Blogging continues to boom - The continuing emergence of blogging and online PR services

April 10th, 2007

According to a recent report by Technorati, the increase in the popularity in blogging shows no sign of slowing down. The report stated that Technorati are now tracking over 70 million blogs worldwide, approximately 13 million more than the number detected by the last Technorati report in November 2006.

Blogging by its very nature is more informal than other forms of “content websites” and many build up a considerable fan base, which revisit the site on a frequent basis. These sites are often more respected and trusted by the general public and perceived as being a more reliable source of information than many editorial or official websites.

As blogs are become more mainstream and accepted by commerce as a way of interacting with customers, however there is a danger that this perception will change, and there have been some well documented cases as such, with the Walmart blog probably one of the more well known examples.

However, due to the growing popularity, there has also been the associated problems such as spam blogs, or “Splogs”. These are automated blogs that contain little or no unique content and instead use content lifted from an RSS feed, which is then republished with a link. These are of no real value to human readers and exist largely for black hat search engine optimisation, however these can often rank highly in SERPS or search engine results positions.

Blogs can be an effective tool to interact with potential clients, however it should always be considered

• Who is the potential audience - Ensure that a blog is suitable
• How are your potential audience likely to interact with the blog - If you have a very negative public perception, perhaps such an interactive forum may be inadvisable - however saying that it may be a master stroke if implemented strategically
• What is the tone of your blog - personal/corporate - is this right for your target audience
• How often are you likely to update your blog - the best blogs are updated very regularly and often for this reason alone perform well in the search engines, as well as build up large followings.
• Do you wish to “syndicate” your content - this is important when deciding what platform/software to use - this for example uses wordpress.
• Is search engine optimisation important - you may need some technical tweaks in order to make your blog more friendly

There are a number of blogging experts out there, who can help with a long term Online PR or blogging strategy. If you are in any doubt, contact an expert such as E-Gain to find out more.

Entry Filed under: SEO Industry, E-Gain PR, SEO, PR Syndication, Online PR