Blog Coaching: Less posts… More Substance.
February 16, 2009
I hear two common refrains when it comes to doing “the work” of a search engine optimization campaign. The first? “I don’t have time to blog and do all of this.” (even to the point that folks are happy to pay people to do it for them)…the second is “How many posts do I have to write on this blog before it will rank well?”
Have you ever found yourself in the “I do not have time to write on my blog” trap? I think we all have. This is especially true if you have bought into the notion that you have to write a post every other day or some such.
Is blogging work? (yes.) Does it take effort? (yes.) Is there some magical formula when it comes to blogging and SEO about how many posts you need to have? (NO!)
My high school english teacher, used a great analogy that applies here. When I asked him how long an essay needed to be, he said there was no assigned length. but gave me the following crucial advice.
“Like a miniskirt. Long enough to cover the subject, short enough to keep it interesting.”
Jeff Peckler
Bottomline? Write QUALITY and not QUANTITY. Write stuff that is newsy, well researched and that people will link to, quote, pass on to their friends, and so forth. Seriously.
If I see one more real estate blog with 600 posts about every single subdivision in town and why they are the greatest place to live, I am gonna hurl.
A single post, well structured, well written and ESPECIALLY well promoted and marketed can rank at the top of the search engines for a relevant subject. Search engines crave this relevance, but they don’t crave contrived crap. They want the RELEVANT stuff.
I can understand why Joost De Valk said in a recent presentation, “If you are gonna bait. Use the good stuff.” His powerpoint slide to illustrate this was NATURAL fishing bait. Good old fashined, aromatic, smelly, stick your hook through it type of stuff that fish love because it is REAL.
Write less posts and articles. Write better quality. Take the time to promote each one like its own mini book tour. Folks will link to you. Folks will traffic your blog. You will be very glad that you did.
As always, great post EB.
Can you give some examples of the “Good Stuff”
Is there any benefit however, to posting often for google to find “fresh content”?
Louis- GREAT question. The answer IMO is that in blogging there is less benefit than you might think. For example, I have sites that syndicate the RSS feed from this blog. Only the top 3 or 5 or 10 posts garner links from that.
In that example, slowing the roll of the posts actually stengthens things to some degree.
If I am constantly throwing links out on Twitter about this listing and that, then noone pays any attention when I throw something of substance out. Kind of like crying wolf too often.
Google indexed this blog post in a matter of minutes (less than 20). The main value of “fresh content” used to be that it would get the spiders to your site faster. Now with RSS feeds and other tools, fresh content is less important IMO.
Good topic for an upcoming post. Thanks for that.
@Mike- When I get home tonight, I will put together another post with some examples of what I think are great content and why. I have some in mind….(grin)
Eric
I will be watching for the next post about “good stuff”. I too thought that posting often with fresh content for google was beneficial, but I am continually learning…or is it continually changing?
I enjoyed watching your SEO YouTube by the way. Now I feel like I know you a little better.
Hey Susan!
Yeah. I was a little nervous about putting a video of myself out there…hehe. I got busy last night, so I am finishing it up tonight! Coming up soon.
Glad to see you here!
OK, I popped some examples up. Let me know what you think. My point was not that posting often is bad on its face, but more that less posts, but better thought out ones will generate more readership, links, and thus ROI on your investment SEO wise.
The other point is that the posts I have used as examples, the people involve ROCK at promoting their posts and they treat each quality post as it’s own mini book tour…more on that later,
Best
Eric
Great information. It seems like just when I get the hang of one aspect of effective blogging, something new comes along. Thanks to you and others more knowledgeable, I can be an old dog learning a new trick.
Hi Maryann-
Thanks and good to meet you! I don’t know about more knowledgeable…(grin) I just get paid to stay up to date on it for others
.
Feel free to send me an example of some stuff that you’ve written…let’s share ideas! I am sure you have some that I have not thought of as well!
Eric
Eric,
Sorry this is a little off topic, but I would like to commend you on your seemingly(not to devalue or suggest it is fake just don’t know you) authentic way you go about cultivating relationships.
Eric, If I can post less with more substance, I will be out selling more real estate, which is perfect! See you tomorrow at 6am