13 replies to this topic

[samzbuzy]

Hi All,

I see a lot of websites being designed as a blog.

Though blogs are a good way to provide fresh content and generate traffic, can blogs compete with websites in the search engine rankings.

I tried out a few searches, for example the search for "SEO" on google brings up a couple of blogs in the first page on SERPS.

Have anyone of you tried ranking a blog against a competitor website? Does blogs stand the test?

Given the fact that google has a separate option blogsearch.google.com, will the weightage(if any!!!) given to blogs in normal SERPS be reduced?

Thanks
Sam

[kpdelvalle]

I'd be interested in the responses to your post as well. About a month ago I started a blog on my web site. Just a few days ago, I searched on some of my keywords and found my blog posts ranking higher than my web pages. Turns out that in my blog ramblings, I had mentioned certain keywords repeatedly (but totally inadvertently). And of course in my blog ramblings I had way more text and hence, more opportunity to mention those keywords than on my web pages. It seems one or both of those factors pushed those pages above my regular web site pages despite all the time I spent crafting page titles, descriptions and such for my regular web site pages.

Along the same lines, I recently started posting articles on my site about client sites that I've recently launched. I've now noticed some of those news articles outranking the actual client site. That wasn't my intent there, either.

[projectphp]

Given the fact that google has a separate option blogsearch.google.com, will the weightage(if any!!!) given to blogs in normal SERPS be reduced?

What weightage? Blogs are ranked the same as any other site. And no, this won't change. blogs are like news: a subsection of the web with special ranking considerations (like being timely), but really, no different any other way.

Blogs are really just a fancy way of saying "cheap CMS".

[kpdelvalle]

2 more things to add...

1) since I noticed what was happening with my blogs in the rankings, I did an experiment about 5 days ago. I've been having trouble getting page 1 rankings for a few key phrases. So I blogged about my frustrations mentioning a couple of the key phrases only once. 3 days later my blog was ranking significantly higher for those key phrases, as high as 2, 3 or 4.

2) I have to correct myself: it's not my blog posts (the individual pages) that are ranking so high. It's only my blog's home page, which, like most blog home pages, shows several posts. The title of my blog home page has no keywords, and as far as I can tell no page description. I don't even link to my blog home page from the main area of my site. But there seems to be this cumulative effect of all the postings at work on my blog's home page. For instance, I recently edited my blog template so that each individual post would have a keyphrase link back to my site and that link is repeated 5 times on the blog home page.

I'm really not as hung up on all this as it sounds. It was just a funky little experiment. I'd much rather be successful at getting visitors to take action once they get to my site. That's been much harder

Also a couple of downsides: those rankings will come and go as newer postings push the old ones off my blog's home page (unless I talk about the same thing over and over -- is there a 'yawning' emoticon to insert here?). Also, do I really want to be ranked so highly on the subject of my inability to get myself ranked or whatever other things I rant about? Of course, I want people to see my blog -- that's why it's there but is it the FIRST thing I want them to know about me? I don't know -- I think that's something to be careful about with a blog versus a web site.

[samzbuzy]

Also a couple of downsides: those rankings will come and go as newer postings push the old ones off my blog's home page (unless I talk about the same thing over and over -- is there a 'yawning' emoticon to insert here?). Also, do I really want to be ranked so highly on the subject of my inability to get myself ranked or whatever other things I rant about?

1) Well blogs can also be used to share your expertise, and good tool for relationship marketing

2) If enough off page factors are put to work, probably your blog will stay on top of the search engines like adobe comes up for the search "click here". You wont have blog about the same thing over and over again, but just stick to your theme.

However if anyone applied this and has maintained rankings over a period of time for your blogs mind sharing it??

BTW thanks for your input projectphp.

Sam

[Jill]

can blogs compete with websites in the search engine rankings.

As ProjectPHP stated, blogs ARE websites.

[Michael Martinez]

I think it's too early to tell, but if Google's blogsearch follows in the footsteps of news search, then blogs will probably start vanishing from the main search engine listings. The same seems to be true for the scholarly papers and articles that used to be easy to find in the main index. Now you almost have to use Google Scholar.

People do need to give more thought to vertical search, because it's not going away. It's expanding into new areas.

