TopRank Internet Marketing News

Blogs are great for promoting key messages and distributing information about a brand, company or organizations. Starting a blog can be a valuable tool to help businesses sell their products while making better connections with customers, but it’s not as simple as slapping up some content. Creating a blog that is seen, shared and respected takes some research, strategy and consistency. Here are a few tips that I incorporate at Online Marketing Blog which other companies can follow to increase the value their corporate blog provides.

Research & Use Keywords. Optimize your blog for search engines. Use a keyword research tool to create a keyword glossary of words related to your brand, business, topic or industry that are in demand. Content creators should use the glossary as a reference for planning, writing and publishing content online.

Below is a list of blogs that cover Search Engine Marketing topics ranked according to how many RSS subscribers they have. It’s important to note that not all blogs run their feeds through Feedburner, nor do all blogs that run their feeds through Feedbuner enable the Feedcount option which makes the chicklet counters below possible. That said, it’s a pretty good list. If you want a much larger list to pick from, be sure to visit the Online Marketing Blog BIGLIST of SEO Blogs.

1. Google Webmaster Central

2. Matt Cutts Blog

3. SEOmoz Blog

4. Search Engine Land

5. Online Marketing Blog

6. Search Engine Watch

7. Search Engine Journal

8. Search Engine Roundtable (normal feed)

9. Marketing Pilgrim

10. HubSpot

11. Graywolf’s SEO Blog

SES Chicago, the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest, will be packed with 60+ sessions, multiple keynotes and Orion Strategy sessions, exhibitors, networking events and more.

TopRank Marketing CEO, Lee Odden will join a panel of industry experts, including Sally Falkow, President of PRESSFeed, and Stephan Spencer, Founder & President of Netconcepts, on Wednesday, December 10th to discuss SEO through blogs and feeds.

In this session, Lee will present best practices for blog content optimization, including how to optimize and promote blog content to attract readers and links to increase traffic and search engine visibility. Sally will cover feeds and digital asset syndication, and Stephan will cover blog software optimization.

Session Details
10:30 am, Wednesday December 10th

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds
Not yet running a blog? Not syndicating your content through web feeds? Then you’re missing out on an important area that can help your overall SEO efforts. Learn more about the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to search engine optimization.

One of the biggest traffic drivers for any corporate website can be a blog. Corporate blogs are a great way to engage prospective clients and customers in the inner-workings of the company, as well as to inform the public of your products and services and stand out as a thought leader in your industry.

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.