With our own Steve Curtin speaking on SEO and Blogs at AD:TECH tomorrow, and an upcoming webinar on SEO & Blogs (press release and registration tomorrow - consider yourself "scooped!"), I've been doing some thinking - and some research on this topic.
What's obvious is that search engines love blogs. Between the RSS, the multiple links in every post, and -if you're smart- some keyword-rich copy, they're virtual SEO machines. Smart marketers use this to their advantage. Blogs present many new marketing opportunities, from SEO to PR to affiliate marketing (very interesting) and CRM.
But in the early rush to "monetize" and "leverage" this new technology, many of our comrades are already being drawn to the dark side.
A search on Technorati for, let's say, Viaga*ra, reveals a mess of blogs with posts that contain nothing more than your usual sp*am on the topic..."low prices, get Cia*lis, no Rx required, etc." Just a bunch of keyword-packed garbage linking to a site that sells the stuff.
And there are blogs like this for every product category under the sun, from real estate to vitamins, watches and shoes.
It's not a new thing. One of our in-house SEO gurus pointed out that two of the top-tier search engines caught onto this tactic a year or so ago and banned it. But there are lots of other search engines out there, and certainly a growing number of blog search engines, as well.
A word to the wise: Don't do it. There are lots of smart ways to use blogs for business. I'm a huge fan of Ice.com and its use of affiliate blogs (which I'll have to expound upon at another time).
And certainly, you can use your blog as an SEO tool to drive traffic to your site. But do so properly - use a carefully planned and executed link strategy. Include keywords as it makes sense. Write really good, really useful copy so other blogs will want to link back to you.
It's a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time and thought. But it beats going to the dark side and being blacklisted by the search engines.
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