Blogging is a great way to build an internet business because it provides an easy way to add fresh new content on a regular basis. Beyond that, the search engines love blogs because of the way all the pages get linked to each other, resulting in websites that get indexed quickly. But the problem with blogging as always been how to add enough content on a consistent basis that will provide the level of fresh new content that is required to get the page rankings to drive sustainable traffic.
Doing is not enough…When you do it matters
I have seen many webmasters get into deep trouble for themselves and for their clients by utilizing tactics that were all the rage just a year ago. There are elements of content that are now being measured, that were not even conversational terms among SEO professionals, just a little while back. Now it is important to make what ever you do look authentic, for contents sake. This is a big distinction that draws heavily on Google’s new found ability to interpret content both textual and media. No longer can you say, place an article on a network and use the same exact link text, as a recipe across many or all other articles you post for the same project. It actually is misleading to say this, as I write I hear the exceptions ringing in my head. Even across other properties you own, can be cross correlated to identify footprints. Elements of activity that look like SEO are going to land you in hot water.
Frustrating as it is, Google says, SEO is the same through all the updates…adhere to Google’s terms of service and you’ll be all right. Now would you trust them to tell you what really matters. They develop the tactics they do, to hunt out, the black hat, grey hat SEO practitioners. The last thing they would do is lay the groundwork for “we” the public to really understand what they have up their sleeves.
Suffice it to say they now can make correlations to what your site looks like for all it’s metrics and what the typical violator SEO manipulated site looks like and they can make automatic associations as to your intent. Outch !!! This is huge. They now will lump you into a container labeled SEO hack for instance, just because your efforts may have used resources, unknown to you, that had been used by some black hatters. The neighborhood is dirty so you must be dirty.
The scenarios are endless in how a misguided, ill-educated individual can ruin a domain property to the point of being de-indexed, sand-boxed or even forgotten. In some instances violations of Google’s terms of service can be remedied quickly and standings returned fairly quick. In other scenarios, once the violations are fixed it will still cost you 6 months of being sand-boxed or even de-indexed. Worse case scenario is a permanent ban. In many instances the company website is on an irreplaceable domain. Get that screwed up and there is no fix.
With all this said it is important to create content originally, with correct grammar, spelling and worthwhile content. Write to impress. Provide links to resources, within and without your website and make sure it is relevant. Sprinkle in social media websites and social engagement and with some multimedia, some popularity, certainly much persistence, you will be able to rank your site high enough to generate traffic and benefit your self and your business with an adequate to excellent return on investment