In this month's Backbone Media newsletter we describe how your company can generate higher search engine rankings by using blogs, and new corporate blogging services are announced. Lastly, Stephen Turcotte gives this months SEO tip on pay per click campaigns and editorial listings.

How your company can generate higher search engine rankings by using blogs

To be successful in generating marketing results from blogs a company will have to understand the new power customers have in building their own communities that evaluate the effectiveness of any vendor.

It used to be that gathering data on vendors and products was a difficult process. Now customers use the web to research product and services choices, though a customer does not necessarily trust a vendor to give an accurate account of their services. Customers want referrals from colleagues, family and friends. The web gives customers the power to listen to other customers complaints and feedback. Amazon.coms customer book review function lets each reader give a review of a business book, if enough satisfied and dissatisfied customers give their opinion of a book a customer can form an overview of whether they will want to purchase and read the book.

In the recent blogging survey conducted by Backbone Media, Inc. "Corporate Blogging: Is it worth all the hype?" the blogging survey was conducted to gain a basic understanding of the value of corporate blogging. Backbone Media wanted to provide a resource for many people at companies who were non-bloggers on the value of blogging. Seventy-five corporate bloggers were asked about the results they had received from their business blogs and six case studies were developed on Microsoft, Macromedia, IBM, Iupload, Maytag and Annies Homegrown. The top results bloggers received from their blogs include:

• Another way to publish content and ideas
• Thought leadership
• RSS syndication
• A way to get information quickly to customers
• Boosting search engine rankings & links

Whats particularly interesting is that by following a content strategy that concentrates on their customers ideas and feedback both Macromedia and Microsoft were able to get more comments and articles posted by their customers on their own blogs. Each article and link to a company site from a customers blog represents an increase in link popularity for Macromedia or Microsoft, the more websites that link to your website on a topic the greater the boost to a websites search engine rankings for a particular keyword search, increased rankings mean more traffic and more potential customers.

Based on Macromedia and Microsofts examples, we developed a model that companies can follow to garner more customer feedback, higher SEO rankings, website backlinks and build customer brand champions. Called crossing the cultural divide the model describes how a company has to be open and transparent with its customers if the company wishes to gain results from blogging. Despite the risks to competitive intelligence and negative PR, both Microsoft and Macromedia believe by being open and transparent on the web they can join in on their customers online conversations about their products.

To generate marketing results in the new blogging economy requires a company to monitor and recognize the changing realities within their industry's customer communities. If customers are coming together in your industry to compare each customers experiences with vendors products. Blogs are a way for companies to enter into a conversation with those customer communities, follow a content and blogging relations strategy of openness and transparency, that results in better products, higher search engine rankings, more links and customer brand evangelists. Today it is easier for customers to use the web to reveal what is reality in their marketplace, if companies use blogs; a company can become part of their customers new online community and if managed well gain higher search engine rankings from blogging.

Sincerely,
John Cass
Director of Internet Marketing Strategies

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New Blogging & Blogging Relations Services Announced
Backbone Media is combining its expertise in search engine marketing and the growing new reality of blog customer communities by offering our customers new blogging and blogging relations' services. Click thru to learn more about Backbone Media's Corporate Blogging Strategies services provided by Backbone Media.

SEO Tip
Are you considering running both pay per click campaigns and optimizing your website for editorial search engine rankings? Stephen Turcotte, Backbone Medias President explains why sometimes its good idea to do both read more on this article at the Backbone Media blog.

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