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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 03/13/2006 06:17 am
IDEA: Create a blog (or blogs) with the two-fold focus of increasing exposure for our content via a daily/semi-daily blog AND optimize this content to see if blogs can/do make a difference in rankings/traffic from the SE's.
I know there's lots of chatter on the topic, and I think enough of it to put some budgeted money into it as an experiment here at work. If it works, we'll see some results worth persuing. If not, well, we'll know it's either a total dud idea, or, we simply missed the target on the first try and we need to refine.
I will be working with a company I have worked with in the past for SEO consulting, link building campaigns, etc. - I trust them and they've shown results. Granted, all our SEO work is in-house now, so we don't do much except one-off projects such as this blog idea with them.
We will be running a full program from installing the software on the servers here to trackig results and optimizing individual posts we make. These blogs will be subdomained, not hosted solutions.
I will not be posting the name of the company we're working with as the point of this thread is to explore optimized blogs and any value they offer, not to promote a company. I have, and do, recommend them, if you have the money.
Not sure how to baseline this, though.
On one hand, it's easy to say we have no blog now, so nothing blog-built ranking anywhere. Thus anything would be seen as improvements.
I prefer to suggest I compare this against the current terms we track (as well as introduce some new terms we want) and see if we can move a blog-post into the top 20 for now.
Open to ideas on what folks think is worth tracking here.
We'll be using Webtrends to run the tracking through, so at least we have some solid analytics to track with.
So, there we go.
This is going to be a long-term experiment - 6 months +.
My goal will be to provide periodic updates to this thread to help others learn if this is a viable option and/or to what degree it's viable.
Let's face it - anyone can set up a blog in minutes - but it's all the extras of optimizing and promoting the thing in the right place, growing the traffic and getting the rankings that take time and experience. Some folks have the time for that, some don't. Let's see what we see, shall we?
Duane
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 1942
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Posted: 03/13/2006 08:52 am
I look forward to the results and updates Duane.
Why not turn this thread into a blog whilst we're at it?
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 03/13/2006 09:26 am
Look at you! On epost away! I'm honored my threadwas deemed one-away-worthy... 
Yeah, should be interesting to learn more about this in a controlled way.
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dudibob
Joined: Oct 13, 2005
# Posts: 1413
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Posted: 03/13/2006 09:30 am
lol, we're going to have to crack open the Champaign for hampstead in one more post,
Sportsguy, this does sounds like a good idea  please keep us posted
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 1942
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Posted: 03/13/2006 09:46 am
[pop]
There goes my one thousandth.
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 03/13/2006 11:42 am
Luckily, we have a keg here at the office - I'm off for a beer in your honor, Hamstead!
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 06/09/2006 06:58 am
Just a quick update that we should finally be pulling the trigger on this in the coming two weeks - just needed to wait for space on a server to house the blog software.
Will keep ya'll posted later...
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 06/28/2006 11:23 am
Got my space on the server, bought the software, but it won't work with the MS-SQL database I'm running, it seems - back to square one. 
This is frustrating, too, as I specifically asked for options that would work with an MS-SQL database. Movable Type was suggested, though it doesn't meet my criteria. My own fault, thoguh, as I should have checked before purchasing it.
Ho hum, so goes setting up blogs corporately...
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bhartzer
Administrator
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7033
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Posted: 06/28/2006 12:35 pm
WordPress is the way to go. I've had a lot of great success with WordPress....
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 06/28/2006 01:06 pm
Yeah, that might be my next option, but since this company I'm working with is on the nut to do some of this "research", I've handed it to them - let's see if they come up with the same conclusions...
Thanks Bill
Duane
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 06/29/2006 06:15 am
Well, WordPress is out - they run on MySQL databases, and I have access only to MS-SQL databases.
Oh well...
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dudibob
Joined: Oct 13, 2005
# Posts: 1413
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Posted: 06/29/2006 07:52 am
*nods and agrees* I'm no programmer but that sounds like the same thing!?
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 06/29/2006 08:02 am
Big differences, unfortunately.
I went open source for my own blog (Bblog software) and it works nicely with the MySQL database I have. The concern, I'm told, is when things get busy, MySQL databases sometimes "trip" and crash, whereas the MS-SQL databases tend to handle the increased traffic loads better.
I say phooey - it's my Sysadmins not wanting to manage anything other than what they already have...LOL Regardless, c'est la vie...
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 07/18/2006 06:43 am
Alright - I have a blog!
I used communityserver.org to run the platform (remember, I'm on Windows machines here), so we'll see how this puppy handles for SEO work.
Just waiitng on some CSS fiddling to happen across the hall to get me something resembling a related look & feel to my main sites.
Following that will be the initial round of tweaks by the third party company who's helping on this experiment - things like keyword research, category naming, title conventions, etc.
After that, when the guy who'll ne writing the articles for me gets back from vacation (next week), we'll start the postings. The goal is indexed content before the end of August. Doable, I think.
It's subdomained off the main site, so it should get picked up pretty much instantly when we drop a link to it.
Be back soon.
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andrewnortwell
Joined: Jul 20, 2006
# Posts: 3
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Posted: 07/20/2006 10:40 pm
If you can't run wordpress on your own site, why not use the free service at wordpress.com? Works like blogger, but with stats built in. Very easy to use.
Andrew Nortwell
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SportsGuy
Moderator
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3550
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Posted: 11/03/2006 12:29 pm
Time for an update:
I'll start by addressing the suggestion above - it's always best to host the blog on your own domain - so that's always my first choice. In addition, we are not a small company, so using services such as Wordpress or Blogger does not happen - we tend to build whatever we need - from chat functionality to forums, etc.
OK, so how are things going with this one?
Well, the writer keeps churning out solid articles for me, I keep posting them, and we're starting to rank.
We were much slower out of the gate than I would have liked, but such is life.
Here are some facts:
1 - Google knows we exist, but since the content is slow in going up, so is our rankings...
2 - Yahoo has found us - nice.
3 - G currently accounts for almost 60% of our inbound traffic (to this blog)
4 - no PR yet, but the Alexa ranking is climbing nicely - but since I care little for either "stat" as an actual metric, meh...
Now, the $64,000 question is...
Was it worth it to hire an external company to work on this project?
Yes - but it's a qualified yes - here's why:
It was great to have them on board because we were new to this platform, and they did a lot of digging to find out how to manage the back-end of the blog platform. Things like finding the actual files to alter to show things where we wanted them, inserting images, etc. - they dug up all the dirt on that from the help forums.
They also did a bunch of keyword research for us up front, and some link building after it went live - mostly blog directories and the like, but still, it took time and saved me effort.
So, yes, it was worth hiring an outside company to help on this project - but only just.
Had I been slightly more patient myself, or actually had more time to devote to this project, I could easily have managed everything from start to finish on my own.
In the end, I'll suggest that to those new to blogging and on a timeline, hiring an external consultant can indeed be the best path. For those with any experience or those with time on their side, it can be done on your own.
Hiring an outside consultant is not a path to faster or better rankings out of the gate. It still takes time and effort on your end to build the content.
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