Yes, I'm talking about blogging. That wonderful contemporary platform that allows those of us who have scribbled for years into Moleskines to finally publish. Clients often ask us if they ought to integrate a blog or news feed their web design. The answer is yes; but only if you or someone in your organisation is willing to invest the time to update it regularly. A neglected news feed just looks sloppy. It sends out entirely the wrong message about your business; "starts with greats intentions but loses interest".
Blogging can be very useful though. Google loves all that fresh key-word rich content; valuable SEO brownie points for nothing more than time and effort. You can write for yourself, delegate, or even commission companies like us to blog on-topic for you. Warning: Never, Ever 'cut and paste'. Google is all-seeing and does not take kindly to plagiarism. You will be penalised and your site ranking will drop like a stone. Once up and running, register the blog RSS Feed with any number of blog directories such as Technorati (itself a portmanteau of technology and literati) for incoming links and traffic. The credible directories will review your blog to ensure it is valid and to a certain standard before they index it. The more qualified the directory, the more valuable the link.
Photographers are fortunate, we enjoy a host of dedicated photography blog directories. I publish a blog on my own website. Although '365' features photographs plus genuine recreational stabs at creative writing, it does my SEO no harm at all. And I'm careful to slip in the odd unashamedly relevant keyword. Better still, the kind and dedicated publisher of a directory I recently submitted to (ilovephotoblogs.com) wrote a small feature article about my blog. Just look at all those delicious keywords bumping up the value of the incoming links. People pay good money for that sort of quality SEO. /MOH
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