Q. Mike Goldstein of Rockcoastmedia asked me recently:
"I have been debating whether or not to suggest [that] my SEO clients add a blog to their corporate site. I am afraid that corporate blogs come off as too self serving and tend to talk too much about the company. Have you seen much in corporate blogs getting the attention that personal blogs get on similar topics?"
A. And my response:
Interesting question. I suspect that Dell's new Direct2Dell blog is getting way more traffic than most personal blogs. Just checked on Technorati, and Dell's blog is ranked 17,976 out of 50 million blogs after being up for about two months.
And certainly GM's Fastlane blog (ranked 2,496 on Technorati after 20 months) gets lots of traffic (several hundred thousand page views a month last I checked).
For smaller companies, it helps to think of a blog as the interactive, fresh section of the Web site. In other words, a blog is simply an adjunct to your main site.If the content of the blog is interesting and non-salesy (and includes appropriate keyword phrases) it should appear high in search engine results (on those keywords) and prompt clickthroughs to your home page or whatever pages you choose to highlight on your blog layout.
As a point of comparison, this blog ranks (as of today) 5,570 on Technorati. I like to say it's a Top 5,000 Blog which ain't too bad, considering there are (as of today) 52.6 million blogs, according to Technorati.
I've been writing this blog for almost two years. So longevity counts. Ya gotta stick with it and keep writing. And yes of course I wish it were a Top 1,000 blog or in the Top 100. Probably not gonna happen because I do other stuff besides blog.
Have you got a question about corporate blogging?
Ask me in a live teleconference I'm hosting on
Friday Sept. 15thWednesday Sept. 20th from 12 noon to 2 PM Eastern. Ticket to entry? The session is free if you buy 5 copies of my book from 800-CEO-Read. Email your receipt to me at wordbiz(at)gmail.com and I'll send you the dial-in info. Details here.
Hope you'll join us!
Previous Comments
Steve Mertz said on August 31, 2006 at 07:53 PM
I help a lot of my speaker buddies get into blogging. It’s a fabulous way to get exposure and I yell at them if they aren’t selling on their blog-audiences expect you to make a soft pitch or two!! My $2 cents :)
Danielle Murdolo said on September 5, 2006 at 12:12 AM
Debbie, i am interested to know more about the issue of blogging in relation to its use by public relations practitoners and whether certain companies/industries are more into it than others- as i am currently writing a thesis for my final year of post-graduate study. For the purpose of this assignment i am happy to buy a copy of your book if you will allow me to informally interview you over the phone- i will of course quote you in the thesis if i were to use your comments as part of my research. Can I contact you to discuss?
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