Where should I blog?

I often get the question where should I blog or if I blog on my website should I do it with a different domain name?

The best place to blog is on your website. If you don’t have a website that let’s you easily add content without knowing code or needing a computer science degree. If this is not the
case for you then Blogger (where this blog is held) is a great free and easy tool.

Building a blog on your own website should be done by a professional. When blogs are made well they are great search engine optimization (SEO) tools. You are adding lots of new content about the topics; you want people to find you with text so Google and other search engines can pick it up.

The question of whether or not you should use a different domain name (website address) requires a little more SEO knowledge. Search engines try and make sure they are sharing the most relevant content. Mind you, we are asking a computer to define what relevant content is. One of the things that search engines use to determine the relevancy of content is its uniqueness and another is how often you update the content.

Because we want our content to be unique we want to write an article or blog post and put it in one place. We then want to link to it from many places, we just don’t want to copy and paste the same article in multiple places. For example this post is on my blog, I do not want to turn around and put this same exact post on Teach Street for example. I will however, link to it from Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

The frequency factor in determining relevancy is also very important. Blogs give you an easy tool to add keyword rich content to your site on a regular basis. Denver DataMan recommends adding content at least once per-week to any site you want to be found using search engines.

In general our goal is to get people to come to our main site. Provide value added information and by doing it in a venue where a sale can be closed is all the better. If you use an alternative URL for your blog you are gathering traffic for an address that is not your primary website. If you have your primary website address for your blog and another address for your blog you can be hit with the duplicate content problem if you don’t do it right.

In general I think that not having a separate address for a blog is a good thing. Tell people denverdataman.com/blog not someothersite.com. I think it gives you a clearer marketing platform as well as a good SEO strategy.

Now, you might ask why am I reading this article here and not at denverdataman.com/blog? Well, you see, when I built this blog I thought demonstrating a free tool was a good idea. Since then I have not been able to capitalize on the SEO value of the content I create. This is why the re-designed DenverDataMan.com will have the blog on the site.

Numbers Count

I not a numbers guy, I need to see success and numbers are a good indicator but I would rather hear from someone they were forwarded my blog than have a bunch of people simply read my blog. This is all well and good but it does not mean much in the long run. Numbers count when it comes to the Internet and for so many things. There is no reason not to have these numbers and make the most of them.

5 questions to ask yourself:

1. How many unique visitors viewed your website last Tuesday?
2. How did
   visitors last Tuesday find your site?
3. How long does the average user spend
   on your site?
4. If a user enters your site from a search engine do they spend
   more time than if they enter your site directly?
5. How long does the average
   person read the letter that you sent them telling them about your new
   service?

All of these questions should have an easy answer for you except for question number 5.

The Internet gives us a scary level of access to the way people use our websites. Short of watching everything in our stores our websites give us the next best level of information.This makes for interesting discussions on consumer rights and for very targeted marketing from savvy marketers.These types of information are called analytics. Your website should be connected to a service like Google Analytics that collects information about the use of your website and those who visit it. This information can be used for determining the value of your website, the content you should post and figuring out how to make your website more accessible.

Most things we do on the Internet cannot be tracked with the same granularity as our web presence. Your website and your email blasts are the places where you have the best opportunity to count. Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles also have some tools as well, but are not nearly as robust as the content we can get from our own web page. There are other tools out there for monitoring your mentions on the web but that is for another post.

Use analytics to track trends and to track success with a specific campaign. I like to look and track specific things, such as how many people visit the page I set up for my radio commercial with the Experience Pros radio show. This is something that tells me a lot of information. Other information is far more valuable over time and also far more valuable when you are ready to start a new project or thinking of adding a new feature. Remember, You Got to Know the Territory.

Talk to your web developer and make sure you are collecting this information. Make sure you know how your numbers add up.