Blogs as a website marketing tool - Why Irish web developers are lacking in foresight
Published September 6th, 2005 in E-PRThe most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision - Helen Keller
I’m after reading a an article in the Sunday Business Post’s Computers in Business supplement. I’m actually quite shocked after reading it. The article, entitled ‘Websites to catch the eye’, discusses website marketing and a range of sources from web development & online marketing firms in Ireland give their two cents on successful strategies.
Not one single mention of blogging! Well I’m going to show how blogs are a cost effective website marketing tool and why most websites should include them by simply using some of the article’s key points.
The article states that ’studies show that 75% of internet users search for products and services they seek and not a business name.’ What better way to attract users to you site then by talking about those goods and services. If you actually look at the Google searches that lead to your website then more often than not they are composite terms including your product or service. Fair enough Adwords will get the direct hit, but not everyone has the additional money to spend.
It goes on to point out that ‘between 70 and 80% of internet users rely on search engines and directories to find the websites they seek.’ Well if you search for ‘Piaras Kelly’ and go through my results then you’ll see a lot of links to my sites from comments I have made on other blogs and on blogrolls. You can link to some of those pointless directories or you could make an insightful comment on another blog and watch the traffic start to flow.
One developer advises to set aside a budget for ‘internet marketing, search engine optimisation or real media marketing such as papers or radio.’ I can’t think of many SMEs that are going to take out an ad for their website.
Another developer makes a great point, ‘”Why will people visit and return to our company’s website?” If there’s nothing in it for them, nine times out of ten, they’ll go elsewhere.’ Fresh content is the answer and blogging offers the perfect solution to provide that content. Blogs are effectively the equivalent of Word, even simpler to manage than the standard Content Management System…and far cheaper as well! Better yet, use Webfeeds/RSS so people don’t have to visit your site, but still receive your content.
Now the question we should really be asking ourselves is that the sources quoted in the article are apparently some of Ireland’s leading web developers. Not one of them mentioned blogs, Adwords was as forward thinking as it got. Now that’s a serious problem.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, Ireland, Piaras Kelly, Social Media
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To a certain extent I can understand them not mentioning blogs - they see themselves as Internet Marketers - SEO/SEM only. Which is obviously crazy - as the majority of them as web developers entering the marketing field anyway!
What struck me as strange is that they speak about internet marketing budgets, but not one mention is made of usability or analytics. Without analytics how can you measure the return on your campaign - that’s a vital part of all marketing. Moreover, measuring how visitors (paid clicks and general) are navigating your site, and optimising it’s usability to ensure greater goal-reaching, is absolutely essential. What’s the point is marketing if it’s not working … you need to track - analyse - optimise - track … and on and on.
Neither the article on hosting nor the one on web design/development were particularly enlightening.
I also contributed to that article. The writer asked us to comment on what is involved in putting a web strategy in place for a mid-end company. Therefore, I adressed the obvious things such as budgeting, planning and having fresh content. I do believe blogs can be a contributing element for certain sites, but they are not the end solution for most!
Blogs have been given alot of attention recently, too much I think. It sometimes can be difficult enough to convince most SMEs of the benefits of content managment systems, therefore, SMEs in Ireland won’t be in any rush in the near future to have them integrated into their web solution. Pickup of these new mechanisms to benefit online business in Ireland has been slow. There is still a “fear” out there because of the overpriced, sloppy, “bells and whistles” web solutions that were developed and still are being developed, unfortunately!
I don’t think that they’re the end solution for all mid-end companies, but they give the best return on investment to those organisations. To be honest all they want to do is rate high on Google and blogging is the best way of doing that cheaply.