[domokun]

I have to agree with Jill and Project PHP. Blogs are no different from SEO'd websites. I.e. content rich, well structured pages that can naturually generate interest (read links) from elsewhere on the web because they are informative and well thoughout.
Take my blog, it functions much the same way as the parent website does. The only difference is that I can include more keyword rich content as that is what people are expecting to see, whereas the parent site has little content to help drive people through to sale.

Edited by searchrank, 20 September 2005 - 08:16 AM.

[Karri]

Fabulous thread. I have been wondering about this. Specifically, I currently produce a bimonthly email newsletter for small business owners/entrepreneurs. I have only published one so far and it turned out very well with great feedback. Of course, my subscriber list is not huge yet. I realize this will take time.

I have been having a debate in my head as to whether I should trash the newsletter idea and move over blogging. I would obviously create a blog tha is linked from my site (using blogger.com or whatever). Now, I realize that blogs are not as targeted as newsletters (ie. a newsletter generally goes to people who have consciously expressed an interest in receiving MORE of "YOU." Blogs are more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing where anyone can post a quickie thought and then ride off into the sunset.)

ANYHOO ... I am open to thoughts here. I like to write articles but it is definitely more enjoyable / cathartic to write when I am 'inspired.' Even discussion board threads and listservs can provide a venue for a great article now and then. The pressure to produce a newsletter seems, well, not nearly as FUN as blogging! Ah, now I'm rambling.

Bottom line: I want to generate credibility which in turn should generate LEADS. Blogging? Newsletter? Blogging? Newsletter? No, blogging. No no, NEWSletter.

Karri

[Jill]

You can have the best of both worlds by having a blog where people can sign up to receive an email notification each time you post. That's kinda like a newsletter right there!

[Karri]

So true. RSS feeds are a similar idea to that, aren't they?

2nd question Jill: Can a blog be set up so that it is considered to be in your "top level" navigation? That is, if you are using a program like blogger?

Karri

Hmmmm....more to think about.

[kpdelvalle]

Hi Karri,
Good questions. I'm following the topic closely as I'm new to blogging.

I've been wondering about something else: is there any benefit to having my blog set up as its own domain?

Currently Blogger FTP's my blog to a web page that's part of my site. If my blog were to become very popular, much more popular than the rest of my site, would it be better for any reason if I had originally set it up on its own domain? For instance, for link popularity? Or would that be of little significance?

I also wonder that same thing about other content on my site. I have 2 pages on my site about freeway construction. It was an big interest of mine for a minute and is completely unrelated to other content on my site. I often get more traffic for those 2 pages than for the rest of my site and I wonder if there's any benefit to breaking it off to its own domain.

[Jill]

2nd question Jill: Can a blog be set up so that it is considered to be in your "top level" navigation? That is, if you are using a program like blogger?

You can link to your blog however you like. Just add links in your top level navigation to it, and there you go. You can upload the blog files to any directory or URL on your site that you want, or you can have it be it's own domain, or even a subdomain, or a subdomain at blogger.com or whatever you want.

Again, blogs are just webpages that created through a content managment system. What makes them a "blog" is that they are a "web log" and it's the actual content you put into them that qualifies them as a blog. I imagine you could use blogging software to simply create a "regular" site that wasn't even a blog, if you knew how to customize the templates well enough.

I've been wondering about something else: is there any benefit to having my blog set up as its own domain?

There are branding benefits. If you think your blog will be very popular and really take off, it would be easier to remember where it was if it were branded on it's own domain.

But if your site is already well-branded, it may be just as easy to add it to your site as another aspect of it. Like with High Rankings I keep the services section, the forum section and the newsletter section all on the highrankings.com domain. I could add a High Rankings blog to the mix if I wanted. However, I had a cool idea for a blog the other day and bought a domain for it. Now that I'm thinking about it though...maybe I SHOULD keep it as a High Rankings thing...hmmm

[snipermilk]

Blogs are really just a fancy way of saying "cheap CMS".

Amen if you can replicate the easy linking feature in blogs (trackbacks, comments, etc.) and SE-friendly URLs (modrewrite) on non-blog websites, then there's really not much difference.