We write a lot of product blogs for our clients. No matter what size, shape, color, or price of the product, we’ve written several hundred blog product posts.

But for all the hundreds of posts we’ve written, there’s only one reason we do it: to win search.

Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware has long beat the “blogging wins search” drum. (And while I don’t agree about his “myth of the reader” — I believe you should try to get and keep regular, returning readers — he makes a great point about winning search.)

A product blog post is one of the easiest things to write. It’s just 200 – 300 words describing a particular product with a link back to the original catalog entry or product description. Each post equals a backlink back to your website, and the more backlinks you have to your website, the better you rank in a search.

Should I Keep My Blog Inside My Website, or Have a Separate Blog?

We’re fans of keeping a blog and a website together, but there’s no harm in keeping the two separate. After all, the search engines recognize it as a separate website that links back to your original one. However, you’re better off putting your blog on your static website and use internal backlinks to go from the blog to the static pages.

But if you want to boost your search engine rankings even further, create a second blog where you publish your blog posts, and keep it separate from your regular corporate blog where you’re publishing your authority posts, credibility posts, issues posts, and educational posts. This way you can improve search and find first time visitors with one blog, and gain returning readers with the other.

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So who’s the king? Content? Frequency? Me?

When it comes to the whole “Content is King” discussion, no one can agree.

Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware says it’s frequency: the more you post, the more searches you win.

I say content is king: the better you write, the more people will return.

Chris Brogan says it’s me, and he looks so cool in his shades, I want to believe him.

Okay, he didn’t say it was me per se, but rather anyone who was reading his blog post.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Content is not king. You are. (or Queen.) Content is currency. You’re the king.

Content is a means to deliver interest. It’s a gathering place for you and the people you hope to entertain/attract/educate/equip. That doesn’t make it the king.

And while I like Chris Brogan’s channeling of Mr. Rogers — everyone is special, a sentiment I firmly believe — I think new online relationships are started by our content.

Whether it’s our ideas, the words we choose, or how well we string them together, people find us because of search. They stay with us because of quality. They form relationships with us because of, well, us.

But I submit that it’s still the original content that started it all. You can’t win search without good content. You can’t win fans without good content. And people won’t stick around without good content.

Content may be currency in Chris Brogan’s world, but in a culture that worships the Almighty Dollar, I think the currency of ideas is our king.

We’re just the power behind the throne.

Photo: Chris Brogan

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