eMarketer Doesn’t Think Search is Important for Blogs?
Yesterday, eMarketer issued an article titled, “Blog Reading Is a Free-Floating Affair,” which was based off of a report by Vizu Answers and Ad Age.
The research seems to indicate that the majority of people who read blogs find them from word-of-mouth or referrals in the form of links from one blog to another. eMarketer even goes so far as to say, “Thinking of promoting a blog through search? Don’t bother.”
While I agree that word-of-mouth and link referrals are important, discounting the power of search as it relates to blogs is frankly ridiculous. Just perform a search on any number of keywords and analyze the results. More than likely, you will find a number of different blogs covering those subjects.
The research Vizu conducted consisted of running questions on 40+ English language blogs between November 20th and December 4, 2006. It does not say what type of blogs they were. However….
- 65% of 268 respondents did say the number one reason why they read blogs is for Entertainment.
- 49% of 245 respondents said they don’t read blogs for work.
- Only 11% of 281 respondents comment on or write blogs
I get the distinct impression that the majority of these survey questions were not run on business blogs.
I only have to look at the web analytics for both Twelve Horses’ blog, as well as my own personal blog to see that search is extremely important.
In 2007 alone, Twelve Horses’ blog received more than 60% of its traffic from organic search. For the same time frame, my personal blog received more than 40% of its traffic from organic search.
Blogging software has become so powerful and so malleable that it is really just a matter of semantics when someone uses the word “blog.” Weblog, blog, website….whatever, who cares? Websites and blogs use the same programming language, and they are both indexed by major search engines. The difference is the voice.
I would venture to guess that some respondents in this survey would not even know whether they were on a site built with blogging software if it did not look like a traditional blog.
eMarketer does not believe you should promote a blog through search, but in fact that is the very thing that blogs do for businesses by default. Search engines love keyword rich content that is fresh and new. Once a blog is discovered, it is up to the producer of that blog to provide quality content to keep the visitor coming back.
Want to optimize your blog for search?
- Choose a domain name that relates to the primary product, service, or location your business operates in.
- Set-up a Sitemap
- Submit your blog to Technorati
- Write blog posts with relevant titles and rich content that both contain correlating keywords that people search to find what you offer.
- And yes, get other blogs and websites to link to your blog by reading others and continuing their conversations and demonstrating your individual expertise.
Surveys serve as great benchmarks and foundations for plotting future directions, but they are not always representative of the entire picture, and in some cases, inherently flawed.
