No matter how much time, effort and money you invest into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, other factors also come into play when Google and other search engines calculate your page ranking.

If you are wondering if blogging is for you and your business, if you are unsure of the costs and benefits of starting a blog, then keep reading!

Most importantly (and Nik, our General Manager and SEO expert is going to hate me for this), I have to say that it is the relevance of the content of your website that leads to more traffic and visitiors. Creating a blog, and keeping it current and active, accomplishes these tasks and much more for your business.

First stop, let’s learn in a nutshell how search engines work.

How Search Engines Work

Google created what they call ‘crawlers’, virtual machines that go around and around the Internet collecting relevant information from all websites. Page ranking is then calculated from several variables. These variables include but are not limited to: the url structure, meta tags (coding snips of keyword clusters specifically design for the search engine to read), the number of hits (visitors), the bounce rate (how quickly users leave a page; which heavily relies on how interactive a website is), geographical location, keywords, dynamic content change and website growth, the names and alternate text of images, clean code and current coding standards, even the diversity of the sources where the traffic to a particular site comes from.

What that relevant information is, and how it is collected and processed, is what most SEO and web marketing experts scratch their heads over. All these factors constitute the foundation and value of Google and other search engines such as Cuil, Yahoo and MSN. Not to mention search engines reserve the right to change their algorithm (their secret recipe) at any time.

Google (and probably most other search engines too) has ‘one big robot’, the deepbot, which hits every website about every 3-4 weeks, and inspects it more thoroughly. It is at this time that Google can also spot or suspect any evil activity, such as link farming, or misleading information. When any of these flags is raised, a website is queued for human review. This can ultimately lead to sandboxing (complete removal from Google’s website listing). There are many activities search engines consider “illegal” —but that is a topic for another post!

The Advantages of Blogging

A blog brings in the possibility of limitless expansion and website growth, the more articles you write, the more keyword-intensive your website becomes. The more relevant and useful and current your entries are, the more a person is likely run into one of your posts.

The purpose of a blog does not end there. For some businesses, a blog gives them an opportunity to express what the believe in, to share their expertise, and to showcase different areas of interest, which may or may not be directly related to their primary activity. Having such voice can give certain businesses an edge —the human element. After all, PEOPLE, like you and me, with families and loved ones, run these businesses. It doesn’t always have to be about the services a company can provide or the products they want to sell, but rather about connecting people that have something else in common together.

Last but not least, a blog does not always have to be in the form of a blog. For a professor or scientist, it can be a place to post articles and discuss ideas. For a telephone company it can be a way to provide technical support. For a massage therapist or a dentist, it can be a way to educate his or her audience about what to expect when they first come in.

The Disadvantages?

The only problem I can think of is maintenance. For your blog to work for you, you have to keep it current and keep it growing. Additionally, when you want to convey a sense of professionalism, you want to pay special attention to your writing style, political correctness, grammar, and punctuation. Needless to say, heated, controversial or sensitive issues can attract lots of websters, but can also get you into serious trouble from both legal and moral standpoints.

All of the aforementioned can also be time-consuming or even addictive. Some people just do not benefit enough from it, or are simply better off sticking to their business per se at all times.

Conclusion

A blog is a great way to keep your website growing, it can have amazing benefits from the SEO and web presence point of view. Unfortunately, it can be very time-consuming or controversial as well.

Before making the jump, ask yourself if the benefits outweigh the costs; however, in a world where the internet is taking over the yellow pages day by day, most times they do.