5 Reasons Blogging is Good for the Marketing Soul

Paul Chaney 

You've heard the expression "everything old is new again." Born in the 1990s, blogging began as the purview of teens and techies who wanted to keep a digital journal of their lives. Platforms like Open Diary, LiveJournal and Blogger were created to make the process easier.

Political blogs came to prominence in the late 90s, thanks to the likes of Andrew Sullivan, Wonkette, and Little Green Footballs. Howard Dean's 2003 presidential campaign was largely fueled by a blog that contained daily marching orders for his volunteers.

It took a few more years before blogging reached the business mainstream. A May 2005 cover story by Businessweek writer Stephen Baker declared "Blogs Will Change Your Business."

At this point, where blogging is concerned, you might say the rest is history.

However, the advent of social media sent blogging into the digital Dark Ages and it's taken changes to Google's algorithm (famously known as Penguin and Panda) to spark a resurgence and renaissance.

(Note: We could also credit individuals like content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi and Copyblogger founder Brian Clark, both of whom continually testify to blogging's merits.)

The yin-yang relationship between blogging and social media is now well established; blogging forms the core of an integrated content marketing strategy, around which social media is a distribution channel and added layer. But why is blogging good for the marketing soul? Here are five reasons.

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Four Things To Consider When Choosing A Domain Name

Picking a domain name should be easy, right? If you’re thinking of just using your business name, you should think again. A good bit of thought should be given to selecting a domain name. Picking a domain name is like getting married. You’re going to have to live with it until the end. I am suggesting four things to consider when choosing a domain name.

People that use your site will come to know it by the domain name. Repeat visitors will often just type in the domain name to get to the site. For example, do you search for “Amazon” when you want to buy a book or do you simply type in amazon.com? If Amazon were to change its domain name to Shop, there would be a lot of confusion. The same goes for your domain name. Once you pick it stick with it.

Domain Name Choices

Even if the obvious choice is your business name that might not be the best. There are four significant issues to consider.

1) Unwise Choice

Is there something about your business name that makes using it as a domain an unwise choice? This situation typically arises if you have a long business name or have plural words. “Johnson’s Tea Marketing Campaigns, Inc.” would be an awful domain name. Visitors would find it difficult to type.

2) Double Letter Problems

Double letter problems are a second issue that is entirely unique to the Internet. What if Brendas Software wants to use its business name as a domain? The “s” at the end of first word and beginning of the second can cause confusion. Is the domain name Brendassoftware.com or Brendasoftware.com? You don’t want to confuse your users.

3) Nature of Your Site and Search Engine Optimization.

The third issue concerns the nature of your site and search engine optimization. If you’re shooting for a particular keyword phrase, you may be better off using that keyword phrase in your domain name. Google, for instance, looks at the domain name when evaluating a site. If the words in your domain name are spaced with dashes, many believe it will help in the ranking process. This is why you see so many xxx-xxxx-xxx.com domain names on the net. If your business focuses on a very specific area, strong consideration should be given to using relevant keywords in your domain name.

4) Your Domain Name Should end in “.com”

Finally, your domain name should end in “.com” and not some other extension. The simple fact is that when people think of sites, they always type in .com. There are other extensions and .us, .net, .biz, etc., may seem unique, but it kills your traffic. People have been mentally conditioned to type in .com, so don’t select any other ending. If you do, a smart competitor will register the .com version of your name to get some free traffic. I’m sure you don’t want any of those unsavory sites doing that to you!

So, take a step back and remember these four things to consider when choosing a domain name.

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