Blogs have become an extremely popular and lucrative enterprise. The immediacy and interactivity with which the most popular examples operate has garnered hundreds of thousands of hits each day. One of, if not the most popular blogs in the technology sector is TechCrunch.

With great power comes great responsibility though, and this weekend TechCrunch made the kind of error that highlights the issues of publishing online. Essentially, their European branch wrote a story concerning James Whatley, head of social media at Spinvox. In it TechCrunch suggested that he may leave his role in the coming week.

Unfortunately this news was still far from confirmed and was based around talk within the industry. The blog post in question was only supposed to be saved as a draft, hidden away until such time that confirmation could be sought or that the news eventually broke. Somehow though, it slipped through the net. The story was published and swiftly made its way around the blogosphere.

With the popularity that TechCrunch holds this news wasn’t simply distributed to a few people here and there; it was on the RSS feeds of thousands and subsequently continued to grow. Of course with the natural amalgamation of blogs and social media, notably Twitter, the erroneous news that Whatley was leaving had imprinted itself everywhere. That kind of coverage can’t be withdrawn; once it’s out there, sadly there isn’t a great deal anybody can do to rein it in.

Of course the most unfortunate outcome of this entire comedy of errors is that there is a man’s livelihood at stake. Whilst he’s been feeling the heat a little with the continuing conflict between the BBC and Spinvox over the efficacy of their service, this latest unconfirmed leak will do little to subdue the flames.

It may be a storm in a teacup; but once again the potential dangers of online publishing are laid out for all to see. You have to be sure of your content in any medium, regardless of the reach of your immediate reach. News can spread like a wildfire across the Internet, leading to the humbling kind of apology that TechCrunch Europe had to issue this morning.

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Some people see blogs as a burden, others as an unnecessary waste of resources; but in truth, you should be looking at your blog as an ideal marketing opportunity.

If you’re not yet a micro-blogger, or even if you are, having a blog on your site can help you to engage with your visitors. It’s an opportunity to show off your expertise and provide further reassurance that you are a reputable firm. All of that of course will help bolster your more overt marketing work.

It can be difficult working out exactly what your ‘angle’ is at the outset. For example, do you simply cover your company’s own in-house news, or do you look elsewhere in the industry for your sources? Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution unfortunately.

One thing you should certainly avoid is simply gratuitously promoting your company. If people have taken the time to find your site, then they probably already have a fair idea of what you do. The bottom line though is that it has to be interesting.

If people aren’t interested in what you’re saying, then you’re never going to attract visitors; it’s a simple but unfortunate equation. The best way that you can attract a targeted audience is by providing unique news, or at least a unique angle on the latest stories in your industry. By providing a well-written editorial or news piece, you can provide perspective and establish yourself as a authoritative voice in your sector.

With this added authority comes wider popularity, which ultimately helps draw interested visitors to your site. The blog itself is hugely important, but for most businesses it is also a means to get people looking where you really want them to go, the website itself. Therefore it is performing a marketing function without even doing anything openly.

It might sound a little underhanded, but ultimately that is how blogs thrive. People actively search for informative content; if you can supply that in a way that engages them, then you’re simply fulfilling supply and demand. Better still you can also help improve your site’s strength in the process too.

Search engine spiders love new content, it’s what they feed on. The more regularly you update – within reason – the more they’ll crawl your site. This in turn can boost your overall SEO and get you ranking further up in the search engines for your key terms. So as well as direct traffic through one-off visits or regular subscribers, you can also have the long-term SEO benefit that can draw a steady stream of users to your site.

It’s a win-win situation, one that more companies should consider to improve the reach of their site.

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Dormant, untendered blogs lie littered across the Internet. Not updated since that first week back in June 2007, they create a visual eyesore and clutter up SERPs with their wanton insignificance.

But a blog should never be beyond recovery. If you’ve taken the time to set one up, it only takes one post to reinvigorate it and bring the page out of its enforced latency period. Why not kick it back into gear and make it a key part of your business once more.

Okay, a blog isn’t for everybody. There are those who spy it for the marketing opportunity that it undoubtedly is, whilst others reject it as an unwelcome irrelevance. If you really don’t have the time – bearing in mind a semi-decent post can be done in well under an hour – then obviously a blog probably isn’t going to be your top priority. If you’re not, or don’t employ somebody capable of writing to the standards that you would require, then it might not work out.

However, if you have the staff, the time and are looking for ways to market your website without shelling out any money, a blog is the perfect opportunity.

