This morning I had a great opportunity to speak live on BBC Oxford radio to Louisa Hannan about blogging.
It takes 2-3 mins to get into talking about blogging and understandably during the interview there were a few points I researched but didn’t talk about. So I’ve listed below some of the key messages which I would recommend to businesses getting started or considering blogging.
Direct YouTube link: Kevin Gibbons Blogging Interview – BBC Oxford
What is blogging?
- Blogging is in the form of an online journal and it’s an extremely popular method of publishing news, information, opinions and content.
- Blogging is easy to get started with, whether for a personal or business site. You can easily signup for free using sites such as WordPress or Blogger.
Advantages to blogging
- You can reach a worldwide audience of 1.5 billion people online.
- Builds credibility.
- Brand awareness – indirectly advertising your business by attracting potential customers.
- Helps to build useful relationships and contacts within an industry.
- Instantly deliver your message online.
- Great way of staying up-to-date and writing about latest, ever-changing trends.
- Adds a personal touch to a brand, helping to build and control your online reputation.
How SEOptimise use blogging
- Blogging is open to all size of business, so we have managed to punch above our weight in comparison to larger competitors.
- We’ve established a strong reputation, highly subscribed blog and been frequently quoted/referenced by leading search bloggers and the media.
- In 2009 (to-date) we have received 192,000 visits to our blog! 30,000 alone during the last month.
- Time-consuming, but the effort can be justified based on the potential return. Reasonably well targeted paid search advertising clicks are likely to cost in the region of £1 per click. At 30,000 visits per month, blogging is looking far more appealing!
Blogging Facts
- Hubspot research reports that companies with a blog have 55% more visitors and 97% more links to their website!
- Tumblr reported 255m pageviews in July and 650,000 new posts per day, working out at 6 new posts per second! Thanks for the help finding these Bas! ;)
Type of content to post
- Breaking news
- Useful tips
- Topical content/opinions/advice
- Controversial topics (be careful though!)
Tips – Do’s and Don’ts
- Write interesting content – such as the ideas listed above.
- Write for the web, brighten up your posts, use bullet points and keep them concise.
- Don’t re-report recent news, add your own angle or opinion on what this means.
- Do link to other industry bloggers, try to connect with them so that you can help promote each other. Thanks Darren for some more ideas.
Example of blogging working effectively
Pearn Kandola (disclaimer, they are a client) wrote a psychology analysis of The Apprentice during the TV show earlier in the year. What worked well was:
- They reached a far wider audience, seeing this is one of the BBC’s most popular shows.
- They talked about a topical discussion, many people would discuss who has been fired following the show. So this helped to spark discussion.
- They used social media, such as Twitter to promote themselves to viewers of The Apprentice.
- And they got it right! Boosting their credibility by successfully predicting the candidates who would last the longest, who would eventually get hired and who the most likely to be the next one fired.
Hope you liked the interview and please let me know what your top blogging tips are?
Thanks for including great social media tips, in bullet points. The video was excellent.
Now that’s what I call a great way to explain that
Should Businesses be Blogging? SEOptimise on BBC Oxford. A very informative SEO post.
And should blog comments be an area of advertising?
Small businesses should most definitely be blogging but it is fundamental that they dedicate the proper time and resources, set up participation guidelines and that somebody takes on the role of editor.
In my ‘in the trenches’ experience, I have found that the implementation of blogging in small to medium-sized companies never catches on unless the above have been previously worked out.
yeah!i’ll second oscar that small companies those have limited setup usually prefer blogging and consider it as one of the best way to advertise and increase traffic for their sites.
I heard you on the radio, very interesting… Thank you very much for the tips on Blogging.