We’ve blogged before about the many benefits of corporate blogging for B2Bs; benefits that go well beyond search engine optimization (SEO). (See, for example, “Among social media, blogging is ‘Still the One’ for B2Bs”; “Your B2B’s blog can help generate leads”.)
Yet we suspect that most companies that commit to starting a blog (and it does take a real commitment …especially of people time) do so not because it might generate leads, or to demonstrate thought leadership …but primarily because they believe it will benefit their corporate website’s SEO.
Well, according to new research conducted by Lee Odden, and summarized in his recent post on the Online Marketing Blog, that belief is very well founded. Lee surveyed 326 professionals involved with a business blog, with the following breakout by organization:
- 28% - Internal Corporate (Advertising, Marketing,PR)
- 42% - Agency (Advertising, PR, Search Marketing, Social Media, Marketing)
- 30% - Independent Consultant or Small Business CEO
Impact –
A whopping 87.4% of respondents said they “successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.” How important are blogs as part of a SEO strategy? 90% cited blogging as either important, significantly important or a primary SEO tactic.
The most important SEO benefits of blogging cited by respondents, in top-down order:
- blogs provide an easy way to create new, optimized content
- cross-linking from blog posts to optimized website content
- attracting inbound links from other websites
- increase search-engine crawl rate/frequency
- community building for content/links promotion
Every one of those benefits was cited by more than 58% of respondents; the top three by over three-fourths of them.
Time to result –
54% of respondents start to see SEO benefits from blogging very quickly, with the most frequent response being 0-3 months. An amazing 94% of bloggers reported seeing measurable SEO benefits from blogging within 12 months.
No one said it would be easy –
On the surface, implementing a blog is straightforward, once you gain approval; the trick is sustainability and reaching measurable goals. 67.2% of respondents cited resource issues as the most common objection to implementing a blog.
But this research now makes clear that the payoff is definitely there, which makes it well worth the effort.
