keep these blogging best practices in mind:

Content - Your blog posts must be interesting and useful to your readers. Develop your unique voice and don’t be afraid to post things others will not agree to.

Frequency - There is a direct correlation to blog popularity and the number of times it’s updated. Post 3-5 times per week at a minimum. Blogs that are updated many times a day can get included in the Google News index which is updated daily. That means getting your content into Google search results the same day it’s posted to your blog.

Distribution - A common issue from people new to blogs and RSS feeds is where to find them. Marketing a blog brings additional advantages over a traditional web site. A blog and associated RSS/Atom feed can be promoted within the blogoshpere as well as through traditional directories, search engines and web site linking. The opportunity for blog exposure is much greater than a regular web site alone. Make it easy for news feed subscribers to find your blog through both web site search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) and RSS search engines (Bloglines, Feedster, Technorati).

Once you have these three biggies mastered, your blog will probably do pretty well for your business. But there are a few other blog optimization tips that can really help with the authority of you blog and your company:

Blog with keywords in mind - Your blog post titles should use keywords that are relevant to the post. Also, update your blog software template so that keywords from the post titles are in text links to archive posts, in the title tag and meta description tag.

Post on current news - Pay attention to your industry and keep up to date with trends and events so you can post about them and provide commentary.

Post your own thoughts - Show your industry expertise by creating original content in the form of short articles. You can create a teaser article with a link to the full document on your web site.

Link out - It’s important you link to thematically similar web sites/blogs. Other blogs that notice your link may often link back.

Link in - Submit your blog to all the search engines and directories that you would submit a web site to. Also submit to blog/RSS specific directories and search engines.

Trackbacks - Use a comment system that allows trackbacks to any news or blog sites you’re commenting on. This creates a link from other highly trafficked sites to your blog.

Blog elsewhere - Find or ask to be a “guest blogger” on related blogs. You can also ask other bloggers in your industry to be a guest blogger on your site.

With these tips in mind, there should be no reason why your blog wouldn’t rank highly in the search engines or not drive qualified traffic and leads to your corporate website. Setting up a blog is easy, with sites like Blogger and Wordpress offering free blog software and hosting.

TopRank Online Marketing also offers blog optimization and blog marketing services for your company. For more information, contact us today!

ShareThis

Once overwritten, keyword rankings can decline. To avoid such situations, here are 3 locations within your web pages to watch where keywords should exist for optimal search engine rankings:

1. Title tag. In the source code of most web pages, there is a tag called Title that describes the web page content, often 8-12 words in length. The text from the title tag is the most important to search engines. It is displayed in the blue bar at the very top of your browser and is also used as the text when a page is bookmarked and displayed in the search results.

The most important keyword(s) for the page should be at the start of the title tag. Example: CRM Software from Microsoft Dynamics

2. On page content. If the keyword doesn’t exist on the visible web page, it will be difficult for a search engine to decide that page deserves to rank for it. Placing relevant keywords in the on-page title, headings and within the body copy will help search engines and human readers understand the content better.

3. Text links between pages. When you see blue underlined text that links to another web page, the words in the link infer meaning to the page being linked to. Example: Visit our CRM Software demo for more information.

Avoid linking between pages using “click here” or “more information” as those phrases do not associate relevant keywords to the destination page. Use relevant, readable keywords in text links and you’ll help both search engines and human readers understand the topic of the page they’re clicking to.

ShareThis

What’s the difference between large scale SEO projects and those implemented for small medium businesses? Plenty. The mechanics of an enterprise search engine optimization program are different when dealing with large amounts of content with different content sources and content management systems. But factor in the organizational complexities of approval processes, stakeholders and communications with a big company and it’s a whole different ballgame.

TopRank Senior Account Manager Jolina Pettice and CEO Lee Odden conspired on an article addressing the challenges and opportunities of energizing an enterprise SEO campaign that was recently published in MediaPost’s Search Insider:

“Large-scale search engine optimization projects are often perceived as the golden egg for many SEO agencies, with their big budgets and shiny, well-known brand names. Unfortunately, search engine marketers may quickly realize that the golden egg came from a large, slow-moving tortoise.”

“Successful enterprise SEO projects require a unique combination of mechanical SEO expertise, as well as large company political savvy.”

“Making significant progress in a reasonable amount of time is possible with the right mix of planning, communication and expertise. Once various departments or businesses are moving in the same direction and at a much faster pace, the egg-laying tortoise can turn into a nimble, fast-moving hare.”

Read the full post at Search Insider.

TopRank Online Marketing is a national leader in internet marketing consulting services for Fortune 1000 corporations, specializing in digital asset optimization, online public relations and corporate blog marketing services.

ShareThis

TopRank Senior Account Manager Jolina Pettice and CEO Lee Odden contributed a recently published article to Penton Media’s Chief Marketer, “The Trick to Making Large Scale SEO Work”. Here is an exceprt:

“Successful enterprise SEO projects require a unique combination of mechanical SEO expertise as well as large company political savvy. Making significant progress in a reasonable amount of time is possible with the right mix of planning, communication and expertise.”

The key is empowering client side contacts responsible for workflow, approval and implementation. To that end, here are five tips on empowering large company SEO projects:

Ongoing Education

Energize Advocates

Market Campaign Results

Be Available

Enterprise Communications

Read the full article at Chief Marketer.

As a leading Minneapolis based Internet marketing agency, TopRank provides world class search engine optimization services to Fortune 1000 companies in the U.S. and Canada.

ShareThis

TopRank’s CEO was recently featured in a July 2008 Target Marketing Magazine cover story by Kate DeBevois and Hallie Mummert, “How Friendly Is Your SEM? Take the test: SEO/PPC best practices revealed”

Editors at Target Marketing Magazine reached out to several industry experts on search engine optimization and pay per click marketing to formulate a quiz for readers. TopRank’s Lee Odden, offered advice on Flash/Ajax/JavaScript optimization:

When using Flash, Java or AJAX, optimize search by?
Answer: b) providing text descriptions for all rich media

Lee Odden, CEO of Spring Park, Minn.-based SEO firm TopRank Online Marketing, says when used incorrectly, Flash, Java and AJAX can present an obstacle for search engines. To avoid SEO glitches when using these programs, never create the entire Web site, including navigation and content, entirely within Flash or AJAX. These tools can work to boost your brand image, he notes, it’s just a matter of formatting them correctly when building the Web site so they don’t damage your natural search efforts. For example, Odden says, “Navigation should be external to any Flash movies. If navigation is handled with Flash, JavaScript or AJAX, then alternative text links to important pages should be published so search engines can find and follow those links.”

Read the full article and take the quiz yourself at Target Marketing.

TopRank provides Fortune 1000 companies with tier one search engine optimization, digital public relations and social media marketing services.

ShareThis