User generated content is a major factor for success in Internet Marketing and blogs add that to your site. Blogging and user generated content has gone from a nice add on to an essential part of the web and online marketing. The search engines are tackling how to best index the “real time” web or the web as people are actively tweeting and blogging and commenting so results are more up to date and based on “social proof” and users votes of confidence, as much or more than people’s own content. So taking part in this is more important than ever.
Video on the web in next 5 years, with Google CEO
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/32815 – (Discusses user content and online video etc.)
While many people are promoting Social Media techniques mostly a branding and general traffic building tool, there is a direct connection with social media and search engine optimization. Getting more people to link to you improves search rankings and therefore increases leads and sales. By encouraging content and conversations about you on Blogs, YouTube, and Facebook, you can further enhance Google ranking success. Using this approach, you can add the sting to the social media buzz.
Building a blog with embedded video tips (posted to and streaming via YouTube as seen here), is a great way to get new content on your site and get the ball rolling fast with social media. A blog is a great way to attract links and get listings in new directories and social sites. Setting up a blog and doing social media can be a daunting thought for many companies. MAKE IT SIMPLE by ensuring you get one post a week that is very easy to make, such as a quick video post with included or additional text to go with the video. First create a theme (a concept which will be good for your readers and help with search rankings). Then instead of hoping someone on your team gets around to making posts, strategize content categories for a video a week, for a minimum of three to six months. Then shoot videos in one or two sessions, three months apart. Transcribe the text and make sure the short videos (about one minute), often tips / faq’s, are done in keyword categories. Each post helps with SEO by adding content / urls that contain keywords and allows your site an opportunity to grow on a regular basis, providing instant information to customers.
The many benefits of blogging, online video and social media
- A Blog adds new content and by nature is a social media activity. By making the blog on your URL such as Yoursite.com/blog, each post adds a new page of content which grows the site size and Google likes that!
- Each post has a video which is both on the blog page itself and on YouTube. This connects you directly to a top social media site and takes advantage of the ever so hot trend of online video.
- There are over 50 million blogs and hence many directories in which you can get listings. This provides new links to your site.
- PR: It only makes sense to do a press release announcing your blog and how it will offer helpful info to your customers. This shows that you care and are staying current with the times. Google thinks highly of sites that are often in the news, dont you?
- User generated content: When users comment on your blog, you get to approve or disallow the comment before it ever goes live. Otherwise you would have all kinds of comments like “see so and so nude” and “buy viagra by clicking here”…It is usually a good idea to let people comment and these comments are tracked by Google. The more people comment, the more engaged they are in your site. Engagement is a key website value factor and a key metric to track in marketing in general. The stickier and more engaging your site the more you are trusted and the better you rank. If people post negatively, others may join in and defend you and that will show deeper trust and transparency.
- RSS feeds: When people really get into your blog they can become followers by signing up for your content to be delivered directly to them via RSS feeds or by email. Again, Google tracks this and the more the better, as this level of engagement is a serious vote of confidence in you, that is hard to “fake” or “game”.
- If your content is really cool or unique, you may be able to leverage sites like digg.com to drive tens of thousands of visitors to you within a short period of time. If your blog is truly unique and mostly valuable content and not so much a sales pitch, the users of sites like digg.com may vote you to digg’s home page. A digg.com home page feature can lead to not only lots of traffic but gets you seen and linked to by top journalists, bloggers and site owners. This leads directly to better ranking which leads to more sales!
- If you are looking for something to share on Facebook, so you don’t just have a Facebook page merely to say you have one, what better way than to make a fan page or a group about your blog! If for example your blog is for generation Y and helping them learn how to manage their finances, you can start a group around this topic and let them know about your blog. If they share the group with their friends, your blog will get even more traffic and people commenting on it. Again, Google picks up on the activity and buzz around your brand and trusts you more and ranks you better. This gets you more people on the site and more sales!
- Branding via video is a booming trend and within the next five years no one will even think about download times. Licensing issues will be the main issue when dealing with web content in all formats as the web will house all the things TV, Radio and Print used to. Kind of cool that you can have your own TV Station; Radio Station and Newspaper, that can reach far more people than traditional stations and at a fraction of the cost. It’s up to you to take the plunge and generate the content but once you do you have joined the revolution.
Below is a simple video to show you how it can be done on a low budget but in a way that shares helpful info and gets the point across. You only need one sixty second clip to get started and short clips are often preferable on the web, so now there is no excuse to get started and no reason to fear having to maintain a blog. I will write a follow up post soon with detailed instructions on using the flip video camera and uploading to YouTube and then inserting the code in your blog post.