Blog posts conjure interest. Yes, they have to be interesting in the first instance, but by having a huge volume of additional relevant content circulating out there, your site is accessible from more sources. That is of course if your blog is linked in with your site. If it isn’t, it should be. Wordpress, one of the leading blog hosts, can be manipulated in such a way as to fit in with the decoration of any site; so it could effectively become another category within your site.

Ultimately corporate blogs are all about bringing in the hoards through a supply of focussed, industry-based content. In most instances the blog is a peripheral to the main business; however, this is not to diminish its role.

Through writing and maintaining a blog you can gain a rapport with your audience. It’s an ideal opportunity for you to show off your expertise and prowess within your field. You can write reams on your site about how good your services are, but a blog provides a recent insight into your business, how you operate and what people can really expect if they do decide to use you.

A decaying blog is by no means a dead blog though. Whether you’re starting afresh or going back to an old one, remember that the most important thing is the content and quality of posts. People aren’t interested in you continuously slapping yourself on the back; just as they aren’t too bothered if your last post referenced Christmas.

Blogs update and evolve with time; they also offer you an opportunity to view your own personal growth and that of the company. They’re an opportunity for everybody to share an opinion. But just as importantly, they’re also fantastic for bringing in vital traffic; mostly thanks to specific initiatives such as Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Allow your blog to rise from the ashes, ignore the years of misuse and make it work for you once more. Don’ tallow it to simply contribute to the growing online trash gyre – as referenced in my post entitled ‘Is The Internet Too Noisy’– dust the blog off and start afresh, the results can be quite surprising.  Keep the faith.

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You’ve created a blog, it’s started bringing in traffic, but is it doing enough? It’s a conundrum faced by many websites, just how do you measure the success and relevance of your blog?

The old adage that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ might work in some online ventures, but the same can’t really be said of a blog. Whether it is used as an accompaniment to a primary site or as a standalone information resource, a blog needs to maintain a certain level of freshness to avoid slipping into ambiguous irrelevance. So what can you do?

Well, first and foremost, don’t start trying to force your blog posts. If there is nothing to say, sometimes it is better left unsaid. Whilst most would agree that regular updates are preferable; for most business websites, the resources and the content might be too elusive to do anything more than a couple of pieces a week. Quality can sometimes be a very handy substitute for quantity.

Keep Blog Content Engaging & Relevant

You may also have to define exactly what your idea of success is when it comes to your blog. Do you just want to attract as much traffic as possible without targeting any particular sectors, or would you prefer to appeal to a select demographic? High traffic volumes are always satisfying, but if nobody is making it to the end of your posts or visits your intended target page – more prevalent for business websites – then is it really doing its job?

A blog should really have two key purposes. First of all it is there to attract visitors and ensure search engine spiders have plenty of new content to index. Secondly, it should provoke thought or discussion, hopefully enough to garner a response. If you’re not achieving both, then it may be time to re-evaluate – that is, if you are serious about blogging of course.

What are you writing currently? What headlines are you using? Who will find your content interesting? Who do you want to read your blog? How can you reach them? If you’re looking to evaluate your blog and find out where it could improve, these are the kinds of questions you need to be asking.

Above all though, your readership should be the top priority. If they are likely to find your post informative, interesting or thought provoking, then the fundamental task has been fulfilled. If you’re recycling ideas and adding very little in terms of a personal touch, then you might find that your site soon becomes a red light to online traffic.

Invest Time to Optimise Quality

As an SEO Company, Slipstream regularly extol the virtues of creating and maintaining a blog to our clients. Whilst it can be difficult to find the time, the result should more than justify any additional effort that you’ve put in. Our blog represents the multitude of services we offer, the experts we have within the company and the industry that we’re in; all of which is combine to hopefully provide a few useful hints and talking points(take our SEO FAQ Blog section as a good example of this). This is a model that most businesses, regardless of their sector, can emulate.

So the freshness of your content may well prove to be relative. Not all businesses and industries have a ready supply of content at their disposal; however, that said, there’s no reason why you can’t still create something unique and engaging. Each blog post adds further visibility to your site. It can attract additional visitors, links and maybe even customers. Don’t get lured into creating content for the sake of it, equally don’t get put off of writing posts that are a little different to your usual.

Engage and challenge your readership. Make your blog, and your site, somewhere that people will choose to visit time and time again. Learn from comments and feedback, and allow your blog to flourish as a result. Just don’t give up on it.

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