NASHVILLE, TN – Evaluating your SEO strategy may seem daunting, but one adjustment you could make (if you aren’t already), is to add a blog to your business’s website. Master Google’s CEO Ali Husayni emphasizes the importance of blogs to overall SEO efforts.
“Blogs seem to be an important part of any site because they get updated on a regular basis. I suggest site owners should write for their sites on a regular basis. The more fresh, quality and relevant content they post to their sites, the better chances of exposure and inclusion on Google search results they will have,” Husayni says.
Free blogging services make it easy to set up a blog and start posting content. There are tons of free blogging websites out there, but for today we’ll focus on Blogger (Blogspot), WordPress, and Tumblr – arguably the biggest platforms for blogging. (Some other popular ones include Weebly, TypePad, and Live Journal.)
As a blog enthusiast, I’ve tried out all three of these. I find Tumblr visually stimulating, but for SEO optimization, it seems Blogger (powered by Google) and WordPress are more content heavy and content friendly. All three platforms let users upload posts from their phones, schedule posts, and view statistics. While Blogger and Tumblr show Google Analytics and allow third party tools, WordPress only shows users WordPress Stats.
Blogger
Google’s free blog service, Blogger, allows users a simple and visually dynamic website that takes just a minute to set up. On your dashboard, you can view statistics of your visitors, save other blogs in your reading list, and add widgets to your sidebar.
Pros: In Blogger, you’re able to edit your template’s HTML and save those changes. If you code your own themes, you can upload them to Blogger. This makes it pretty easy to customize, assuming you know HTML, while still being free. No advertisements will show on your Blogspot blog unless you choose to monetize your blog. Within your Blogger dashboard, you can view your website optimized for a mobile phone.
Cons: One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen with Blogger is the inability to create a static landing page on your blog or website. There seem to be a few ways to overcome this through HTML, but they seem to be hit or miss.
WordPress
WordPress hosts many personal and business blogs as well, and users seem to agree that self-hosting your WordPress blog is the way to go, but you’ll have to pay to host it yourself. The free version seems to have good benefits as well. WordPress also has widgets, and the layout includes categories for you to add key words and tags, increasing your SEO reach.
Pros: WordPress, like blogger, lets users easily add tags to blog posts, allowing for optimized search results. Here you can also “team blog” by setting up titles for group users like Administrator, Editor, Contributor, and Author. These contributors can log in and upload posts, and then the Administrator can post them. WordPress also offers more storage space in their free version at 3 GB. (Blogger offers 1 GB in storage and 1 more GB in photo storage via Picasa. Tumblr offers 1 GB.)
Cons: WordPress doesn’t allow users to manipulate the blog templates in CSS without paying an upgrade fee. Your blog posts will also be accompanied with advertisements (unless you pay to upgrade).
Tumblr
While Tumblr is the baby of these three platforms, it has gained quite a bit of blogging street credibility.
Pros: With Tumblr, you can follow other blogs easily. From your dashboard, you’ll see a timeline of blogs that you follow, with the most recent at the top. This layout is optimized for comments and for sharing other people’s posts on your own blog (called “re-blogging” here). When you post something to Tumblr, you first choose the type of post, such as “quote”, “video”, “photo”, “text”, “link”, or “audio.” If you have an iPhone or Android, posting content through the Tumblr app is super simple. Tumblr also has many more free design templates than WordPress or Blogger.
Cons: Tumblr may not be the place to reach all potential clients. If you’re an artist or a photographer, i.e, someone with a visual portfolio, Tumblr might be the way to go. If you’re writing lots of content, Tumblr may not be the most text-friendly place to blog.
This is a very brief overview of these powerful services. It barely scratches the surface, and the best way to get to know a blogging service is to try it! There’s no harm in trying out a Blogger, Tumblr, and a WordPress blog, especially since they’re all free. See what format you like, what makes sense to you and your business. Combined with a fierce SEO strategy, like the ones implemented through Master Google’s SEO experts, blogging provides fresh content to move your business up the search results page.
Which blogging service do you use for your business? What advantages and disadvantages have you found with your preferred service?
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