Blogging and search engines

It's no doubt that adding a blog to your business site is good for business--creating open lines of dialogue between you and your customers, especially when needing to generate buzz prior to a product launch, just makes sense.

A blog is also good for search engines. Not just good--terrific! Search engines love blogs!

If you want in-bound traffic from search engines to your site, you couldn't ask for a better way to achieve your goal than by adding a blog. Why?

• Search engines favor relevant content, and blogs that are regularly updated with keywords commonly searched by surfers are ripe for the picking. If your blog is updated frequently and on a common theme or topic, it will find favor with the search engines.
• Search engines like sites with incoming links--and links are what brings blogs alive and connects them to related content. Search engines give extra weight to links from sites focused on the same topic. Referrals from other blogs add credibility for your own blog in the eyes of the search engines.

There are plenty of reasons to start a business blog, and search engines are one of the best ones.

The Story Behind Digg

Don't be a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to knowing about Digg and it's democratic approach to news. There WILL be imitators and anyone in PR and business communicators will need to know about it.

Here's the story.

Hold the press (releases)

TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington spoke about likes and dislikes from PR folk. One stand-out suggestion: don't send him press releases. This is a common view from bloggers...they'd much rather have something quick, personal, and with good links.

Summary here.

Candor in Communication

Read this dandy column on how refreshing candor would be in political communication.

It certainly goes against the grain, as PR folk, to NOT put the best spin on every piece of communication; yet, people long for authenticity. They're almost starved for it in this age when no one admits fault or that they don't know the answer to the question being asked.

Perhaps a dose of candor would go a long way toward building credibility with your audience!

Podcasting, MP3 Players Stealing Radio's Audience

PodcastingNews reports:

Podcasting and MP3 players are stealing radio's audience, according to the latest figures from Bridge Ratings. According to Dave Van Dyke, President of Bridge Ratings, "By 2010, today's 94% penetration for terrestrial radio will have sunk to 85%."

27% of people 12-24 attribute their reduced use of radio to MP3 use; 22% attributed it to tired radio programming; 3% attributed it to podcast listening.