SAN JOSE, CA–Blogs and RSS feeds can translate into real business profits for advertisers and publishers when done correctly, speakers said during a session at yesterday’s Search Engine Strategies 2005.
“Having a blog is no longer sufficient — everyone has one. How are you going to be successful?” Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR, asked a packed room.
While “everyone” is involved in blogs — there are 11 million of them in the United States, Jarboe said — many marketers don’t know how to use them to grow their businesses. Marketers should become the authoritative voice on the subject and speak to blog readers, who are not “the average person,” Jarboe said.
Fifty-seven percent of blog readers are men. Most are under age 30, higher-income and well-educated individuals. They are broadband users and Internet veterans. Knowing how to speak to this audience could give marketers a “wonderful competitive advantage,” Jarboe said.
For blogs, make sure the information is unique.
“Why are people reading blogs? To find news [they] can’t find elsewhere. You are competing with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,” Jarboe said. “Why would someone want to read your content?”
The same goes for RSS feeds.
“As search marketers, we need to write our search content so the feed is meaningful, and the content is meaningful. Otherwise, somebody will just spin through it,” said Amanda Watlington, with Searching for Profit.
Marketers need to write title tags for RSS feeds much more clearly, she said.
