Video: Blogs In Plain English | Martech Zone

Another great video from Common Craft found via Ade’s blog:

Some constructive criticism, though… this video really missed the boat on the technology behind blogging – things like pings, trackbacks and search engine optimization.

Blogging is the High Octane Fuel for the Search Engine

What the video does not speak to is the power of blogging in accelerating topics to search engine results. The more that people write about your blog post, the more audience you reach. The more audience you reach, the better your search engine ranking. The better your search engine results, the more audience you reach via search.

Google wants to put popular, quality links first when they index keywords and content. When you have the entire blogosphere writing about you – it boosts your content up to the front of the line. In a sense, blogging is the fuel for feeding the search engine.

Why a Blog? Why not a Social Network?

Some folks confuse strategies and wonder, “Why not build an entire social network, then? If blogging is good for Search Engine results – then Social Networks must be incredible!”

Not really!

Notice how an idea is central to a blog, like-minded bloggers, and their readers (left side of the chart). This is a concentrated spear that aims dead center at the topic that a searcher is looking for. Social networks do have ideation – and some even have internal blogging (which works as a normal blog does), but for the most part Social Networks are there for finding like people, not a central focus on a specific idea.

Social networks are fantastic – I belong to many. But they lack the concentration of topics and keywords that a blog can have for growing search engine ranking. Blogs are a fast track to getting your idea or topics heard. Social networks are great to meet and find people like yourself.