It is not easy to get a SEO blog moving in the right direction. It requires technical skill and experience. However, it is even more difficult to maintain success. This is in part because users often like something new. If a blog is over-reliant on SEO news then users may become bored. Content diversity may be hard to manage. Nonetheless, there is little alternative if one wants to achieve sustainable progress.
At we know that ‘one size does not fit all’ in the optimisation world. Despite this point, it makes a great deal of sense to look at some general principles. Techniques have to be tailored to suit specific campaigns, but reflecting on the techniques which are commonly effective is worthwhile.
There is something about news which means that it can add a lot of a value to a campaign. A target audience should be interested in the latest information in a sector. However, the news cannot be presented poorly. It must be written well. There has to be a balance between fact and comment. It must not be news for the sake of news.
One problem is that other sites will be reporting on the same news. Some poor sites merely rewrite news from other sites in their own words. Users will soon become alienated if they are expected to exist on a reheated diet of stale content. If a story has been narrated elsewhere then it is critical that it should be approached from a different angle or framed in a distinctive fashion.
Since 2011, successive Google Panda updates have penalised poor quality content. Sites which supplied text from content farms have sometimes incurred severe setbacks. The renewed emphasis on content quality by Google means that the bland recycling news has had its day. It was never a good option, but it is more counterproductive than it has ever been before.
There is something else to bear in mind, which is the attention span of the average user. They do not wish to wade through blog posts that are long and much like the one before. They want something thought-provoking to liven up their reading experience. What this might be is somewhat dependent on the nature of the site in question. Some sectors can include more entertaining pieces of text than others.
Users can also welcome blog posts which are of some actual utility. This could be data that is relevant to the use of the products or services being sold via the site in question. The use of video may be appropriate in these circumstances. A video may break up the user experience nicely if it is featured on the site. However, a consultant will know whether or not it would be better to use YouTube to host a video.
Nevertheless, a campaign is not just about whistles and bells. It is about providing users and search engines with content that is consistently good enough. News will definitely remain a popular part of the toolkit of marketers for some time to come. It merely has to be used in a sensitive and astute manner.